Fascinating story about a young boy who is believed to be the reincarnation of an American pilot who died in WW2.
==================================
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1209795/Reincarnated-Our-son-World-War-II-pilot-come-life.html
Reincarnated! Our son is a World War II pilot come back to life
By Zoe Brennan
Last updated at 1:29 AM on 29th August 2009
It sounds totally beyond belief. But read the tantalising evidence from this boy's family and you may start to wonder...
The agonised screams pierced the air. 'Plane on fire! Airplane crash.' In the dark, a two-year-old boy was just visible, writhing on his bed in the grip of horror. 'He was lying there on his back, kicking and clawing at the covers like he was trying to kick his way out of a coffin,' remembers the boy's father.
'I thought, this looks like The Exorcist. I half expected his head to spin around like that little girl in the movie. But then I heard what James was saying.'
Over and over again, the tiny child screamed: 'Plane on fire! Little man can't get out.'
For his shocked parents, these nightly scenes were traumatic.
For experts, they were baffling.
As the nightmares became more terrifying, the child started screaming the name of the 'little man' who couldn't get out of the plane. It was James - like his own name. He also talked in his dreams of 'Jack Larsen', 'Natoma' and 'Corsair'.
James Leininger's father, Bruce, was flummoxed. In a desperate attempt to find an answer to his son's troubled nights, he embarked on an obsessive three-year research project, armed only with the outbursts and names his son had been shouting in his disturbed sleep.
What he discovered astonished and perplexed him, and drove him to an extraordinary conclusion.
A lifelong Christian, it was not the answer he had sought for his son's behaviour. But he came to believe James was the reincarnation of a World War II fighter pilot; a man who had been shot down in his plane and struggled to escape as it caught fire; a hero.
The idea seems so preposterous as to be unbelievable. Yet in their new book, Soul Survivor: The Reincarnation Of A World War II Fighter Pilot, Bruce and his wife, Andrea, lay out some compelling evidence.
It all began on May 1, 2000. James, just three weeks past his second birthday, was a happy, playful toddler living in an idyllic home in southern Louisiana. That night, his mother was woken by his screams. She held him in her arms as he thrashed around.
Soon, however, James was having five nightmares a week. Andrea was worried. Her little boy began to talk during his bad dreams, screaming about an airplane crash and writhing as if he were trapped in a burning aircraft.
At a toy shop, they admired some model planes. 'Look,' said Andrea. 'There's a bomb on the bottom.'
'That's not a bomb, Mummy,' he replied. 'That's a drop tank.' Just a toddler, he was talking like a military historian. How had he known about the gas tank used by aircraft to extend their range?
As the nightmares continued, she asked him: 'Who is the little man?'
'Me,' he answered. His father asked: 'What happened to your plane?'
James replied: 'It crashed on fire.'
'Why did your plane crash?'
'It got shot,' he said.
'Who shot your plane?'
James made a disgusted face. 'The Japanese!' he said, with indignation.
He said he knew it was the Japanese, because of 'the big red sun'. Was he describing the Japanese symbol of the rising sun, painted on their warplanes, called 'meatballs' by American pilots?
Tentatively, Andrea began to suggest reincarnation; perhaps James had lived a past life? Bruce reacted angrily. There must be a rational explanation for all this.
He questioned his son further. 'Do you remember what kind of plane the little man flew?'
'A Corsair,' replied the two-year-old without hesitation - repeating the word he shouted in his dreams.
Bruce knew this was a World War II fighter plane.
'Do you remember where your airplane took off from?' he asked.
'A boat,' said James. How did he know that these planes were launched from aircraft carriers? He asked the name of the boat.
His son replied with certainty: 'The Natoma.'
After James was in bed, Bruce researched what he had heard. A naturally sceptical man, he was amazed to find the Natoma Bay was a World War II aircraft carrier.
James Huston
As a child: James Huston with sisters Ruth and Anne in 1928. James' father sadly never found out the circumstances surrounding his death
James even began to don an imaginary pilot's headset when his mother strapped him into his car seat. And when Bruce ordered a book for his father's Christmas present - The Battle Of Iwo Jima - James pointed to the picture and said: 'Daddy, that's when my plane was shot down.'
Bruce, who works in the oil industry, rushed into his office, where he had a dictionary of American naval fighting ships. Natoma Bay had supported the U.S. Marines' invasion of Iwo Jima in 1945.
Bruce was mystified - what was coming out of the mouth of his two-year- old? Next, the little boy named his nightmare alter-ego's best friend. He was Jack Larsen.
'He was a pilot, too,' he said. Bruce decided that he had to find Jack Larsen to prove his point to his wife - Larsen would tell him that James had invented the whole thing, and there was no such thing as reincarnation.
He decided to go to a reunion of veterans of Natoma Bay, pretending he was writing a book.
Andrea, meanwhile, was convinced James had been reincarnated. She contacted Carol Bowman, the author of a book on reincarnation called Children's Past Lives. Bowman confirmed Andrea's views.
'The common threads were there with James,' she said. 'The age the nightmares began, the remembered death. These are all consistent with children experiencing past lives.'
She advised Andrea to tell James that he was safe, and that his bad experiences were over now. Apart from his night terrors, he was an ordinary child living an ordinary life, turning three in April 2001.
He liked to play war games with his GI Joe action figures, Billy, Walter and Leon. He also liked to draw - battle scenes, with bullets, bombs and planes. He drew Wildcats and Corsairs, and named the Japanese planes Zekes or Bettys.
Pointing to one plane, he said: 'That's a Corsair. They used to get flat tyres all the time. And they always wanted to turn left when they took off.'
He would play a game of pilots, constructing a make-shift cockpit out of a toy phone and old car seat. He would call: 'Roger. Zero at six o'clock. Hit him!', then throw himself on the floor, saying: 'My plane was hit, I'm parachuting.' At an airshow, he told everyone: 'I want to be an F18 Super Hornet pilot.'
James with mum Andrea and father Bruce
Happy families: James today at 11 with mum Andrea and father Bruce. James's nightmares continued until he was eight, but were gentler than his early terrors
In the meantime, Bruce finally managed to find Jack Larsen - and uncovered an awful secret. It turned out Larsen's friend James Huston Jnr died when his plane was shot in the engine and caught fire, exactly as described by two-year-old James.
Bruce found Huston's name on the list of 18 men killed in action on the Natoma. The discovery finally made him ask: Could this be the man who inhabits my son's soul?
He sifted through a thousand combat mission reports to find where Huston had been killed.
Larsen told Bruce: 'James was a real good man. It was a very dangerous place. But James volunteered to go.'
He also said that it was aboard the Natoma that the first crude napalm bombs had been improvised, mixing napalm powder with petrol. 'It looked like we were making jelly,' he said.
His account brought home the full horror of battle - the flimsy planes flying to attack the Japanese. Huston was flying 'tail-end Charlie' - the last plane in - so Larsen had not seen him go down.
The veterans' association reported that James Huston's father had even attended their reunions. But the old man died in 1973, never learning any specifics of his son's death.
Next, little James unnerved his father by telling him: 'I knew you would be a good daddy, that's why I picked you.'
'Where did you find us?' asked a shaken Bruce.
'In Hawaii, at the pink hotel, on the beach,' he replied. Eerily, he described his parents' fifth wedding anniversary - five weeks before Andrea got pregnant - saying it was when he 'chose' them to bring him back into the world.
Something new emerged every day. On a map, he pointed out the exact location where James's plane went down. Asked why he called his action figures Billy, Leon and Walter, he replied: 'Because that's who met me when I got to heaven.'
Sure enough, on the list of the Natoma dead, alongside James Huston, were Billie Peeler, Leon Conner and Walter Devlin. Uncannily, photos of the men showed their hair colour matched those of their GI Joe dolls.
Finally, Bruce and Andrea located James Huston's last surviving relative - his 84-year-old sister, Anne.
She told them: 'Mom and Dad never talked about Jimmy's death, but Dad went to several reunions to see if he could get any details. He never could.'
And so they were able to tell her where her brother died. After so many years, they were even able to send her a picture of the harbour.
She responded: 'It is so much more personal than anything I have. The picture of the bay is beautiful and so peaceful. A lovely resting place.'
In return, she sent Bruce and Andrea a picture of James with his squadron - a cluster of smiling young men. In the background was a Corsair - confirming that little James had been right about the plane Huston flew.
Bruce says: 'My purpose for researching what was happening to my son was to establish that this was all a coincidence. But I was getting closer and closer to something dangerous. It was like putting my hand in a fire.'
Not long after, the family had a phone call from a veteran who had seen Huston's plane being hit. He kept his knowledge to himself for more than 50 years. He described seeing the aftermath of Huston's crash on the sea below.
'He took a direct hit on the nose. All I could see were pieces falling into the bay. We pulled out of the dive and headed for open sea. I saw the place where the fighter had hit. The rings were still expanding near a huge rock at the harbour entrance.'
Huston's plane was hit in the engine and the front exploded in a ball of flames - exactly like James's account. It explained why he always knocked the propeller off his toy planes.
Another veteran had been even closer. John Richardson explained: 'The Japs began firing at us. We formed up for the attack. A plane startled me. It was a fighter. He was firing his machine guns, strafing what was below. We were no more than 30 yards apart when the pilot deliberately turned his head and looked at me.
Corsair plane
Spooky: Little James would describe a Corsair plane in his nightmares. His father found out that pilot James Huston had flown the same plane in the war
'I caught his eye and we connected with each other. No sooner had we connected than his plane was hit in the engine by what seemed to be a fairly large shell. There was an instantaneous flash of flames that engulfed the plane. It almost immediately disappeared below me.'
Richardson began to sob, saying: 'I have lived with that pilot's face as his eyes fixed on me every day since it happened. But I never knew who he was. I was the last guy who saw him alive. I was the last person he saw before he was killed. His face has haunted me.'
The family showed him a photograph of James Huston.
He said: 'I recognise his face. I could never forget it. As we retired from the harbour, I could see where Huston went in. He hit near a large rock right near the opening.'
Encouraged by the Leiningers, Richardson told Anne what he had seen - half a decade after her brother was lost without trace.
Poignantly, she said: 'I'm relieved to know Jimmy didn't suffer, and a little sad that my father died before he learned what happened.'
For his part, Bruce has found peace after his exhaustive search for answers. He says: 'God gives us a spirit. It lives for ever. James Huston's spirit had come back to us. Why? I'll never know. There are things that are unexplainable and unknowable.'
Meeting Huston's veteran brothers in arms, little James was disappointed, saying: 'I'm sad that everyone is so old.' Did he truly remember them as dashing young pilots?
Finally, the Leiningers gingerly broke the explosive news of the real reason behind their questions to Anne. They mapped out the story, the terrible nightmares, the vivid descriptions of battle, naming the ship and the pilots.
She told them: 'Jimmy was due home in March 1945 and I was cleaning, anticipating his arrival. I sensed that he was in the room with me. A couple of days later I got the news that Jimmy had gone missing. I was devastated.
'When my father told me the date Jimmy was lost, I realised it was the day I felt his presence. We never knew what happened to him. I want you to know that I believe the story.'
The Leiningers eventually went to drop a bouquet of flowers at Huston's ocean grave, making the long voyage to Japan.
James's nightmares continued until he was eight, but they were gentler than his early terrors - he woke sobbing softly. Whatever the truth behind the young boy's extraordinary dreams, James Huston now seems able to rest in peace.
• Soul Survivor: The Reincarnation Of A World War II Fighter Pilot by Bruce and Andrea Leininger with Ken Gross is published by Hay House, £9.99. To order a copy (p&p free), call 0845 155 0720.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1209795/Reincarnated-Our-son-World-War-II-pilot-come-life.html#ixzz0PZ6BseDv
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
SO BIG BROTHER IS DEAD, HUH?
Channel 4 has recently announced, and very very belatedly, that its very annoying programme and psychological operation called Big Brother is to have just one more series and then be killed.
In my view the damned programme should never have been started, and one wonders why it was started.
What can be the entertainment and educational value about watching a group of people holed up in an artificial environment 24/7?
The answer is there is no value.
All you need do when walking down the street is look up.
Look up to the roof tops and see the many cameras pointing down at you.
Yes, you.
Dangerous uncontrollable you.
Look up and ask yourself why is that we are the most watched society on planet earth while for every 1000 cameras just one crime was solved?
Big Brother will be alive and well and watching every move you make, just like you watched the BBHMs.
Because that was the whole point of the operation.
Welcome to conditioning.
In my view the damned programme should never have been started, and one wonders why it was started.
What can be the entertainment and educational value about watching a group of people holed up in an artificial environment 24/7?
The answer is there is no value.
All you need do when walking down the street is look up.
Look up to the roof tops and see the many cameras pointing down at you.
Yes, you.
Dangerous uncontrollable you.
Look up and ask yourself why is that we are the most watched society on planet earth while for every 1000 cameras just one crime was solved?
Big Brother will be alive and well and watching every move you make, just like you watched the BBHMs.
Because that was the whole point of the operation.
Welcome to conditioning.
Monday, August 24, 2009
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO OBAMACARE?
Last week America was in uproar about ObamaCare and its Nazi death panels, and Great Britain was defending its NICE NHS from accusations of implementing a similar T-4 policy.
But you can forget about all that now because the alleged Lockerbie bomber has been released WITH GREAT CONTROVERSY.
But you can forget about all that now because the alleged Lockerbie bomber has been released WITH GREAT CONTROVERSY.
THERE ONCE WAS A MAN CALLED ROTHSCHILD
There once was a man called Rothschild
who twice drove the world very wild.
Not caring who makes the laws
he financed two world wars
and the world was completely beguiled.
In the turmoil he created Israel
to continue this megalomaniacs tale.
Many Palestinians were killed,
women and children's blood spilled
as they were driven into the world's largest jails.
There followed decades of terror and war
between rich jews and Palestinian poor.
They had reckoned by now
there'd be an almighty row,
and we'd be fighting their third world war.
But unless I've gone blind and deaf
they've failed with a big red F.
This is no dream.
Love and peace reign supreme,
while the Rothschilds fight each other to the death.
who twice drove the world very wild.
Not caring who makes the laws
he financed two world wars
and the world was completely beguiled.
In the turmoil he created Israel
to continue this megalomaniacs tale.
Many Palestinians were killed,
women and children's blood spilled
as they were driven into the world's largest jails.
There followed decades of terror and war
between rich jews and Palestinian poor.
They had reckoned by now
there'd be an almighty row,
and we'd be fighting their third world war.
But unless I've gone blind and deaf
they've failed with a big red F.
This is no dream.
Love and peace reign supreme,
while the Rothschilds fight each other to the death.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
ECONOMIC CRISES AND HEALTH IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
This is is the title of a project based at the Centre for History and Economics at Cambridge University.
The Director of the centre, and coordinator of the project is Emma Rothschild.
The sponsor of the project is The Rockefeller Foundation.
From the website of the project at Cambridge,
"The Common Security Forum (CSF), based at the Centre for History and Economics, King’s College, Cambridge, has, with the generous support of the Rockefeller Foundation, initiated a new program on Economic Crises and Health in Historical Perspective which will bring together, in 2009-2010, historians of medicine and public health, scholars of health policy, economic historians, and policy-makers from the United Nations and national governments."
One participant is Lincoln Chen, who has worked for the Rockefeller Foundation (for five years as Executive Vice President for Strategy of the Rockefeller Foundation) and Ford Foundation and is also a member of the CFR.
If you want to make some money then invest in manufacturers of syringes.
The Director of the centre, and coordinator of the project is Emma Rothschild.
The sponsor of the project is The Rockefeller Foundation.
From the website of the project at Cambridge,
"The Common Security Forum (CSF), based at the Centre for History and Economics, King’s College, Cambridge, has, with the generous support of the Rockefeller Foundation, initiated a new program on Economic Crises and Health in Historical Perspective which will bring together, in 2009-2010, historians of medicine and public health, scholars of health policy, economic historians, and policy-makers from the United Nations and national governments."
One participant is Lincoln Chen, who has worked for the Rockefeller Foundation (for five years as Executive Vice President for Strategy of the Rockefeller Foundation) and Ford Foundation and is also a member of the CFR.
If you want to make some money then invest in manufacturers of syringes.
ECONOMIC CRISES AND HEALTH IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
This is is the title of a project based at the Centre for History and Economics at Cambridge University.
The Director of the centre, and coordinator of the project is Emma Rothschild.
The sponsor of the project is The Rockefeller Foundation.
From the website of the project at Cambridge,
"The Common Security Forum (CSF), based at the Centre for History and Economics, King’s College, Cambridge, has, with the generous support of the Rockefeller Foundation, initiated a new program on Economic Crises and Health in Historical Perspective which will bring together, in 2009-2010, historians of medicine and public health, scholars of health policy, economic historians, and policy-makers from the United Nations and national governments."
One participant is Lincoln Chen, who has worked for the Rockefeller Foundation (for five years as Executive Vice President for Strategy of the Rockefeller Foundation) and Ford Foundation and is also a member of the CFR.
If you want to make some money then invest in manufacturers of syringes.
The Director of the centre, and coordinator of the project is Emma Rothschild.
The sponsor of the project is The Rockefeller Foundation.
From the website of the project at Cambridge,
"The Common Security Forum (CSF), based at the Centre for History and Economics, King’s College, Cambridge, has, with the generous support of the Rockefeller Foundation, initiated a new program on Economic Crises and Health in Historical Perspective which will bring together, in 2009-2010, historians of medicine and public health, scholars of health policy, economic historians, and policy-makers from the United Nations and national governments."
One participant is Lincoln Chen, who has worked for the Rockefeller Foundation (for five years as Executive Vice President for Strategy of the Rockefeller Foundation) and Ford Foundation and is also a member of the CFR.
If you want to make some money then invest in manufacturers of syringes.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
WHY ARE BANKS HOARDING CASH?
One Worlder Robert Peston has explained how and why the banks are hoarding the cash created created out of nothing by the Bank of Ingerland to supposedly get the economy moving again via QE.
It's not working.
They're hoarding it instead of lending it to personal and business customers.
But there's more to this than we know.
For years they've treated us like shit while they went on a reckless gambling spree.
In September in the USA it is the end of the financial year, when many end-of-year reports will have to be released. If we've been lied to again and those results are disastrous, as many expect, then expect a second dive into depression.
And the banks are gonna need all that QE money, instead of lending our money back to us.
=====================================
From http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2009/08/what_rbss_results_say_about_qe.html
What RBS's results say about QE
Robert Peston | 09:52 UK time, Friday, 7 August 2009
If you want to know why quantitative easing may not be working - in the sense that it hasn't led to a conspicuous increase in lending - this morning's financial results from Royal Bank of Scotland give a pretty good clue.
I'll explain.
In simplified terms, quantitative easing is the process of buying gilts from investors - to date some £122bn of them.
Let's assume, which isn't necessarily the case, that when the Bank of England buys gilts from investors the cash ends up in the British banking system.
Well, if the cash is classified by the banks as a customer deposit, which it might be if the investor that has sold gilts to the Bank of England happens to be a relatively small and unsophisticated institution, then the banks say "yippee".
Because that deposit increases the ratio of supposedly stable customer deposits to loans and advances: it reduces the banks' dangerous dependence on flighty, unreliable wholesale funds.
Which genuinely matters, because - as you'll recall - one of the reasons our banking system came so close to collapse last autumn is that our banks had become too dependent on wholesale sources of funds, which dried up after the collapse of Lehman Brothers when investors took fright and took flight.
Take Royal Bank of Scotland. Today, its chief executive has set a target to reduce its ratio of loans to deposits from 156% to around 100% by 2013.
That will require it to reduce its dependence on wholesale sources of funds by not far off £200bn over the same time period.
So when cash deposits come in, the instinct of Royal Bank of Scotland - and of other banks - is to say "thank you very much" and just sit on the cash, rather than lend it out.
And there's a similar story for Lloyds. In the six months from 31 December to 30 June, its ratio of loans to customer deposits has fallen from 166% to 152%, as it has simultaneously increased deposits by £20bn and reduced loans and advances by £25bn.
To reiterate, that reduction in these banks' respective ratios of loans to customer deposits is a deliberate policy.
Why? Well, when Lloyds and RBS increase their customer deposits and don't lend out the cash, they becomes a much safer place for their other depositors.
So a benign effect of QE may have been to increase the security of our banks for savers - even if that's not what the policy was intended to achieve.
But actually much of the cash raised by institutions from selling gilts almost certainly isn't converted into customer deposits at banks.
More likely is that institutions have lent it to banks and other financial companies in the form of wholesale market loans - the kind which the banks are supposed to be weaning themselves off.
If that is the case, then there is absolutely no chance that banks - already too dependent on wholesale funding - will lend the money out.
What's more, some of this money raised by institutions from gilt sales may have been lent to the banks in the form of short-term debt securities underwritten by the Treasury via the credit guarantee scheme.
In effect, there will have been a double public-sector subsidy for fund-raising by the banks, with little apparent consequential benefit in the form of lending into the real economy.
There is a final paradox in this tale of where all the Bank of England's money has leaked.
The banks may have used the additional cash deposits to purchase gilts, as they've been instructed to do by the regulator, the Financial Services Authority, which wants to see them holding much greater reserves of genuinely liquid, high-quality assets.
Let's look at Royal Bank of Scotland again. It has a new target to increase its "liquidity reserve" from £90bn to around £150bn. And that means it may well buy an additional £60bn or so of gilts.
So one lot of gilt purchases, by the Bank of England, is simply spurring a separate lot of gilt purchases by the commercial banks - for which the government should be profoundly grateful, because it helps finance the humongous public-sector deficit, but prevents any of the cash being lent to businesses and households that may need it.
Does that mean QE has been a waste of time?
Probably not.
Without it, there might have been even less lending into the real economy.
But unless and until the banks' ratios of customer deposits to loans and advances have returned significantly nearer to parity, QE is almost certainly not going to spark much in the way of incremental lending to non-financial companies and personal customers.
It's not working.
They're hoarding it instead of lending it to personal and business customers.
But there's more to this than we know.
For years they've treated us like shit while they went on a reckless gambling spree.
In September in the USA it is the end of the financial year, when many end-of-year reports will have to be released. If we've been lied to again and those results are disastrous, as many expect, then expect a second dive into depression.
And the banks are gonna need all that QE money, instead of lending our money back to us.
=====================================
From http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2009/08/what_rbss_results_say_about_qe.html
What RBS's results say about QE
Robert Peston | 09:52 UK time, Friday, 7 August 2009
If you want to know why quantitative easing may not be working - in the sense that it hasn't led to a conspicuous increase in lending - this morning's financial results from Royal Bank of Scotland give a pretty good clue.
I'll explain.
In simplified terms, quantitative easing is the process of buying gilts from investors - to date some £122bn of them.
Let's assume, which isn't necessarily the case, that when the Bank of England buys gilts from investors the cash ends up in the British banking system.
Well, if the cash is classified by the banks as a customer deposit, which it might be if the investor that has sold gilts to the Bank of England happens to be a relatively small and unsophisticated institution, then the banks say "yippee".
Because that deposit increases the ratio of supposedly stable customer deposits to loans and advances: it reduces the banks' dangerous dependence on flighty, unreliable wholesale funds.
Which genuinely matters, because - as you'll recall - one of the reasons our banking system came so close to collapse last autumn is that our banks had become too dependent on wholesale sources of funds, which dried up after the collapse of Lehman Brothers when investors took fright and took flight.
Take Royal Bank of Scotland. Today, its chief executive has set a target to reduce its ratio of loans to deposits from 156% to around 100% by 2013.
That will require it to reduce its dependence on wholesale sources of funds by not far off £200bn over the same time period.
So when cash deposits come in, the instinct of Royal Bank of Scotland - and of other banks - is to say "thank you very much" and just sit on the cash, rather than lend it out.
And there's a similar story for Lloyds. In the six months from 31 December to 30 June, its ratio of loans to customer deposits has fallen from 166% to 152%, as it has simultaneously increased deposits by £20bn and reduced loans and advances by £25bn.
To reiterate, that reduction in these banks' respective ratios of loans to customer deposits is a deliberate policy.
Why? Well, when Lloyds and RBS increase their customer deposits and don't lend out the cash, they becomes a much safer place for their other depositors.
So a benign effect of QE may have been to increase the security of our banks for savers - even if that's not what the policy was intended to achieve.
But actually much of the cash raised by institutions from selling gilts almost certainly isn't converted into customer deposits at banks.
More likely is that institutions have lent it to banks and other financial companies in the form of wholesale market loans - the kind which the banks are supposed to be weaning themselves off.
If that is the case, then there is absolutely no chance that banks - already too dependent on wholesale funding - will lend the money out.
What's more, some of this money raised by institutions from gilt sales may have been lent to the banks in the form of short-term debt securities underwritten by the Treasury via the credit guarantee scheme.
In effect, there will have been a double public-sector subsidy for fund-raising by the banks, with little apparent consequential benefit in the form of lending into the real economy.
There is a final paradox in this tale of where all the Bank of England's money has leaked.
The banks may have used the additional cash deposits to purchase gilts, as they've been instructed to do by the regulator, the Financial Services Authority, which wants to see them holding much greater reserves of genuinely liquid, high-quality assets.
Let's look at Royal Bank of Scotland again. It has a new target to increase its "liquidity reserve" from £90bn to around £150bn. And that means it may well buy an additional £60bn or so of gilts.
So one lot of gilt purchases, by the Bank of England, is simply spurring a separate lot of gilt purchases by the commercial banks - for which the government should be profoundly grateful, because it helps finance the humongous public-sector deficit, but prevents any of the cash being lent to businesses and households that may need it.
Does that mean QE has been a waste of time?
Probably not.
Without it, there might have been even less lending into the real economy.
But unless and until the banks' ratios of customer deposits to loans and advances have returned significantly nearer to parity, QE is almost certainly not going to spark much in the way of incremental lending to non-financial companies and personal customers.
Monday, August 17, 2009
USAIN BOLT DOES IT AGAIN
Last year we marvelled at the speed of Usain Bolt.
Some wondered how he could produce such performance due to his physique.
A recently deceased blogger even suggested that Bolt would be found guilty of drug taking to enhance his performance at the Olympics 2008.
But Bolt is clean.
Bolt is very fast.
Get your pumps out and start training.
Some wondered how he could produce such performance due to his physique.
A recently deceased blogger even suggested that Bolt would be found guilty of drug taking to enhance his performance at the Olympics 2008.
But Bolt is clean.
Bolt is very fast.
Get your pumps out and start training.
CFR BOARD MEMBER ZAKARIA DREAMS OF ANOTHER 9/11 CRISIS
Yet another member of the American political elite of the Council on Foreign Relations has openly written of his dream for another 9/11-type crisis.
Writing in TheBilderberg Washington Post Zakaria marvels at the way the USA came together immediately after 9/11 and in bailing out the banks with trillions, and wishes that something similar would happen again quite soon.
Zakaria also tries to address the current argument about ObamaCare's proposal for a panel of experts to decide upon which medical treatments would be withheld to pay for the bailout by suggesting that such decisions would not be made immediately but perhaps at a later date.
The comment is a classic of the mindset of the Council on Foreign Relations; dreams of a major crisis to galvanize the country, and it's OK to kill Americans to pay for the bailout if the killing is done sometime later in the future.
Zakaria states that healthcare will account for 40% US government expenditure by 2050. But what about the Department ofAttack Defense?
ps the Honorary Chairman of the CFR is David Rockefeller
==================================
From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/16/AR2009081601757.html?hpid%3Dopinionsbox1&sub=AR
More Crises Needed?
The Only Way to Start Reform
By Fareed Zakaria
Monday, August 17, 2009
We've seen in recent weeks the twin personalities of the U.S. government. One is impressive, the other deeply worrying. First, the good news: We have increasing evidence that Washington's response to the global financial collapse was effective. Last fall, the financial markets seized up, credit froze and the economy went into a nosedive. Almost every metric by which we judge the economy moved into its darkest territory since the 1930s. And this happened at the worst possible time. A lame-duck U.S. president faced an opposition party in charge of both houses of Congress. It was a recipe for paralysis, bickering and inaction.
In fact, the administration and Congress collaborated fast and well, and within two weeks Congress appropriated a staggering $700 billion to rescue the financial system. As the Bush administration left office, it worked closely with the incoming Obama team, which continued the basic framework of the rescue, modifying some aspects of the Bush programs and adding others. Both groups worked carefully with the Federal Reserve, the lead player in this drama, which acted aggressively and creatively. Democrats such as Barney Frank supported the Bush administration. George W. Bush put aside his ideological blinders and massively intervened in the economy.
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As with any successful policy, it is now easy to say that action was unnecessary or overdone. At the time, of course, the dominant criticism was that the rescue effort was too weak -- the banks needed to be nationalized! -- and the fiscal stimulus too small. As with all emergencies, one can always suggest, in retrospect, that more sophisticated strategies could have been taken. The measures that were adopted may lead to other problems over time, such as inflation. But faced with the distinct possibility of an economic depression, Congress, the administration and the Fed worked together and brought stability to the system. In a crisis, they responded. Why? Precisely because it was a crisis.
There is something about America -- the system, the government, the people -- that allows us to react to a crisis with astonishing speed. Think of Pearl Harbor, or even Sept. 11. Whatever one may think of the Bush administration's later strategy, in the weeks after 9/11 both parties came together and crafted important policies -- getting international cooperation in making counterterrorism a top priority, improving safety on airplanes and in airports, tracking terrorists and their money, chasing al-Qaeda. These actions have helped to keep terrorists on the run and continue to make it difficult to plan and execute spectacular attacks.
Now, to see the weakness of the American system, consider the past two weeks and the debacle of the health-care debate. Clearly the U.S. health-care system is on an unsustainable path. If current trends continue -- and there is no indication that they won't -- health care will consume 40 percent of the national economy by 2050. The problem is that this is a slow and steady decline, producing no crisis. As a result, we seem incapable of grappling with it seriously.
It's not as if the problems aren't apparent to everyone, whatever your political persuasion. Costs are rising so fast that every day more than 10,000 Americans lose their insurance coverage. In 1993, 61 percent of small businesses provided health insurance for their employees. Now only 38 percent do. Larger firms face greater health-care costs. Yet, Americans do worse on almost every health measure than most advanced industrial countries, which spend about half as much on health care per person and have proportionately more elderly people.
Meanwhile, the political debate is unreal, with conservatives suggesting that President Obama is endorsing euthanasia and murder boards, and turning America into Russia. (I guess they haven't noticed that Russia isn't communist anymore.) The lack of serious discussion is tragic, because the Democrats' proposals leave much to be desired. They include only a few, vague measures to rein in costs, and the chief one -- a medical board -- assumes (improbably) that Congress will cede massive powers to five unelected people who would have the power to deny people treatments and drugs. The likely scenario is that expanded coverage and new benefits will be enacted, while the cuts and curbs will be pushed off to be tackled another day.
Health care is the nation's most serious long-term problem. Social Security, government pension liabilities, state-government deficits and energy dependence all pose the same issue. Each of these problems is getting worse by the day, yet the political system seems unable to take them on and make major reforms. On these critical issues, America is caught in a downward spiral. It makes you wish for a crisis.
Fareed Zakaria is editor of Newsweek International and the author of "The Post-American World." His e-mail address is comments@fareedzakaria.com.
Writing in The
Zakaria also tries to address the current argument about ObamaCare's proposal for a panel of experts to decide upon which medical treatments would be withheld to pay for the bailout by suggesting that such decisions would not be made immediately but perhaps at a later date.
The comment is a classic of the mindset of the Council on Foreign Relations; dreams of a major crisis to galvanize the country, and it's OK to kill Americans to pay for the bailout if the killing is done sometime later in the future.
Zakaria states that healthcare will account for 40% US government expenditure by 2050. But what about the Department of
ps the Honorary Chairman of the CFR is David Rockefeller
==================================
From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/16/AR2009081601757.html?hpid%3Dopinionsbox1&sub=AR
More Crises Needed?
The Only Way to Start Reform
By Fareed Zakaria
Monday, August 17, 2009
We've seen in recent weeks the twin personalities of the U.S. government. One is impressive, the other deeply worrying. First, the good news: We have increasing evidence that Washington's response to the global financial collapse was effective. Last fall, the financial markets seized up, credit froze and the economy went into a nosedive. Almost every metric by which we judge the economy moved into its darkest territory since the 1930s. And this happened at the worst possible time. A lame-duck U.S. president faced an opposition party in charge of both houses of Congress. It was a recipe for paralysis, bickering and inaction.
In fact, the administration and Congress collaborated fast and well, and within two weeks Congress appropriated a staggering $700 billion to rescue the financial system. As the Bush administration left office, it worked closely with the incoming Obama team, which continued the basic framework of the rescue, modifying some aspects of the Bush programs and adding others. Both groups worked carefully with the Federal Reserve, the lead player in this drama, which acted aggressively and creatively. Democrats such as Barney Frank supported the Bush administration. George W. Bush put aside his ideological blinders and massively intervened in the economy.
ad_icon
As with any successful policy, it is now easy to say that action was unnecessary or overdone. At the time, of course, the dominant criticism was that the rescue effort was too weak -- the banks needed to be nationalized! -- and the fiscal stimulus too small. As with all emergencies, one can always suggest, in retrospect, that more sophisticated strategies could have been taken. The measures that were adopted may lead to other problems over time, such as inflation. But faced with the distinct possibility of an economic depression, Congress, the administration and the Fed worked together and brought stability to the system. In a crisis, they responded. Why? Precisely because it was a crisis.
There is something about America -- the system, the government, the people -- that allows us to react to a crisis with astonishing speed. Think of Pearl Harbor, or even Sept. 11. Whatever one may think of the Bush administration's later strategy, in the weeks after 9/11 both parties came together and crafted important policies -- getting international cooperation in making counterterrorism a top priority, improving safety on airplanes and in airports, tracking terrorists and their money, chasing al-Qaeda. These actions have helped to keep terrorists on the run and continue to make it difficult to plan and execute spectacular attacks.
Now, to see the weakness of the American system, consider the past two weeks and the debacle of the health-care debate. Clearly the U.S. health-care system is on an unsustainable path. If current trends continue -- and there is no indication that they won't -- health care will consume 40 percent of the national economy by 2050. The problem is that this is a slow and steady decline, producing no crisis. As a result, we seem incapable of grappling with it seriously.
It's not as if the problems aren't apparent to everyone, whatever your political persuasion. Costs are rising so fast that every day more than 10,000 Americans lose their insurance coverage. In 1993, 61 percent of small businesses provided health insurance for their employees. Now only 38 percent do. Larger firms face greater health-care costs. Yet, Americans do worse on almost every health measure than most advanced industrial countries, which spend about half as much on health care per person and have proportionately more elderly people.
Meanwhile, the political debate is unreal, with conservatives suggesting that President Obama is endorsing euthanasia and murder boards, and turning America into Russia. (I guess they haven't noticed that Russia isn't communist anymore.) The lack of serious discussion is tragic, because the Democrats' proposals leave much to be desired. They include only a few, vague measures to rein in costs, and the chief one -- a medical board -- assumes (improbably) that Congress will cede massive powers to five unelected people who would have the power to deny people treatments and drugs. The likely scenario is that expanded coverage and new benefits will be enacted, while the cuts and curbs will be pushed off to be tackled another day.
Health care is the nation's most serious long-term problem. Social Security, government pension liabilities, state-government deficits and energy dependence all pose the same issue. Each of these problems is getting worse by the day, yet the political system seems unable to take them on and make major reforms. On these critical issues, America is caught in a downward spiral. It makes you wish for a crisis.
Fareed Zakaria is editor of Newsweek International and the author of "The Post-American World." His e-mail address is comments@fareedzakaria.com.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
I SEE NEARLY DEAD PEOPLE
But I can't yet make out exactly who they are, or how they will die, whether in comfort or under great stress.
WATCH OUT AMERICA! DR DEATH IS COMING TO GET YOU!
The British media are going berserk at the opposition to ObamaCare. Why? Because it means euthanasia.
Sure, the British media are suggesting that ObamaCare is all about introducing a NHS-style health care system, and that's all there is to it, so what's all the fuss about?
Well, it's all about killing people so that the reckless gambling banks can be bailed out. It really is that simple.
And that's what the British media are not reporting. Why? Because it will be happening here too.
That's why Dr Death was allowed into the country a few months ago, to flog his DIY suicide kits.
Their mentality is that if you are not fighting in their engineered wars to make them massive profits and create global governing institutions from the carnage then you are to kill yourself, primarily to save the planet, but lately to save the banks!
So we now have two injections to be concerned about; those deemed worthy of life will be injected with a microchip implant, while those deemed unworthy of life will be given a lethal injection.
======================================
From http://www.larouchepac.com/node/11435
The Proof! It's All True: Euthanasia Is The Purpose Of Section 1233!
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Aug 14, 2009 (LPAC)-- Lyndon LaRouche began the drive against Obama's genocidal health reform, now critics including House Republican leader John Boehner, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and liberal Democrat Lee Siegel have recently pointed to Section 1233 of the House healthcare reform bill, on "end-of-life counseling," as an actual or potential encouragement for euthanasia against the elderly.
They are more right than they know. In fact, the sole purpose of the section is nothing but euthanasia, as a recent post by Jill Stanek and another by the Family Research Council's "The Cloakroom" make clear.
The authors of 1233 are Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer and "Compassion and Choices," formerly called the Hemlock Society. Blumenauer, a congressman from the first state to have legalized physician-assisted suicide, is a vocal advocate for voluntary euthanasia and apparently involuntary euthanasia as well. He took credit for 1233 in the Huffington Post of July 28, writing, "I know a little bit about this section because it's a bill which I wrote which was incorporated into the overall legislation." Blumenauer's website attests that he wrote an amicus brief in support of "assisted suicide" for the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005. It also links to a lengthy, grisly Harper's article of 1960, which comes down firmly for the whole program of Nazi-like euthanasia, voluntary AND involuntary, against the aged, the handicapped,— you name it!
Who says LaRouche exaggerated when he accused Obama of pushing a program identical to Hitler's T4 euthanasia program?
The other co-author is "Compassion and Choices," formerly known as the Hemlock Society. They wrote July 27 that "Compassion and Choices has worked tirelessly with supportive members of congress to include in proposed reform legislation a provision requiring Medicare to cover patient consultation with their doctors about end-of-life choice." "Compassion and Choices'" home-page tells readers to pass healthcare reform "with 1233."
The predecessor Hemlock Society was long notorious for suicide and euthanasia advocacy, and for actual encouragement and practical "help" in suicide. Its origins are in Britain's Voluntary Euthanasia Society, which founded the World Federation of Right to Die Societies in 1980, and sent London Times reporter Derek Humphry to the U.S. to found the Hemlock Society here.
Monday, August 10, 2009
CLARIFICATION REQUIRED
1. Mandelson has attended Bilderberg several times
2. the Nazi EU was agreed upon at Bilderberg 1955
3. Mandelson was EU trade Minister for several years
4. Nat Rothschild is on the board of hedge fund Atticus
5. Nat Rothschild is also on board of RIT Capital
6. RIT Capital invested substantially in Atticus as a hedge fund to make a profit
7. Atticus instead lost that money
8. as a consequence RIT Capital has ditched Atticus
9. Mandelson leaves his powerful position in the EU to become even more powerful in the government as an unelected peer and minister
10. Mandelson spent his holidays at the Rothschild estate on Corfu
11. Mandelson is now acting Prime Minister
12. Mandelson, despite his very pro-EU politics, wants to exempt The City of London from EU legislation that would restrict and control hedge funds so that they don't cause another credit crunch.
What word can describe this?
2. the Nazi EU was agreed upon at Bilderberg 1955
3. Mandelson was EU trade Minister for several years
4. Nat Rothschild is on the board of hedge fund Atticus
5. Nat Rothschild is also on board of RIT Capital
6. RIT Capital invested substantially in Atticus as a hedge fund to make a profit
7. Atticus instead lost that money
8. as a consequence RIT Capital has ditched Atticus
9. Mandelson leaves his powerful position in the EU to become even more powerful in the government as an unelected peer and minister
10. Mandelson spent his holidays at the Rothschild estate on Corfu
11. Mandelson is now acting Prime Minister
12. Mandelson, despite his very pro-EU politics, wants to exempt The City of London from EU legislation that would restrict and control hedge funds so that they don't cause another credit crunch.
What word can describe this?
PUSSYCATS KILL FOR FUN
As part of a charm offensive, the incredible Rothschild gimp and unelected but acting Prime Minister Peter Mandelson has been interviewed by The Guardian.
He likens himself to 'a kindly pussycat', and seems quite proud of the analogy.
A very good analogy, considering his allegiance to the Rothschilds.
Don't pussycats kill for fun?
==============================
From http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/10/peter-mandelson-interview-decca-aitkenhead
Peter Mandelson: 'I had to be the hit man'
Peter Mandelson tells Decca Aitkenhead why he used to be the hard man of New Labour...but now he's just a pussycat
The most accurate article Lord Mandelson ever read about himself was written in the 1990s. It was, he recalls, all about "Peter's gang – how people wanted to be in Peter's gang – and that people who weren't really hated it and took it out on me for not being in my gang. The article said that I excluded people without knowing I was doing so, and that this bred resentment of me. It was very perceptive."
Did it make him more careful about upsetting people? He pauses for a fraction of a second, and slowly starts to smile.
"I think," he laughs, "history would suggest not."
And then, only seconds later, he makes a woman cry.
Actually, the woman had been building up to it for a good half an hour. We were sitting near her on a train from Leeds to London, and as people sometimes do she had been bellowing into her mobile, oblivious to the din she was making. Mandelson's eyebrows went up and up and up – "What is she doing? Who is she talking to?" – as if he'd never encountered such appalling vulgarity in his life. One of his aides gently gestured to the woman to pipe down – but she didn't notice, and so another aide reached round and asked her to lower her voice.
"Leave her alone!" Suddenly another man – quite unconnected to the woman – was on his feet, possibly a little the worse for wine, and advancing down the aisle towards us. "This is a democratic train! She can do what she likes!" Next thing, another man was on his feet. "Excuse me, I'm nothing to do with him – " he nodded towards Mandelson – "but she was disturbing me as well."
"Was I being that loud?" the woman began babbling. "This is a democratic train, and I vote for the other lot!" the first man shouted. "I'm very sorry," the second man insisted, "but she was being extremely loud." "Was I being loud?" she yelped. Passengers stared, the aides sank into their seats sniggering like schoolboys, and Mandelson froze, his face a picture of icy bafflement. "This has absolutely nothing to do with me," his expression seemed to say, "but really, isn't she awful?"
The commotion soon subsided, and the interview duly resumed. But as the train was pulling into King's Cross half an hour later, and Mandelson was ruminating on the power of Peter's gang to offend, the woman suddenly appeared beside us.
Her face is all red now, and she is trembling as she addresses Mandelson. "I want you to know," she chokes, "I just want you to know . . ." and she bursts into tears. "You've really, really upset me!" The aides exchange semi-aghast glances, wondering what to say. The woman stands there sobbing. And Mandelson just gets to his feet, raises his eyes to the heavens, and calmly walks away.
Had I witnessed such a moment at any point during the 90s, when I used to see a bit of Mandelson, I wouldn't have been the slightest bit surprised. Only last September I attended a dinner he hosted at Labour party conference, and observed the old Prince of Darkness at work – shadowy, conspiratorial, aloof. The exclusivity of Peter's gang was indeed a chillingly divisive dynamic – and so it was no surprise to see him make someone cry. The big surprise was that, in the two days I spent with Mandelson, she was literally the only one he couldn't be bothered to dazzle and charm.
Everywhere we went, before my eyes people fell in love with him. Trade union bosses, management consultants, random strangers on railway platforms – no one seemed to be immune. I've never seen anyone seduce so many people with such effortless allure – nor take such palpable pleasure in every conquest – and the intensity of his theatre is electrifying to behold.
His skin is dewy, as if fresh from a spa facial, and his grooming so flawless he looks almost hyper-real, the cuff links and tie delicately co-ordinated, with their detail inversely echoed in his socks. I'd swear he even has his eyebrows shaped, though he denies it – "What, pay someone to rip my eyebrows out? Is that some kind of sexual thing?" His whole body seems weirdly untroubled by the passage of time, his movements fluid to the point of feline, but it's the voice above all which can mesmerise. He talks very softly – that old trick for winning people's attention that John Prescott, for one, never learned – and unusually slowly, giving the impression that every single word is invested with deep significance, even when it's quite innocuous.
The gift for mockery that used to be deployed at others' expense now tends to be directed at himself; when he says of the economic recovery, "we are in the post-intervention, pre-delivery stage", each syllable is enunciated to acknowledge the absurdity of his own jargon. At times his phrasing can be almost antiquated – he once tried to resign as honorary life president of Hartlepool United FC, he says, "but they wouldn't hear of it" – and his command of the dramatic pause would be hammy if it weren't always so exquisitely timed.
Before our first meeting, one of Mandelson's aides calls to make sure I'm not planning to dwell on the past. I promise him I'm not – and I mean it – but it's Mandelson himself who leads us inexorably back into his history. On a train to Luton to visit the Vauxhall plant, I ask what his biggest concern had been about returning to government last year. It's only meant to be a gentle opener – but he answers at extraordinary length.
"My biggest concern? Whether it would last," he says, smiling, "given my experience on the last two occasions. No, seriously – it was whether I would fit in. I think probably the nicest thing I've experienced – slightly in contrast to my previous time in government – is how warmly my cabinet colleagues have embraced me." Should Brown, I ask, bring back some more big beasts? "I don't really see myself as a big beast. More as a kindly pussycat." His aides start to giggle, but Mandelson continues, warming to his theme, "Yes, a kindly pussycat. I'm a kindly pussycat, with strong views about what we need to do.
"I think 10 years ago, and also 15 years ago, I was a very hard-nosed, uncompromising figure who was manning the barricades of change in the Labour party, and prepared to take down anything or anyone who stood in the way. I don't feel in that mode now. And secondly, I've learned from experience that you can defeat people without killing them. There aren't the life and death struggles we were engaged in in the Labour party 15 or 20 years ago. I've learned that there are different ways to take people with you. That you can disagree with people, and even defeat them, without leaving them badly bruised or destroyed."
Critics always accused him of relishing the destruction, and when I ask if that was true he doesn't exactly deny it.
"I just didn't question it," he says instead. "I think that everyone in politics wants to be liked, but I accepted too readily that it was a luxury that wasn't open to me. I had to be the hard man – and sometimes the hit man. Remember that in the 80s, when we were really engaged in hand-to-hand combat with those inside our party, I wasn't reckoning on a parliamentary or ministerial career. I didn't realise that you had to make friends and keep them, because they were those with whom you'd have to co-operate in later life. But if I had to relive what I had to do in the 80s I don't think I would do it any less convincingly, even brutally, because we had a lot going against us."
I think I can sense his aide starting to twitch – why are they talking about the past again? – but it's striking that Mandelson's point of reference goes all the way back to 80s, the era he returns to in conversation unprompted, time and time again. "It was like the wild west," he says nostalgically at one point. "It was tough." Interestingly, he also says that, excluding his present position, his favourite ever job was as Labour's campaign director back then. It was only later that things began to get difficult.
"By the time we got into government in 1997 – well, I was feeling obviously proud of the achievement of having won such a famous victory, but also slightly worn – slightly ragged – and I didn't make an immediate recovery. I didn't bounce back in the way that I expected. I wasn't entirely comfortable with myself, with my role, in my own skin. And also," he adds rather unnecessarily, "I had enemies."
He still wouldn't say he can afford the luxury of being liked – "Not if it means not making hard choices, no." But his relationship with the cabinet of today is completely unrecognisable. "I think people are aware that I'm not denying anyone their place in the sun. I'm not competing with them in the way I did before. Older figures in government used to fear that I was endlessly plotting their downfall, or excluding them from the team, but the circumstances are completely different now. I take huge pride in the younger members of cabinet, who knew me in the 90s and associated me with winning. They've benefited from my support and advice, and they don't feel the suspicion towards me. They've wanted to work with me. Appreciated my age and experience. And my – my sense of fun."
Was fun missing from cabinet before his return?
"Well, I think it was missing from when I was in government before."
It certainly isn't missing now. I'm not sure I've ever interviewed anyone who appears to be having more fun than Mandelson; travelling with him is more like joining a celebrity entourage than a political walkabout – a grand tour with a man at the height of his powers, loving every step of the way. At the Vauxhall plant in Luton, an official issues protective wear before we go on to the factory floor, and Mandelson is asked to put on a belt protector to cover his buckle, but mishears the word. He stares at the official for a moment, looking artfully startled. "I wasn't quite sure where he was pointing to," he says delicately, "or what he was going to protect." The whole room dissolves into giggles. When we get back to London I'm supposed to leave, but Mandelson is in expansive mood – "Come to lunch, we're having lunch with Tony Blair," – and so now we're in a car heading east to the City, to present, of all things, a medal to Mandelson's former boss.
It turns out that we're not actually going to eat lunch – because, as far as I can tell, Mandelson seldom eats anything at all. For breakfast he has granola and green tea, to which Carole Caplin converted him in 1994 – "One of her enduring legacies," he murmurs archly. He doesn't bother with lunch, though if he's in the Lords he likes to steal an apple from Baroness Royall's office, and in the afternoons his PA fetches him some kind of chocolate bar from Pret A Manger – "A sort of tiffin thing, it's very nice." If he has to attend a dinner he will stay for the first course, then make his speech and head home, where he hasn't cooked for as long as he can remember. The last actual meal that I can identify seems to have been consumed 48 hours earlier.
"Peter Mandelson talks exclusively about his anorexia!" an aide quips, provoking much amusement in the car. "My diet chiefly involves me being hungry," Mandelson concedes, sounding rather proud of the fact. "But it's having a good effect on me. It's making me, well, not lean and mean, as I was – just lean and hungry."
At the lunch, Mandelson is to present Blair with the Fenner Brockway medal, in honour of his services to Anglo-Indian relations. "Rather an irony, really," Mandelson muses mischievously, running over his speech. "I mean, Brockway was a great pacifist. Not very appropriate, is it? Shall I point that out? Or would it be naughty?" When we arrive I'm completely taken aback at the former PM's appearance, for he resembles a bad actor playing Blair in the grip of some awful psychiatric meltdown. He really does look quite mad, with his face all over the place – a grotesque dance of eyebrows and teeth, manically gurning away, every feature in permanent motion – beside which Mandelson looks like a vision of poised sophistication. There are warm greetings, and as I'm introduced Mandelson pretends I'm there to shadow Blair, provoking another great jerky grimace.
"Oh no," Blair tells him. "No, not me, I'm the past. You're the future."
Mandelson can't resist inserting his pacifist jibe into the presentation speech, although I get the feeling it amuses him more than Blair, and is clearly lost on most of the audience of Indian dignitaries. He's still chuckling about it when we head back to meet a delegation from McKinsey in his Westminster office, a Pugin-free model of efficient modernity adorned with a framed cover of last November's Prospect magazine, showing a smiling Mandelson under the headline: "I've come home."
"If you stay with me for the rest of the day," he offers casually, eating a grape, with an unmistakable hint of showing off, "you'll end up with Gordon."
Mandelson is routinely described as the unofficial deputy prime minister, and it's about the only job title he hasn't acquired since returning to government. As first secretary of state and business secretary, he attends 35 of the cabinet's 43 committees and subcommittees, dwarfing the 17 Prescott used to attend as deputy PM. With 11 ministers answering directly to him, Mandelson's department is the now the biggest in Whitehall – but to describe him as Brown's de facto deputy is if anything to understate his position. He is arguably more powerful today than the prime minister himself.
In part, his power derives from a ministerial brief straddling almost every policy area of government, and in part from colleagues' eagerness to consult his advice; Ed Miliband recently described him as a "benign uncle", which Mandelson quotes to me several times with evident pleasure. His defeat of the abortive coup in June certainly made him indispensable to Brown – though interestingly, when I ask why he fought so hard to save his boss on the night of James Purnell's resignation, he says, "Because I thought it was wrong to lose a second leader in the course of a parliament. I thought the voters would not embrace it," which is not exactly a tribute to the prime minister's unique personal strengths.
He does, of course, talk at length about Brown's qualities when prompted; "a big brain . . . decisive intellect . . . leader for these times . . . highly respected . . . will be vindicated in due course," none of which is terribly original, but Mandelson has a remarkable quality for appearing believable, even though what he often is is merely on message. Rather like Max Clifford, he has a gift for sounding as if he's always telling the truth, even when you know it's his job not to; he has somehow managed to retain the credibility of a disinterested outsider, despite having returned to the heart of government.
All of this makes him powerful – but none of it matters quite as much as one simple fact. Mandelson has acquired all this power by virtue of not wanting to be prime minister. As his great friend Robert Harris put it recently, "He thought it was all over and now he sees every day as a bonus." He never expected to be here, so he has everything to play for – and crucially, nothing to lose.
When he talks about bringing "a sense of playfulness" to government, it sounds relatively trivial, but in practice it provides him with formidable protection. On our second meeting, he explains that he has no mortgage on his £2.2m Regents Park townhouse, thanks to a windfall from the sale of an advertising agency he helped set up. "I haven't," he smiles mischievously, "always been lucky with mortgages, so perhaps it's just as well." An aide purses his lips, writes a note and passes it to Mandelson. "Oh dear," Mandelson pretends to whisper, "It's that look of disapproval." What does the note say? "Be serious. Stop pissing around," says Mandelson, looking hugely amused.
In a recent select committee, a Tory MP recalled that Margaret Thatcher once "famously made the remark that every prime minister needs a Willie [Whitelaw]. So you are the prime minister's Willie. Is that your role?" After a perfectly timed pause, Mandelson replied, "I'm tempted to extend the metaphor, but decorum – " bringing the house down. He teased a recent press gallery lunch with tales of being woken by "Jack tugging at my duvet", enjoying the hacks' consternation – who the hell is Jack? – before explaining, "Why, my dog, of course." Even his sexuality, once a semi-closeted source of, if not quite paranoia, then prickliness, is now a weapon in his armoury.
When I ask if he has ever been more powerful in his career, he looks annoyed. "I don't feel powerful or unpowerful. I refuse to pander to this ridiculous stereotype – and I mean that, I think it's just a rather lazy way of reporting politics. It's an excuse for not talking about policy. The Westminster lobby is incredibly gossipy; they don't actually understand politics, they only understand who's up and who's down." Which is true – but perhaps a bit rich coming from the man who more than anyone has personified the interpersonal political psychodramas of the last 20 years.
"Look," he retorts. "Who was it who wrote the policy review in the late 80s? Me. Who presided over the creation – who was one of the architects of New Labour, and of that change in policy that created a new political force in the 90s? Me. Who enjoyed driving new policy as a minister at the beginning of this government, and is now doing so again? Me. So I'm certainly not a policy blank. My big preoccupation is policy."
I'm sure it is – but whether he likes it or not, our big preoccupation with Mandelson has never been about policy. By all accounts he is a first-class minister, and in recent weeks the green shoots of a coherent government programme – on transport, climate change, social care – have been attributed to his influence. But the policy initiatives he's most closely associated with – the privatisation of Royal Mail and a proposed increase in tuition fees – are the least popular with the public. It is Mandelson's personality, not policy, which holds the country in his thrall.
If Labour lose the next election – and he puts their chances of winning at no better than evens – the big question is what will he do next? Should Blair become president of Europe, he doubts he'd go and work for him – "I don't think so, no." He talks admiringly, if vaguely, of the World Trade Organisation, and of "remaining somewhere in the world". But all the talk in Westminster is now of Mandelson returning to the Commons – to become the next leader of the Labour party.
In recent months Ladbrokes has cut the odds from 200-1 to 16-1. For every £1 staked on other frontrunners, £5 has been wagered on Mandelson, and the former chief whip Hilary Armstrong's consituency of North West Durham has already been mooted as a possible seat. An amendment to Jack Straw's constitutional reform bill will soon allow life peers to renounce their title, paving the way – if Mandelson wishes – for such a move.
Could it really happen? His aides dismiss the notion as silly-season nonsense. Mandelson was on holiday last week – in Corfu again, as a guest of Nat Rothschild, which after last year might suggest a certain devil-may-care confidence in itself – and was thus uncontactable. "The legislation has to get on to the statute book," is all he has said publicly on the matter so far. "I'm not anticipating any change for myself."
Even if he isn't, it will be intriguing to see what impact the speculation may have on his role in government, for it threatens to challenge the very core of his extraordinary power. When the cabinet reassembles in the autumn, will they still see a benign uncle – a kindly pussycat – sitting beside them at the table, or a new and formidable rival? Today, with Brown away on holiday, Mandelson takes charge of the country for a week. Less than a year ago, not one of them would ever have predicted even that.
He likens himself to 'a kindly pussycat', and seems quite proud of the analogy.
A very good analogy, considering his allegiance to the Rothschilds.
Don't pussycats kill for fun?
==============================
From http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/10/peter-mandelson-interview-decca-aitkenhead
Peter Mandelson: 'I had to be the hit man'
Peter Mandelson tells Decca Aitkenhead why he used to be the hard man of New Labour...but now he's just a pussycat
The most accurate article Lord Mandelson ever read about himself was written in the 1990s. It was, he recalls, all about "Peter's gang – how people wanted to be in Peter's gang – and that people who weren't really hated it and took it out on me for not being in my gang. The article said that I excluded people without knowing I was doing so, and that this bred resentment of me. It was very perceptive."
Did it make him more careful about upsetting people? He pauses for a fraction of a second, and slowly starts to smile.
"I think," he laughs, "history would suggest not."
And then, only seconds later, he makes a woman cry.
Actually, the woman had been building up to it for a good half an hour. We were sitting near her on a train from Leeds to London, and as people sometimes do she had been bellowing into her mobile, oblivious to the din she was making. Mandelson's eyebrows went up and up and up – "What is she doing? Who is she talking to?" – as if he'd never encountered such appalling vulgarity in his life. One of his aides gently gestured to the woman to pipe down – but she didn't notice, and so another aide reached round and asked her to lower her voice.
"Leave her alone!" Suddenly another man – quite unconnected to the woman – was on his feet, possibly a little the worse for wine, and advancing down the aisle towards us. "This is a democratic train! She can do what she likes!" Next thing, another man was on his feet. "Excuse me, I'm nothing to do with him – " he nodded towards Mandelson – "but she was disturbing me as well."
"Was I being that loud?" the woman began babbling. "This is a democratic train, and I vote for the other lot!" the first man shouted. "I'm very sorry," the second man insisted, "but she was being extremely loud." "Was I being loud?" she yelped. Passengers stared, the aides sank into their seats sniggering like schoolboys, and Mandelson froze, his face a picture of icy bafflement. "This has absolutely nothing to do with me," his expression seemed to say, "but really, isn't she awful?"
The commotion soon subsided, and the interview duly resumed. But as the train was pulling into King's Cross half an hour later, and Mandelson was ruminating on the power of Peter's gang to offend, the woman suddenly appeared beside us.
Her face is all red now, and she is trembling as she addresses Mandelson. "I want you to know," she chokes, "I just want you to know . . ." and she bursts into tears. "You've really, really upset me!" The aides exchange semi-aghast glances, wondering what to say. The woman stands there sobbing. And Mandelson just gets to his feet, raises his eyes to the heavens, and calmly walks away.
Had I witnessed such a moment at any point during the 90s, when I used to see a bit of Mandelson, I wouldn't have been the slightest bit surprised. Only last September I attended a dinner he hosted at Labour party conference, and observed the old Prince of Darkness at work – shadowy, conspiratorial, aloof. The exclusivity of Peter's gang was indeed a chillingly divisive dynamic – and so it was no surprise to see him make someone cry. The big surprise was that, in the two days I spent with Mandelson, she was literally the only one he couldn't be bothered to dazzle and charm.
Everywhere we went, before my eyes people fell in love with him. Trade union bosses, management consultants, random strangers on railway platforms – no one seemed to be immune. I've never seen anyone seduce so many people with such effortless allure – nor take such palpable pleasure in every conquest – and the intensity of his theatre is electrifying to behold.
His skin is dewy, as if fresh from a spa facial, and his grooming so flawless he looks almost hyper-real, the cuff links and tie delicately co-ordinated, with their detail inversely echoed in his socks. I'd swear he even has his eyebrows shaped, though he denies it – "What, pay someone to rip my eyebrows out? Is that some kind of sexual thing?" His whole body seems weirdly untroubled by the passage of time, his movements fluid to the point of feline, but it's the voice above all which can mesmerise. He talks very softly – that old trick for winning people's attention that John Prescott, for one, never learned – and unusually slowly, giving the impression that every single word is invested with deep significance, even when it's quite innocuous.
The gift for mockery that used to be deployed at others' expense now tends to be directed at himself; when he says of the economic recovery, "we are in the post-intervention, pre-delivery stage", each syllable is enunciated to acknowledge the absurdity of his own jargon. At times his phrasing can be almost antiquated – he once tried to resign as honorary life president of Hartlepool United FC, he says, "but they wouldn't hear of it" – and his command of the dramatic pause would be hammy if it weren't always so exquisitely timed.
Before our first meeting, one of Mandelson's aides calls to make sure I'm not planning to dwell on the past. I promise him I'm not – and I mean it – but it's Mandelson himself who leads us inexorably back into his history. On a train to Luton to visit the Vauxhall plant, I ask what his biggest concern had been about returning to government last year. It's only meant to be a gentle opener – but he answers at extraordinary length.
"My biggest concern? Whether it would last," he says, smiling, "given my experience on the last two occasions. No, seriously – it was whether I would fit in. I think probably the nicest thing I've experienced – slightly in contrast to my previous time in government – is how warmly my cabinet colleagues have embraced me." Should Brown, I ask, bring back some more big beasts? "I don't really see myself as a big beast. More as a kindly pussycat." His aides start to giggle, but Mandelson continues, warming to his theme, "Yes, a kindly pussycat. I'm a kindly pussycat, with strong views about what we need to do.
"I think 10 years ago, and also 15 years ago, I was a very hard-nosed, uncompromising figure who was manning the barricades of change in the Labour party, and prepared to take down anything or anyone who stood in the way. I don't feel in that mode now. And secondly, I've learned from experience that you can defeat people without killing them. There aren't the life and death struggles we were engaged in in the Labour party 15 or 20 years ago. I've learned that there are different ways to take people with you. That you can disagree with people, and even defeat them, without leaving them badly bruised or destroyed."
Critics always accused him of relishing the destruction, and when I ask if that was true he doesn't exactly deny it.
"I just didn't question it," he says instead. "I think that everyone in politics wants to be liked, but I accepted too readily that it was a luxury that wasn't open to me. I had to be the hard man – and sometimes the hit man. Remember that in the 80s, when we were really engaged in hand-to-hand combat with those inside our party, I wasn't reckoning on a parliamentary or ministerial career. I didn't realise that you had to make friends and keep them, because they were those with whom you'd have to co-operate in later life. But if I had to relive what I had to do in the 80s I don't think I would do it any less convincingly, even brutally, because we had a lot going against us."
I think I can sense his aide starting to twitch – why are they talking about the past again? – but it's striking that Mandelson's point of reference goes all the way back to 80s, the era he returns to in conversation unprompted, time and time again. "It was like the wild west," he says nostalgically at one point. "It was tough." Interestingly, he also says that, excluding his present position, his favourite ever job was as Labour's campaign director back then. It was only later that things began to get difficult.
"By the time we got into government in 1997 – well, I was feeling obviously proud of the achievement of having won such a famous victory, but also slightly worn – slightly ragged – and I didn't make an immediate recovery. I didn't bounce back in the way that I expected. I wasn't entirely comfortable with myself, with my role, in my own skin. And also," he adds rather unnecessarily, "I had enemies."
He still wouldn't say he can afford the luxury of being liked – "Not if it means not making hard choices, no." But his relationship with the cabinet of today is completely unrecognisable. "I think people are aware that I'm not denying anyone their place in the sun. I'm not competing with them in the way I did before. Older figures in government used to fear that I was endlessly plotting their downfall, or excluding them from the team, but the circumstances are completely different now. I take huge pride in the younger members of cabinet, who knew me in the 90s and associated me with winning. They've benefited from my support and advice, and they don't feel the suspicion towards me. They've wanted to work with me. Appreciated my age and experience. And my – my sense of fun."
Was fun missing from cabinet before his return?
"Well, I think it was missing from when I was in government before."
It certainly isn't missing now. I'm not sure I've ever interviewed anyone who appears to be having more fun than Mandelson; travelling with him is more like joining a celebrity entourage than a political walkabout – a grand tour with a man at the height of his powers, loving every step of the way. At the Vauxhall plant in Luton, an official issues protective wear before we go on to the factory floor, and Mandelson is asked to put on a belt protector to cover his buckle, but mishears the word. He stares at the official for a moment, looking artfully startled. "I wasn't quite sure where he was pointing to," he says delicately, "or what he was going to protect." The whole room dissolves into giggles. When we get back to London I'm supposed to leave, but Mandelson is in expansive mood – "Come to lunch, we're having lunch with Tony Blair," – and so now we're in a car heading east to the City, to present, of all things, a medal to Mandelson's former boss.
It turns out that we're not actually going to eat lunch – because, as far as I can tell, Mandelson seldom eats anything at all. For breakfast he has granola and green tea, to which Carole Caplin converted him in 1994 – "One of her enduring legacies," he murmurs archly. He doesn't bother with lunch, though if he's in the Lords he likes to steal an apple from Baroness Royall's office, and in the afternoons his PA fetches him some kind of chocolate bar from Pret A Manger – "A sort of tiffin thing, it's very nice." If he has to attend a dinner he will stay for the first course, then make his speech and head home, where he hasn't cooked for as long as he can remember. The last actual meal that I can identify seems to have been consumed 48 hours earlier.
"Peter Mandelson talks exclusively about his anorexia!" an aide quips, provoking much amusement in the car. "My diet chiefly involves me being hungry," Mandelson concedes, sounding rather proud of the fact. "But it's having a good effect on me. It's making me, well, not lean and mean, as I was – just lean and hungry."
At the lunch, Mandelson is to present Blair with the Fenner Brockway medal, in honour of his services to Anglo-Indian relations. "Rather an irony, really," Mandelson muses mischievously, running over his speech. "I mean, Brockway was a great pacifist. Not very appropriate, is it? Shall I point that out? Or would it be naughty?" When we arrive I'm completely taken aback at the former PM's appearance, for he resembles a bad actor playing Blair in the grip of some awful psychiatric meltdown. He really does look quite mad, with his face all over the place – a grotesque dance of eyebrows and teeth, manically gurning away, every feature in permanent motion – beside which Mandelson looks like a vision of poised sophistication. There are warm greetings, and as I'm introduced Mandelson pretends I'm there to shadow Blair, provoking another great jerky grimace.
"Oh no," Blair tells him. "No, not me, I'm the past. You're the future."
Mandelson can't resist inserting his pacifist jibe into the presentation speech, although I get the feeling it amuses him more than Blair, and is clearly lost on most of the audience of Indian dignitaries. He's still chuckling about it when we head back to meet a delegation from McKinsey in his Westminster office, a Pugin-free model of efficient modernity adorned with a framed cover of last November's Prospect magazine, showing a smiling Mandelson under the headline: "I've come home."
"If you stay with me for the rest of the day," he offers casually, eating a grape, with an unmistakable hint of showing off, "you'll end up with Gordon."
Mandelson is routinely described as the unofficial deputy prime minister, and it's about the only job title he hasn't acquired since returning to government. As first secretary of state and business secretary, he attends 35 of the cabinet's 43 committees and subcommittees, dwarfing the 17 Prescott used to attend as deputy PM. With 11 ministers answering directly to him, Mandelson's department is the now the biggest in Whitehall – but to describe him as Brown's de facto deputy is if anything to understate his position. He is arguably more powerful today than the prime minister himself.
In part, his power derives from a ministerial brief straddling almost every policy area of government, and in part from colleagues' eagerness to consult his advice; Ed Miliband recently described him as a "benign uncle", which Mandelson quotes to me several times with evident pleasure. His defeat of the abortive coup in June certainly made him indispensable to Brown – though interestingly, when I ask why he fought so hard to save his boss on the night of James Purnell's resignation, he says, "Because I thought it was wrong to lose a second leader in the course of a parliament. I thought the voters would not embrace it," which is not exactly a tribute to the prime minister's unique personal strengths.
He does, of course, talk at length about Brown's qualities when prompted; "a big brain . . . decisive intellect . . . leader for these times . . . highly respected . . . will be vindicated in due course," none of which is terribly original, but Mandelson has a remarkable quality for appearing believable, even though what he often is is merely on message. Rather like Max Clifford, he has a gift for sounding as if he's always telling the truth, even when you know it's his job not to; he has somehow managed to retain the credibility of a disinterested outsider, despite having returned to the heart of government.
All of this makes him powerful – but none of it matters quite as much as one simple fact. Mandelson has acquired all this power by virtue of not wanting to be prime minister. As his great friend Robert Harris put it recently, "He thought it was all over and now he sees every day as a bonus." He never expected to be here, so he has everything to play for – and crucially, nothing to lose.
When he talks about bringing "a sense of playfulness" to government, it sounds relatively trivial, but in practice it provides him with formidable protection. On our second meeting, he explains that he has no mortgage on his £2.2m Regents Park townhouse, thanks to a windfall from the sale of an advertising agency he helped set up. "I haven't," he smiles mischievously, "always been lucky with mortgages, so perhaps it's just as well." An aide purses his lips, writes a note and passes it to Mandelson. "Oh dear," Mandelson pretends to whisper, "It's that look of disapproval." What does the note say? "Be serious. Stop pissing around," says Mandelson, looking hugely amused.
In a recent select committee, a Tory MP recalled that Margaret Thatcher once "famously made the remark that every prime minister needs a Willie [Whitelaw]. So you are the prime minister's Willie. Is that your role?" After a perfectly timed pause, Mandelson replied, "I'm tempted to extend the metaphor, but decorum – " bringing the house down. He teased a recent press gallery lunch with tales of being woken by "Jack tugging at my duvet", enjoying the hacks' consternation – who the hell is Jack? – before explaining, "Why, my dog, of course." Even his sexuality, once a semi-closeted source of, if not quite paranoia, then prickliness, is now a weapon in his armoury.
When I ask if he has ever been more powerful in his career, he looks annoyed. "I don't feel powerful or unpowerful. I refuse to pander to this ridiculous stereotype – and I mean that, I think it's just a rather lazy way of reporting politics. It's an excuse for not talking about policy. The Westminster lobby is incredibly gossipy; they don't actually understand politics, they only understand who's up and who's down." Which is true – but perhaps a bit rich coming from the man who more than anyone has personified the interpersonal political psychodramas of the last 20 years.
"Look," he retorts. "Who was it who wrote the policy review in the late 80s? Me. Who presided over the creation – who was one of the architects of New Labour, and of that change in policy that created a new political force in the 90s? Me. Who enjoyed driving new policy as a minister at the beginning of this government, and is now doing so again? Me. So I'm certainly not a policy blank. My big preoccupation is policy."
I'm sure it is – but whether he likes it or not, our big preoccupation with Mandelson has never been about policy. By all accounts he is a first-class minister, and in recent weeks the green shoots of a coherent government programme – on transport, climate change, social care – have been attributed to his influence. But the policy initiatives he's most closely associated with – the privatisation of Royal Mail and a proposed increase in tuition fees – are the least popular with the public. It is Mandelson's personality, not policy, which holds the country in his thrall.
If Labour lose the next election – and he puts their chances of winning at no better than evens – the big question is what will he do next? Should Blair become president of Europe, he doubts he'd go and work for him – "I don't think so, no." He talks admiringly, if vaguely, of the World Trade Organisation, and of "remaining somewhere in the world". But all the talk in Westminster is now of Mandelson returning to the Commons – to become the next leader of the Labour party.
In recent months Ladbrokes has cut the odds from 200-1 to 16-1. For every £1 staked on other frontrunners, £5 has been wagered on Mandelson, and the former chief whip Hilary Armstrong's consituency of North West Durham has already been mooted as a possible seat. An amendment to Jack Straw's constitutional reform bill will soon allow life peers to renounce their title, paving the way – if Mandelson wishes – for such a move.
Could it really happen? His aides dismiss the notion as silly-season nonsense. Mandelson was on holiday last week – in Corfu again, as a guest of Nat Rothschild, which after last year might suggest a certain devil-may-care confidence in itself – and was thus uncontactable. "The legislation has to get on to the statute book," is all he has said publicly on the matter so far. "I'm not anticipating any change for myself."
Even if he isn't, it will be intriguing to see what impact the speculation may have on his role in government, for it threatens to challenge the very core of his extraordinary power. When the cabinet reassembles in the autumn, will they still see a benign uncle – a kindly pussycat – sitting beside them at the table, or a new and formidable rival? Today, with Brown away on holiday, Mandelson takes charge of the country for a week. Less than a year ago, not one of them would ever have predicted even that.
CORRUPTION, CORRUPTION EVERYWHERE, PARTICULARLY IN CORFU
That Peter Mandelson, unelected but now acting Prime Minister and fresh from a yet another holiday on the Rothschild estate on Corfu, is to defend The City of London, the same City of London that with Wall Street tanked the global economy with their reckless gambling, from regulation designed to stop another credit crunch occuring again under similar circumstances!
In other words, unelected Mandelson wants his mates the Rothschilds and their ilk to be able to do it all again.
This has to be corruption.
How can an unelected man become Prime Minister then spend his holiday with the owners of the largest investment in the UK, RIT Capital?
Perhaps hedge funds are not that important to Lord Jacob. He ditched Atticus, run by his son Nat, from RIT's investment portfolio. How embarrassing.
So I wonder what Nat and Mandy were discussing that has driven unelected Mandelson to be so pro-City hedge funds?
I wonder.
I really, really wonder...
===============================================
From http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6789386.ece
Mandelson takes charge and resolves to reject Darling 'defeatism'
Suzy Jagger, Francis Elliott
Lord Mandelson will defend the City from tough European Union legislation during his week at the helm of government, The Times has learnt.
The First Secretary is dismayed at what he regards as Alistair Darling’s “defeatist” approach and has promised to redouble efforts to fight off proposals from Brussels, according to industry sources.
Lord Mandelson assumes control of the day-to-day running of the country today, three days after finding himself the Prime Minister’s stand-in while on holiday in Corfu, where he was a guest of the Rothschild banking family.
Close allies confirm that he wants to persuade the European Commission to change a directive that critics claim could all but destroy the multibillion-pound private equity and hedge fund industry. Specifically he is seeking to reduce the amount of capital that finance companies would have to set aside and to limit the information they would have to make public. Aides say that he will be lobbying to secure the changes he believes are necessary.
The issue threatens to dominate preparations for next month’s G20 summit in the US, undermining efforts to co-ordinate an economic recovery.
At the summit held in London this April, President Sarkozy of France and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said that hedge funds should be “regulated and controlled”. Many other European ministers believe that hedge funds were largely to blame for the severity of the credit crisis, exacerbating wild stock market swings at the height of the financial turmoil. They have also been suspicious of the secrecy with which private equity firms have operated. The European Commission subsequently drafted a directive that would force funds to maintain higher levels of capital, cap debts and disclose more information.
The draft regulation has alarmed the City. The pensions industry became the latest to sound the alarm last week, warning that the measures could take more than £21 billion out of European funds each year.
Until now the Treasury has led the Government’s response. Lord Myners, the City Minister, promised to “fight tooth and nail to make the necessary improvements” to the directive earlier this summer. But Lord Mandelson has privately indicated that he is to take a more hands-on approach, instructing industry figures to rally resources before a major lobbying operation this autumn. An ally said: “Peter is very concerned about the draft legislation coming out of Brussels. He is keen to make the Government’s voice heard.”
An industry source said: “Mandelson’s concern is that the Treasury has been defeatist and defensive. He wants to go on the offensive and fight for private equity and hedge funds, even though both are hardly popular businesses. He feels that the Treasury’s game plan is like trying to reduce the charge from murder to manslaughter. Mandelson wants to get rid of the charge.”
Lord Mandelson will spend much of his time at the helm in his new base in the Cabinet Office. His room is described by an insider as “moderately smaller than a tennis court”. Gordon Brown’s fixer — Baroness Vadera — has a neighbouring office.
Aides inist that the Business Secretary plans to limit his public interventions to “departmental issues” such as the future of Vauxhall plants and the operation of the car scrappage scheme.
The approach is in contrast to that of Harriet Harman, whose departure on holiday last Thursday night caught Lord Mandelson by surprise and who marked her own days at the helm with interventions outside her brief.
Behind the scenes, Lord Mandelson’s telephone diplomacy with senior European figures will take up much of his time. Although allies insist that there is no tension with Mr Darling over the issue, the Chancellor — whose own period of holiday cover follows directly — will be watching the Business Secretary’s interventions with interest.
Aides played down a report yesterday that Lord Mandelson was drawing up plans to discriminate against better-off students seeking university places. The Business Secretary had asked universities to come forward with their own plans to increase social mobility and did not favour a plan to lower the grade requirements for poorer students, they insisted.
Labour, meanwhile, seized on a report that the Tories were actively considering a plan to raise VAT to 20 per cent if they won the election.
William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, said that his party had no plans “in existence” for such a rate but added that it was impossible to predict what would have to be done in future Budgets. “You can’t ask George Osborne to write the 2010 Budget now, given the shocking state of the nation’s finances but also the rapidly changing state of those finances.”
The Tories strongly opposed last year Mr Darling’s temporary cut in the rate of VAT from 17.5 per cent to 15 per cent.
Who runs Britain?
The deputy Labour leader, Harriet Harman, took the first shift when the Prime Minister left for his holiday in Scotland. She took the reins from July 27 until last Thursday evening, when she departed on her own holiday.
Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, then took over — despite being in Corfu, apparently travelling without staff. He had dinner on Friday with the financier Lord Rothschild and the Hollywood producer David Geffen before working the phones until the early morning. He is due back today.
Next Monday Lord Mandelson will hand over to the Chancellor.
Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, will do the stint for the last week, until Gordon Brown returns to his post on August 31. On his blog Mr Straw has described himself as a “tad sensitive” to claims that MPs’ holidays are excessive.
In other words, unelected Mandelson wants his mates the Rothschilds and their ilk to be able to do it all again.
This has to be corruption.
How can an unelected man become Prime Minister then spend his holiday with the owners of the largest investment in the UK, RIT Capital?
Perhaps hedge funds are not that important to Lord Jacob. He ditched Atticus, run by his son Nat, from RIT's investment portfolio. How embarrassing.
So I wonder what Nat and Mandy were discussing that has driven unelected Mandelson to be so pro-City hedge funds?
I wonder.
I really, really wonder...
===============================================
From http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6789386.ece
Mandelson takes charge and resolves to reject Darling 'defeatism'
Suzy Jagger, Francis Elliott
Lord Mandelson will defend the City from tough European Union legislation during his week at the helm of government, The Times has learnt.
The First Secretary is dismayed at what he regards as Alistair Darling’s “defeatist” approach and has promised to redouble efforts to fight off proposals from Brussels, according to industry sources.
Lord Mandelson assumes control of the day-to-day running of the country today, three days after finding himself the Prime Minister’s stand-in while on holiday in Corfu, where he was a guest of the Rothschild banking family.
Close allies confirm that he wants to persuade the European Commission to change a directive that critics claim could all but destroy the multibillion-pound private equity and hedge fund industry. Specifically he is seeking to reduce the amount of capital that finance companies would have to set aside and to limit the information they would have to make public. Aides say that he will be lobbying to secure the changes he believes are necessary.
The issue threatens to dominate preparations for next month’s G20 summit in the US, undermining efforts to co-ordinate an economic recovery.
At the summit held in London this April, President Sarkozy of France and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said that hedge funds should be “regulated and controlled”. Many other European ministers believe that hedge funds were largely to blame for the severity of the credit crisis, exacerbating wild stock market swings at the height of the financial turmoil. They have also been suspicious of the secrecy with which private equity firms have operated. The European Commission subsequently drafted a directive that would force funds to maintain higher levels of capital, cap debts and disclose more information.
The draft regulation has alarmed the City. The pensions industry became the latest to sound the alarm last week, warning that the measures could take more than £21 billion out of European funds each year.
Until now the Treasury has led the Government’s response. Lord Myners, the City Minister, promised to “fight tooth and nail to make the necessary improvements” to the directive earlier this summer. But Lord Mandelson has privately indicated that he is to take a more hands-on approach, instructing industry figures to rally resources before a major lobbying operation this autumn. An ally said: “Peter is very concerned about the draft legislation coming out of Brussels. He is keen to make the Government’s voice heard.”
An industry source said: “Mandelson’s concern is that the Treasury has been defeatist and defensive. He wants to go on the offensive and fight for private equity and hedge funds, even though both are hardly popular businesses. He feels that the Treasury’s game plan is like trying to reduce the charge from murder to manslaughter. Mandelson wants to get rid of the charge.”
Lord Mandelson will spend much of his time at the helm in his new base in the Cabinet Office. His room is described by an insider as “moderately smaller than a tennis court”. Gordon Brown’s fixer — Baroness Vadera — has a neighbouring office.
Aides inist that the Business Secretary plans to limit his public interventions to “departmental issues” such as the future of Vauxhall plants and the operation of the car scrappage scheme.
The approach is in contrast to that of Harriet Harman, whose departure on holiday last Thursday night caught Lord Mandelson by surprise and who marked her own days at the helm with interventions outside her brief.
Behind the scenes, Lord Mandelson’s telephone diplomacy with senior European figures will take up much of his time. Although allies insist that there is no tension with Mr Darling over the issue, the Chancellor — whose own period of holiday cover follows directly — will be watching the Business Secretary’s interventions with interest.
Aides played down a report yesterday that Lord Mandelson was drawing up plans to discriminate against better-off students seeking university places. The Business Secretary had asked universities to come forward with their own plans to increase social mobility and did not favour a plan to lower the grade requirements for poorer students, they insisted.
Labour, meanwhile, seized on a report that the Tories were actively considering a plan to raise VAT to 20 per cent if they won the election.
William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, said that his party had no plans “in existence” for such a rate but added that it was impossible to predict what would have to be done in future Budgets. “You can’t ask George Osborne to write the 2010 Budget now, given the shocking state of the nation’s finances but also the rapidly changing state of those finances.”
The Tories strongly opposed last year Mr Darling’s temporary cut in the rate of VAT from 17.5 per cent to 15 per cent.
Who runs Britain?
The deputy Labour leader, Harriet Harman, took the first shift when the Prime Minister left for his holiday in Scotland. She took the reins from July 27 until last Thursday evening, when she departed on her own holiday.
Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, then took over — despite being in Corfu, apparently travelling without staff. He had dinner on Friday with the financier Lord Rothschild and the Hollywood producer David Geffen before working the phones until the early morning. He is due back today.
Next Monday Lord Mandelson will hand over to the Chancellor.
Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, will do the stint for the last week, until Gordon Brown returns to his post on August 31. On his blog Mr Straw has described himself as a “tad sensitive” to claims that MPs’ holidays are excessive.
Saturday, August 08, 2009
THEY REALLY COULDN'T GIVE A FLYING FCUK
Peter Mandelson is running the country via a Blackberry while being a guest of the Rothschilds in Corfu!?
You could not make this stuff up.
Gordon Brown is on holiday.
As is Harriet Harman.
Somehow Mandelson has been given the power to run the country while the other two go on their holiday at the same time.
But instead of staying in London for a only few days to fulfill his duties, who does Mandelson decide to join for some funshine? THE ROTHSCHILDS!
Where? CORFU!
So h does he intend to run the country from there? BLACKBERRY AND MOBILE PHONE!
Are communication networks there (a) always available, and (b) always reliable? NO! (but the Rothschild communication network is legendary)
You could not make this stuff up.
It is self evident who the above three named senior politicians serve : THEMSELVES.
They couldn't even agree on a plan for continuous government from London over a period of a few weeks.
And when Mandelson is given the opportunity he decides to live it up with the Rothschilds.
Many British citizens have lost their jobs and homes due to the reckless gambling of bankers, who we then bailed out saddling us with the decades of tax rises and cuts in public services.
And they can't organise their holidays so that no one is in Downing Street if anything occurs!
And is Nat Rothschild aware of the situation? If so, does he give a flying fcuk?
==================================
From http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205049/Lapping-sun-super-rich-friends--Mandy-man-whos-supposed-running-country.html
Lapping up the sun with his super-rich friends... Mandy, the man who's supposed to be running the country
By Tim Shipman and Sam Greenhill
Last updated at 3:49 AM on 08th August 2009
Whether mixing with the super-yacht set, or strolling poolside in Corfu, this was Lord Mandelson running Britain yesterday.
The Business Secretary took over the reins of power from Harriet Harman - but refused to cut short his holiday with the rich and famous on the Greek island.
He chose to oversee Whitehall business from 1,300 miles away, armed with little more than an official BlackBerry, his own mobile phone and a pair of swimming goggles.
Lord Mandelson is a guest of financier Nat Rothschild at his 30-acre estate on the north-east tip of Corfu. It is a repeat of his notorious visit 12 months ago, before his controversial return to the Cabinet.
You could not make this stuff up.
Gordon Brown is on holiday.
As is Harriet Harman.
Somehow Mandelson has been given the power to run the country while the other two go on their holiday at the same time.
But instead of staying in London for a only few days to fulfill his duties, who does Mandelson decide to join for some funshine? THE ROTHSCHILDS!
Where? CORFU!
So h does he intend to run the country from there? BLACKBERRY AND MOBILE PHONE!
Are communication networks there (a) always available, and (b) always reliable? NO! (but the Rothschild communication network is legendary)
You could not make this stuff up.
It is self evident who the above three named senior politicians serve : THEMSELVES.
They couldn't even agree on a plan for continuous government from London over a period of a few weeks.
And when Mandelson is given the opportunity he decides to live it up with the Rothschilds.
Many British citizens have lost their jobs and homes due to the reckless gambling of bankers, who we then bailed out saddling us with the decades of tax rises and cuts in public services.
And they can't organise their holidays so that no one is in Downing Street if anything occurs!
And is Nat Rothschild aware of the situation? If so, does he give a flying fcuk?
==================================
From http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205049/Lapping-sun-super-rich-friends--Mandy-man-whos-supposed-running-country.html
Lapping up the sun with his super-rich friends... Mandy, the man who's supposed to be running the country
By Tim Shipman and Sam Greenhill
Last updated at 3:49 AM on 08th August 2009
Whether mixing with the super-yacht set, or strolling poolside in Corfu, this was Lord Mandelson running Britain yesterday.
The Business Secretary took over the reins of power from Harriet Harman - but refused to cut short his holiday with the rich and famous on the Greek island.
He chose to oversee Whitehall business from 1,300 miles away, armed with little more than an official BlackBerry, his own mobile phone and a pair of swimming goggles.
Lord Mandelson is a guest of financier Nat Rothschild at his 30-acre estate on the north-east tip of Corfu. It is a repeat of his notorious visit 12 months ago, before his controversial return to the Cabinet.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
HARRY PATCH R.I.P (DESPITE THE CYNICAL USE OF YOUR DEATH)
I am sick, really sick, of the media's cynical use of the death and funeral of Harry Patch.
Patch was the last living man who fought in WW1. His death symbolically severs a living link between us to the useless slaughter of the trenches.
I first came across Patch when I bought a CD called World War 1 in Colour narrated by Kenneth Branagh. That CD, like 99.9% of everything I've read or seen about WW1, blamed Germany for WW1.
I was sorely tempted to send Patch a CD of my book/website, but I did not for fear of giving him a heart attack which may have been brought on by the anger and rage I imagine could have been provoked by revelations that
1. WW1 was engineered and financed by elite elements of British society at the top of Global Freemasonry
2. WW1 was engineered for the purpose of
(a) grabbing Palestine from the Ottomans to fill it with Jews to enetually provoke global terrorism and war in the Middle East
(b) destroying Europe in preparation for the Nazi EU
(c) provoking a revolution in Russia for the insertion of another genocidal tyrant so that a Nazi EU and a Communist Russia could fight a bloodier WW2 in to result in a world-government-in-waiting, the UN.
Much is being made in the media of Patch's opposition to war, the same media that yesterday printed pro-war stories to invade Iraq and Afghanistan and in support of Israel's brutal oppression of the Palestinians, and tomorrow will print pro-war stories in favour of war against Iran and Russia.
Patch was the last living man who fought in WW1. His death symbolically severs a living link between us to the useless slaughter of the trenches.
I first came across Patch when I bought a CD called World War 1 in Colour narrated by Kenneth Branagh. That CD, like 99.9% of everything I've read or seen about WW1, blamed Germany for WW1.
I was sorely tempted to send Patch a CD of my book/website, but I did not for fear of giving him a heart attack which may have been brought on by the anger and rage I imagine could have been provoked by revelations that
1. WW1 was engineered and financed by elite elements of British society at the top of Global Freemasonry
2. WW1 was engineered for the purpose of
(a) grabbing Palestine from the Ottomans to fill it with Jews to enetually provoke global terrorism and war in the Middle East
(b) destroying Europe in preparation for the Nazi EU
(c) provoking a revolution in Russia for the insertion of another genocidal tyrant so that a Nazi EU and a Communist Russia could fight a bloodier WW2 in to result in a world-government-in-waiting, the UN.
Much is being made in the media of Patch's opposition to war, the same media that yesterday printed pro-war stories to invade Iraq and Afghanistan and in support of Israel's brutal oppression of the Palestinians, and tomorrow will print pro-war stories in favour of war against Iran and Russia.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
LOVE IN AN UNPREDICTABLE CLIMATE
It doesn't matter if The Meteorological Office or any other office can't predict the weather days in advance, despite all the computational power and resources at their disposal.
We can predict with 100% confidence that love will always exist.
Unless they get that microchip implant inside you, then you can forget it!
We can predict with 100% confidence that love will always exist.
Unless they get that microchip implant inside you, then you can forget it!
DID BRUNO PROVOKE THE GAY SHOOTING IN TEL AVIV?
Sacha Baron Cohen's camp character Bruno portrayed a Palestinian charity worker called Ayman Abu Aita as a terrorist member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Abu Aita intends to sue for defamation, and Baron Cohen has stepped up his security after the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade threatened his life.
I haven't seen this link being made anywhere, and I'm not saying that any member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade was involved in the shooting, but it is plausible that an enraged member of the Arab Palestinian community provoked by Baron Cohen's oh so gay character's portrayal of a Palestinian charity worker as a terrorist could have been too much on top of all the shit that Israel dumps on the Palestinians.
I haven't seen this link being made anywhere, and I'm not saying that any member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade was involved in the shooting, but it is plausible that an enraged member of the Arab Palestinian community provoked by Baron Cohen's oh so gay character's portrayal of a Palestinian charity worker as a terrorist could have been too much on top of all the shit that Israel dumps on the Palestinians.
Monday, August 03, 2009
THE TIMES SAYS IRAN JUST ONE YEAR FROM MAKING A NUKE
The Times and The Daily Telegraph are two of the biggest warmongering media outlets on the planet.
In fact, The Times is so pro-Israel (as is the BBC) that I don't understand why they don't play Hatikva every time you open a page on their website.
Anyway, this allegation that Iran is just one year away from a nuke is desperation. Possibilities are
1. this is more warmongering because A Clean Break has not been fully completed and is on the brink of failure and public exposure,
2. the Times is telling Iran how to make a nuke,
3. there appears to be some detente between the USA and Iran, and elements in the British establishment want to put a wedge between them so that war can be manufactured more easily (and this could explain why the US media are now running the Obama birth certificate story, to pressure Obama or possibly ditch him and put uberZionist CFR Biden in power (which could have been the plan all along because Obama is not CFR)).
Personally, I don't believe a word The Times prints.
And who are these intelligence sources anyway? Why have they only now released this information? They wouldn't belong to Mossad or another Israeli or possibly British agency, would they?
Let's face a few facts.
Iran, with Lebanon and Iraq, was named in A Clean Break as a target for Israeli aggression.
Iran, with Iraq and North Korea, was named as a member of The Axis of Evil.
Iran is the only nation in the Middle East and Caspian without a USA military base.
Iran has been the target of Western skulduggery for decades.
But who has the only nuclear arsenal in the region and has also not signed upto the NPT? Israel.
==============================
From http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6736785.ece
From The Times
August 3, 2009
Iran is ready to build an N-bomb - it is just waiting for the Ayatollah's order
James Hider, Richard Beeston in Tel Aviv and Michael Evans, Defence Editor
Iran has perfected the technology to create and detonate a nuclear warhead and is merely awaiting the word from its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to produce its first bomb, Western intelligence sources have told The Times.
The sources said that Iran completed a research programme to create weaponised uranium in the summer of 2003 and that it could feasibly make a bomb within a year of an order from its Supreme Leader.
A US National Intelligence Estimate two years ago concluded that Iran had ended its nuclear arms research programme in 2003 because of the threat from the American invasion of Iraq. But intelligence sources have told The Times that Tehran had halted the research because it had achieved its aim — to find a way of detonating a warhead that could be launched on its long-range Shehab-3 missiles.
They said that, should Ayatollah Khamenei approve the building of a nuclear device, it would take six months to enrich enough uranium and another six months to assemble the warhead. The Iranian Defence Ministry has been running a covert nuclear research department for years, employing hundreds of scientists, researchers and metallurgists in a multibillion-dollar programme to develop nuclear technology alongside the civilian nuclear programme.
“The main thing (in 2003) was the lack of fissile material, so it was best to slow it down,” the sources said. “We think that the leader himself decided back then (to halt the programme), after the good results.”
Iran’s scientists have been trying to master a method of detonating a bomb known as the “multipoint initiation system” — wrapping highly enriched uranium in high explosives and then detonating it. The sources said that the Iranian Defence Ministry had used a secret internal agency called Amad (“Supply” in Farsi), led by Mohsin Fakhri Zadeh, a physics professor and senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Council.
The system operates by creating a series of explosive grooves on a metal hemisphere covering the uranium, which links explosives-filled holes opening onto a layer of high explosives enveloping the uranium. By detonating the explosives at either pole at the same time, the method ensures simultaneous impact around the sphere to achieve critical density.
“If the Supreme Leader takes the decision (to build a bomb), we assess they have to enrich low-enriched uranium to highly-enriched uranium at the Natanz plant, which could take six months, depending on how many centrifuges are operating. We don’t know if the decision was made yet,” said the intelligence sources, adding that Iran could have created smaller, secret facilities, other than those at the heavily guarded bunker at Natanz to develop materials for a first bomb. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency only keep tabs on fissile material produced at monitored sites and not the number of centrifuges that Iran has built.
Washington has given Iran until next month to open talks on resolving the nuclear crisis, although hopes of any constructive engagement have dimmed since the regime’s crackdown on pro-reformist protesters after June’s disputed presidential elections.
Ehud Barak, Israel’s Defence Minister, last week reiterated that a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities was still an option, should the talks fail. Israeli officials estimate that a raid on Natanz and a nuclear facility at Arak, in central Iran, would set Iran’s nuclear programme back by two to three years.
An Israeli official said that Iran had poured billions of dollars over three decades into a two-pronged “master plan” to build a nuclear bomb. He said that Iran had enriched 1,010kg of uranium to 3.9 per cent, which would be sufficient for 30kg of highly enriched uranium at 95 per cent. About 30kg is needed to build one bomb.
British intelligence services are familiar with the secret information about Iran’s experiments, sources at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said. Although British agencies did not have their own “independent evidence” that Iran had successfully tested the explosive component of a nuclear warhead, they said there was no reason to doubt the assessment.
If Iran’s leader does decide to build a bomb, he will have two choices, intelligence sources said. One would be to take the high-risk approach of kicking out the international inspectors and making a sprint to complete Iran’s first bomb, as the country weathered international sanctions or possible air strikes in the ensuing crisis. The other would be to covertly develop the materials needed for an arsenal in secret desert facilities.
Last week, during a series of high-level US visits to Israel, officials outlined Washington’s plans to step up sanctions on Iran, should Tehran fail to agree on talks. Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, and General James Jones, the National Security Adviser, said that Iran had until the end of next month, when the UN General Assembly is to meet, to make a positive move towards engagement.
If Tehran fails to respond, Washington aims to build a tough international coalition to impose harsh sanctions focusing on petroleum products — an area where Iran is particularly vulnerable because it sends almost all of its crude abroad for refinement.
Experts believe that the unrest of the summer will make Iran particularly vulnerable to sanctions. They would also hit the Revolutionary Guards Council, which finances its operations by running a huge conglomerate of international companies, rather than drawing directly from state coffers.
In fact, The Times is so pro-Israel (as is the BBC) that I don't understand why they don't play Hatikva every time you open a page on their website.
Anyway, this allegation that Iran is just one year away from a nuke is desperation. Possibilities are
1. this is more warmongering because A Clean Break has not been fully completed and is on the brink of failure and public exposure,
2. the Times is telling Iran how to make a nuke,
3. there appears to be some detente between the USA and Iran, and elements in the British establishment want to put a wedge between them so that war can be manufactured more easily (and this could explain why the US media are now running the Obama birth certificate story, to pressure Obama or possibly ditch him and put uberZionist CFR Biden in power (which could have been the plan all along because Obama is not CFR)).
Personally, I don't believe a word The Times prints.
And who are these intelligence sources anyway? Why have they only now released this information? They wouldn't belong to Mossad or another Israeli or possibly British agency, would they?
Let's face a few facts.
Iran, with Lebanon and Iraq, was named in A Clean Break as a target for Israeli aggression.
Iran, with Iraq and North Korea, was named as a member of The Axis of Evil.
Iran is the only nation in the Middle East and Caspian without a USA military base.
Iran has been the target of Western skulduggery for decades.
But who has the only nuclear arsenal in the region and has also not signed upto the NPT? Israel.
==============================
From http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6736785.ece
From The Times
August 3, 2009
Iran is ready to build an N-bomb - it is just waiting for the Ayatollah's order
James Hider, Richard Beeston in Tel Aviv and Michael Evans, Defence Editor
Iran has perfected the technology to create and detonate a nuclear warhead and is merely awaiting the word from its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to produce its first bomb, Western intelligence sources have told The Times.
The sources said that Iran completed a research programme to create weaponised uranium in the summer of 2003 and that it could feasibly make a bomb within a year of an order from its Supreme Leader.
A US National Intelligence Estimate two years ago concluded that Iran had ended its nuclear arms research programme in 2003 because of the threat from the American invasion of Iraq. But intelligence sources have told The Times that Tehran had halted the research because it had achieved its aim — to find a way of detonating a warhead that could be launched on its long-range Shehab-3 missiles.
They said that, should Ayatollah Khamenei approve the building of a nuclear device, it would take six months to enrich enough uranium and another six months to assemble the warhead. The Iranian Defence Ministry has been running a covert nuclear research department for years, employing hundreds of scientists, researchers and metallurgists in a multibillion-dollar programme to develop nuclear technology alongside the civilian nuclear programme.
“The main thing (in 2003) was the lack of fissile material, so it was best to slow it down,” the sources said. “We think that the leader himself decided back then (to halt the programme), after the good results.”
Iran’s scientists have been trying to master a method of detonating a bomb known as the “multipoint initiation system” — wrapping highly enriched uranium in high explosives and then detonating it. The sources said that the Iranian Defence Ministry had used a secret internal agency called Amad (“Supply” in Farsi), led by Mohsin Fakhri Zadeh, a physics professor and senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Council.
The system operates by creating a series of explosive grooves on a metal hemisphere covering the uranium, which links explosives-filled holes opening onto a layer of high explosives enveloping the uranium. By detonating the explosives at either pole at the same time, the method ensures simultaneous impact around the sphere to achieve critical density.
“If the Supreme Leader takes the decision (to build a bomb), we assess they have to enrich low-enriched uranium to highly-enriched uranium at the Natanz plant, which could take six months, depending on how many centrifuges are operating. We don’t know if the decision was made yet,” said the intelligence sources, adding that Iran could have created smaller, secret facilities, other than those at the heavily guarded bunker at Natanz to develop materials for a first bomb. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency only keep tabs on fissile material produced at monitored sites and not the number of centrifuges that Iran has built.
Washington has given Iran until next month to open talks on resolving the nuclear crisis, although hopes of any constructive engagement have dimmed since the regime’s crackdown on pro-reformist protesters after June’s disputed presidential elections.
Ehud Barak, Israel’s Defence Minister, last week reiterated that a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities was still an option, should the talks fail. Israeli officials estimate that a raid on Natanz and a nuclear facility at Arak, in central Iran, would set Iran’s nuclear programme back by two to three years.
An Israeli official said that Iran had poured billions of dollars over three decades into a two-pronged “master plan” to build a nuclear bomb. He said that Iran had enriched 1,010kg of uranium to 3.9 per cent, which would be sufficient for 30kg of highly enriched uranium at 95 per cent. About 30kg is needed to build one bomb.
British intelligence services are familiar with the secret information about Iran’s experiments, sources at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said. Although British agencies did not have their own “independent evidence” that Iran had successfully tested the explosive component of a nuclear warhead, they said there was no reason to doubt the assessment.
If Iran’s leader does decide to build a bomb, he will have two choices, intelligence sources said. One would be to take the high-risk approach of kicking out the international inspectors and making a sprint to complete Iran’s first bomb, as the country weathered international sanctions or possible air strikes in the ensuing crisis. The other would be to covertly develop the materials needed for an arsenal in secret desert facilities.
Last week, during a series of high-level US visits to Israel, officials outlined Washington’s plans to step up sanctions on Iran, should Tehran fail to agree on talks. Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, and General James Jones, the National Security Adviser, said that Iran had until the end of next month, when the UN General Assembly is to meet, to make a positive move towards engagement.
If Tehran fails to respond, Washington aims to build a tough international coalition to impose harsh sanctions focusing on petroleum products — an area where Iran is particularly vulnerable because it sends almost all of its crude abroad for refinement.
Experts believe that the unrest of the summer will make Iran particularly vulnerable to sanctions. They would also hit the Revolutionary Guards Council, which finances its operations by running a huge conglomerate of international companies, rather than drawing directly from state coffers.
FT EXPOSES THE COMPLETE CORRUPTION OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE
The Financial Times has today exposed the complete corruption of The Federal Reserve of The United States.
In a report entitled 'Wall Street profits from trades with Fed' the FT states that "Wall Street banks are reaping outsized profits by trading with the Federal Reserve, raising questions about whether the central bank is driving hard enough bargains in its dealings with private sector counterparties".
This report also exposes the complete corruption of the FT because the article does not state that the Federal Reserve is owned by those same Wall Street banks that are reaping such massive profits, but instead continues the charade that the Federal Reserve is a branch of the Executive when in fact it is simply a privately owned bank.
So, you may ask, why are the people of the United States not rioting in the streets? Because most of them don't know the system. It's all a big fraud.
Just like here in the UK.
"It is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." - Henry Ford
===========================================
From http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e84383dc-7f8c-11de-85dc-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
Wall Street profits from trades with Fed
By Henny Sender in New York
Published: August 2 2009 23:04 | Last updated: August 2 2009 23:04
Wall Street banks are reaping outsized profits by trading with the Federal Reserve, raising questions about whether the central bank is driving hard enough bargains in its dealings with private sector counterparties, officials and industry executives say.
The Fed has emerged as one of Wall Street’s biggest customers during the financial crisis, buying massive amounts of securities to help stabilise the markets. In some cases, such as the market for mortgage-backed securities, the Fed buys more bonds than any other party.
However, the Fed is not a typical market player. In the interests of transparency, it often announces its intention to buy particular securities in advance. A former Fed official said this strategy enables banks to sell these securities to the Fed at an inflated price.
The resulting profits represent a relatively hidden form of support for banks, and Wall Street has geared up to take advantage. Barclays, for example, e-mails clients with news on the Fed’s balance sheet, detailing the share of the market in particular securities held by the Fed.
“You can make big money trading with the government,” said an executive at one leading investment management firm. “The government is a huge buyer and seller and Wall Street has all the pricing power.”
A former official of the US Treasury and the Fed said the situation had reached the point that “everyone games them. Their transparency hurts them. Everyone picks their pocket.”
The central bank’s approach to securities purchases was defended by William Dudley, president of the New York Fed, which is responsible for market operations. “We believe that opting for transparency is a greater good,” he said. “If we didn’t have transparency, we’d be criticised on other grounds.”
However, another official familiar with the matter said the central bank “has heard that dealers load up on securities to sell to the Fed. There is concern, but policy goals override other considerations.”
Barney Frank, chairman of the House financial services committee, said the potential profiteering may be part of the price for stabilising the financial system.
“You can’t rescue the credit system without benefiting some of the people in it.” Still, Mr Frank said Congress would be watching. “We don’t want the Fed to drive the hardest possible bargain, but we don’t want them to get ripped off.”
The growing Fed activity has coincided with a general widening of market spreads – the difference between bid and offer prices – as the number of market participants declines. Wider spreads enable banks, in their capacity as market-makers, to make more profit.
Larry Fink, chief executive of money manager BlackRock, has described Wall Street’s trading profits as “luxurious”, reflecting the banks’ ability to take advantage of diminished competition.
“Bid-offer spreads have remained unusually wide, notwithstanding the normalisation of financial markets,” said Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive of fund manager Pimco in Newport Beach, California.
Spreads narrowed dramatically during the years of the credit bubble.
Brad Hintz, an analyst at AllianceBernstein, said he doubted that spreads would ever return to those levels, a development that could be pleasing to the Fed.
“They want to help Wall Street make money,” he said.
Additional reporting by Brooke Masters in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
In a report entitled 'Wall Street profits from trades with Fed' the FT states that "Wall Street banks are reaping outsized profits by trading with the Federal Reserve, raising questions about whether the central bank is driving hard enough bargains in its dealings with private sector counterparties".
This report also exposes the complete corruption of the FT because the article does not state that the Federal Reserve is owned by those same Wall Street banks that are reaping such massive profits, but instead continues the charade that the Federal Reserve is a branch of the Executive when in fact it is simply a privately owned bank.
So, you may ask, why are the people of the United States not rioting in the streets? Because most of them don't know the system. It's all a big fraud.
Just like here in the UK.
"It is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." - Henry Ford
===========================================
From http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e84383dc-7f8c-11de-85dc-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
Wall Street profits from trades with Fed
By Henny Sender in New York
Published: August 2 2009 23:04 | Last updated: August 2 2009 23:04
Wall Street banks are reaping outsized profits by trading with the Federal Reserve, raising questions about whether the central bank is driving hard enough bargains in its dealings with private sector counterparties, officials and industry executives say.
The Fed has emerged as one of Wall Street’s biggest customers during the financial crisis, buying massive amounts of securities to help stabilise the markets. In some cases, such as the market for mortgage-backed securities, the Fed buys more bonds than any other party.
However, the Fed is not a typical market player. In the interests of transparency, it often announces its intention to buy particular securities in advance. A former Fed official said this strategy enables banks to sell these securities to the Fed at an inflated price.
The resulting profits represent a relatively hidden form of support for banks, and Wall Street has geared up to take advantage. Barclays, for example, e-mails clients with news on the Fed’s balance sheet, detailing the share of the market in particular securities held by the Fed.
“You can make big money trading with the government,” said an executive at one leading investment management firm. “The government is a huge buyer and seller and Wall Street has all the pricing power.”
A former official of the US Treasury and the Fed said the situation had reached the point that “everyone games them. Their transparency hurts them. Everyone picks their pocket.”
The central bank’s approach to securities purchases was defended by William Dudley, president of the New York Fed, which is responsible for market operations. “We believe that opting for transparency is a greater good,” he said. “If we didn’t have transparency, we’d be criticised on other grounds.”
However, another official familiar with the matter said the central bank “has heard that dealers load up on securities to sell to the Fed. There is concern, but policy goals override other considerations.”
Barney Frank, chairman of the House financial services committee, said the potential profiteering may be part of the price for stabilising the financial system.
“You can’t rescue the credit system without benefiting some of the people in it.” Still, Mr Frank said Congress would be watching. “We don’t want the Fed to drive the hardest possible bargain, but we don’t want them to get ripped off.”
The growing Fed activity has coincided with a general widening of market spreads – the difference between bid and offer prices – as the number of market participants declines. Wider spreads enable banks, in their capacity as market-makers, to make more profit.
Larry Fink, chief executive of money manager BlackRock, has described Wall Street’s trading profits as “luxurious”, reflecting the banks’ ability to take advantage of diminished competition.
“Bid-offer spreads have remained unusually wide, notwithstanding the normalisation of financial markets,” said Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive of fund manager Pimco in Newport Beach, California.
Spreads narrowed dramatically during the years of the credit bubble.
Brad Hintz, an analyst at AllianceBernstein, said he doubted that spreads would ever return to those levels, a development that could be pleasing to the Fed.
“They want to help Wall Street make money,” he said.
Additional reporting by Brooke Masters in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Sunday, August 02, 2009
FATHER OF GREENHOUSE EFFECT WAS A EUGENICIST?
No.
It can't be true, can it?
The father of the theory of the greenhouse effect, Svante Arrhenius, was a member of the board of The Swedish Society for Racial Hygiene, and was actively promoting eugenics in his later life?
And he also believed that if global warming did occur that it would be beneficial to mankind?
So why would someone write the following?
"In searching for a new enemy to unite us [all of humanity], we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. In their totality and in their interactions, these phenomena constitute a common threat which as the enemy, we fall into the trap about which we have already warned, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy then is humanity itself."
--The First Global Revolution: A Report by the Council of The Club of Rome, by Alexander King & Bertrand Schneider
It's simple. They want a world government, preferably by peaceful means, but as we have seen occur twice in the 20th century they are prepared to engineer and finance world wars.
"We shall have World Government, whether or not you like it. The only question is whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or consent." - James Warburg, son of Paul Warburg, the architect of the greatest hoax perpertrated on mankind, The Federal Reserve, which has bailed out Wall Street and The City of London with trillions of public money.
It can't be true, can it?
The father of the theory of the greenhouse effect, Svante Arrhenius, was a member of the board of The Swedish Society for Racial Hygiene, and was actively promoting eugenics in his later life?
And he also believed that if global warming did occur that it would be beneficial to mankind?
So why would someone write the following?
"In searching for a new enemy to unite us [all of humanity], we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. In their totality and in their interactions, these phenomena constitute a common threat which as the enemy, we fall into the trap about which we have already warned, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy then is humanity itself."
--The First Global Revolution: A Report by the Council of The Club of Rome, by Alexander King & Bertrand Schneider
It's simple. They want a world government, preferably by peaceful means, but as we have seen occur twice in the 20th century they are prepared to engineer and finance world wars.
"We shall have World Government, whether or not you like it. The only question is whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or consent." - James Warburg, son of Paul Warburg, the architect of the greatest hoax perpertrated on mankind, The Federal Reserve, which has bailed out Wall Street and The City of London with trillions of public money.