Catalan separatists and Scots ...

... and the other disparate groups in European Union, a message ...

... there is no open door.

The recent march and rally in Barcelona used the slogan ...

"Catalonia: a new European state". 

But a European Union spokesman in Brussels pointed out that, were Catalonia to secede from Spain, it would have to leave the EU and could rejoin only if it met the economic criteria and if other member states voted unanimously in favour of its membership. (The Guardian, 10 Sep 2011).

... yet another lie by the separatist agenda debunked.

So the message to Alex Salmond is "... the list of your lies grows ever longer."  No honesty for the Scots people.

... the importance of the common ...

 ... good, the common weal, in Wales, Germany, Hong Kong and the USA.

In Wales we have Jac who considers the common weal to be a narrow view of the xenophobic, the intense and irrational dislike or fear of people from England ...

In Germany there are the considerations of the Euro, is the financial rescue fund considered crucial to the future of the euro to get the green light.  A poll published on Friday on Spiegel Online showed that 54% of Germans were in favour of the court blocking the legislation, reflecting the degree to which public opposition to bailouts is increasing.  Is the common weal the good of Germany, or has the definition extended to people of one country extending their largess to other nations ?  Do the German people see themselves as kin with the peoples of Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, France .......


In Hong Kong it's very serious, will Beijing allow universal suffrage, even though it doesn't exist as a democratic process in China itself, universal suffrage has little value in a single party state.  The effect of extending democracy to Hong Kong which has a semi-autonomous status in China, is to open the doors to a "China Spring", in effect the demise of Communist China.  When  thousands of demonstrators protest against the plan for mandatory patriotism lessons, you know there is trouble ahead ! 

Whilst in the USA the battle between Republican and Democrats will be resolved when the peoples who vote decide who are the stakeholders, is it all the peoples of the states, or just a small group who hold the wealth, an important consideration when considering the Common Good, and lets not forget the prayers !

Back to Britain and there is a kind of hush, our politicians are driven by opinion polls rather than the Common Good, it's quite pathetic.

Blind, deaf and dumb, pathetic ..

... politics that has a system where regimes that suppress its people are allowed to condone the genocide of the Syria people by applying a veto on civilization.

... student Zaher Shehab has watched, helpless, as the uprising in Syria has torn his country apart. Then came news of a devastating attack on his family, writes Laura Pitel for today's Times

It was a Friday afternoon at the end of term. He should have been working in the university lab. Instead Zaher Shehab was standing in a corridor of the pharmacy faculty, following his mother’s funeral on his mobile phone. He had just lost seven members of his family in a single attack in Syria. His mother, Mayssa, his younger brother, two uncles, one aunt and two cousins had all been killed. They were working in their fields in a suburb of Damascus when they were hit. Two thousand miles away, the Bath University student could do nothing but try to absorb the news, powerless to help. “I can’t remember what I felt because really at that moment I couldn’t feel anything,” he says, his voice calm. “My brain stopped thinking. I couldn’t imagine what had happened. All of them together: my mother, my brother. Everything changed on that day.”

The polite, gently spoken 28-year-old arrived in Britain in 2010 to study for a PhD in pharmacy practice. A top-class student, he came on a scholarship paid for by the Syrian government, and was planning to return to Damascus to teach. But in November, Syrian intelligence snooped on his online exchanges and found anti-regime messages to friends. His funding was withdrawn. The university hardship fund and the Wellcome Trust stepped in. Without them he would have been forced to drop out.

His last trip home was shortly after the start of the uprising, which erupted in Syria last March on the back of turmoil across the Arab world. It was a surprise visit that delighted his parents, particularly his beloved mother. But a brush with the security forces, when he came close to being arrested, has left him unable to go back. Instead he found himself following developments in Syria from the incongruous setting of a West Country spa town.


While fellow students worried about deadlines and grades, over the past year and a half he has watched his country descend into violence. As the movement against President Assad has accelerated, he has seen protests sweep through his town, Daraya, and friends and neighbours killed. As the turmoil has dragged on the bloodshed has grown, with children massacred, whole districts destroyed and the estimated death toll topping 17,000.

Then, on July 6, the conf lict knocked on his family’s front door. He had just that is to blame. “We don’t know the kind of rocket or shelling — if it came from tank fire or helicopters,” he says. “No one could tell me if the rockets came from this side or that side. But for sure, 100 per cent we know that it is the Assad regime that owns these rockets and these tanks.”

Were they targeted deliberately or unlucky victims of random fire? It’s a question he will probably never be able to answer. The family were not politically active — they spent all their time working on the farm where they lived a simple life, growing tomatoes, aubergines and salads. “But in Syria there is no grey, only black and white,” he says. “If you are not with the government, they consider you against them.”

Friends and colleagues have been supportive and kind, putting him up in their homes so that he does not sleep alone. But they cannot compensate for being so far from Syria. “It is a hard time,” he says. “I can’t say anything else. It’s hard because I’m here, far away. I couldn’t do anything to support them. It’s difficult when one person dies ............

I guess we have to send a big thank you to Russia and China ......

...... and a big sigh of hopelessness when we see the antics of our world politicians unable or unwilling to say NO to the tyrants, thanks to the rump of civilization, UK, USA, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, India, Australia .... et al.

 

... Catalonia, an example why separatism is bullshit ...

... in the 21st century.

There is no accounting for failure, businesses fail, politics fail, people fail, but when you fail to the tune of ...

... €48 billion (£ 37 billion)

,,, and there are only 7.5 million people it gets tricky !

A report by Iain Dey of the Sunday Times paints a very bleak picture :

WORLD markets are set for a rocky week after it emerged yesterday that a second Spanish region is on the brink of asking Madrid for help.  Catalonia, the region that includes Barcelona, is said to be days away from requesting an emergency loan. It is unable to pay the interest on € 48 billion (£ 37 billion) of debts, according to reports.
Markets tumbled on Friday after a rescue deal for Valencia — site of some of the worst excesses of Spain’s property boom — was unveiled.  An emergency loan of an undisclosed size will be made by the Spanish government via an €18 billion rescue fund set up two weeks ago to deal with struggling regions. Spanish reports claim that six other regions may need help.
Spanish shares suffered their biggest one-day drop in two years on the back of the news, falling 5.8%. Germany’s Dax dropped 1.8% and France’s Cac plunged by 2.1%. The FTSE 100 closed more than 1% down on Friday at 5,655.04. The interest rate on Spain’s 10-year bonds jumped to 7.28%, a level that most economists say is unsustainable.

News of the Valencia bailout came as eurozone ministers ratified a bailout worth up to €100 billion for Spanish banks. The final figure will be known only after a review of the loan books is completed by the auditors PWC, Deloitte, Ernst & Young and KPMG.

And the corruption that is politics ...

Sources close to the review claim that Spain’s central bank is pressuring the auditors to ensure that they produce nothing that could even hint at the possibility that Spain’s three main lenders will need capital. The government has insisted that Santander, BBVA and La Caixa are sound.

I wonder if similar words were used in Greece when they were preparing to join the Euro ....

Fortunately for the poor saps of Catalonia the Spanish people as a whole nation, all 47 million of them, will pool their resources, and go without during the hard times, to pay the exorbitant 7.28% interest rate and bail out the devolved administration, and there are another six other regions needing help, poor Spain .......

So when the separatist agenda talk the talk that small is best, think of Spain, we all share the incompetence that is politics, and when we have to share the legacy of incompetence, the more the merrier is a better clarion call, think of Catalonia.  To see the illusions of Grandier, look no further than the Welsh Assembly!

behind every ...

... great fortune lies a great crime, Honoré de Balzac.


And what a crime, $21 trillion (£13tn) crime, a crime as big as the combined economies of the USA and Japan.  Fortunes created on the backs of populations pushed beyond the reach of taxation, beyond the reach of the societies that created these buckets of coin hoarded by such a very few people.

In the USA there is the Apple Corporation that holds its wealth offshore, it avoids paying the taxes that could pay for healthcare for the poorest in its society, in the UK we have similar crimes where companies and individuals establish off-shore vehicles to avoid passing back to society a share of the wealth created by the little people in the form of taxes.

The misconception is the owners of capital are wholly entitled to every penny of the surplus (profit) a business makes, this conveniently avoids any responsibility for poverty level wages that require redistributed government expenditure (taxes and borrowings) to pay for subsidised housing, healthcare, education ....... the list is endless.

All profits, as with income, should be taxed at source where it was made .... that way every fortune will have avoided the stigma that ...

... "behind every great fortune lies a great crime".

... and the taxes will help the little people that they might live without the poverty that seems to accompany great fortunes !

These crimes are not restricted to the USA and the UK, the people of Germany, Canada, France, Australia, Japan, China, India ............ are all losers in this great crime of "cheat the people of their dues".

The FBI will heed the ...

... man within, "one's conscience", whilst the British Government will sit on its hands and fail the people from all over the world.

Guided by its very un-civil service, government breasts will be beaten, sackcloth and ashes worn as a public display of contriteness by bankers, but at the end of this sorry affair unless the police arrest those responsible for fixing the LIBOR rates, and those who supervised the fixing, and those who turned a blind eye to the activities of these thieves.

... and those at the very top, nothing will change !  They rely on false compliance ...

Compliance is much more about giving senior management, and the regulators where they exist, cover from culpability than rooting out bad behaviour. “We did our best, the right boxes were ticked, how could we know?” they are able to say.

... that is not compliance, its a comfort blanket for the complicit.

We need rendition of every one of those involved in this scandal, to the only commonwealth that has both the will and the teeth to send a message of worth to the bankers throughout the world that there is "nowhere to hide".  To do this Britain need Uncle Sam like never before.

And because the British Government is a gutless body when addressing issues of morality and ethics amongst its own, and for Bankers read the Bank of England read British Government (of every flavour), people turn to the champion of law and order in the USA, the FBI.  It is time to repay those little people who rarely ask for favours, help clean this cesspit of banking criminal who laugh at the law, people without a conscience, people who cheated every little person with a bank account ...

... and in Europe ... France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Netherlands, and the other countries that have banking links with London, you have been affected by the scum of LIBOR, its time the call to fix this scandal of morality and ethics was pan-European ......

... (update) every German should read ...

... the Times Sam Fleming: Economic view ...  Published at 12:01AM, June 4 2012 

Hank Paulson, the former US Treasury Secretary, got down on bended knee to plead with congressional leaders to prop up America’s banking system in 2008. His Democrat successor Tim Geithner is not the type for such flamboyant gestures, but last week there was mounting desperation in the Obama Administration as it urged Europe to summon up the political will to save its single currency.

Only five months before the American presidential election, economic frost is spreading its fingers across the globe. Weak hiring figures in the United States, poor factory data in China and dismal production numbers in Britain were merely three snapshots from what might be turning into a synchronised global economic downturn.

The bickering and dithering in the eurozone are playing key roles.  Lars H. Thunell, chief of the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, told me last week that the malign influence of the euro crisis was being felt in Africa and Latin America. European banks are curbing the provision of trade finance and cross-border lending as they prepare for further turmoil at home.

Last week’s evidence of accelerating capital flight from Spain raised the stakes dramatically. In Athens a gaggle of feckless politicians are openly toying with Euro exit, in the full knowledge that their tiny country could destabilise not only Europe but also the world economy.

It will not take much, it seems, to persuade increasing numbers of savers in Spain to decide that if Greece is heading for the exit, it would be rational for them to move their euros out of their own country, too.  As we saw with Northern Rock, once bank runs start they have a terrifying momentum. If Spain suffers a full-blown banking collapse, things will move into fast-forward mode. Italy will not be far behind. The Euro could begin to unravel quickly, in an event with far more momentous consequences than the Lehman crash of 2008.

At that point, a new Great Depression could be on the cards, according to one former central banker. A full-blown collapse of the Euro might well be welcomed by Tory backbenchers as vindication of their well-founded suspicions of European federalists, but it is of little use critiquing a skyscraper’s girders when it is collapsing with you in it.

After more than two years of failed summits, the region’s leaders are well aware that they are entering the last chance saloon. Eurocrats are working towards the European Council summit on June 27-28, pitching it as the decisive moment. In Brussels, plans are afoot to put forward what is being called EMU-Two — a radical reboot of the single currency project.

Critically, this will begin to pave the way to a banking union, one of the glaring pieces of unfinished business that has left the Euro so dangerously ill-formed. The elements include a European facility to recapitalise banks, a bank resolution regime, integrated regulation and a Europe-wide deposit guarantee scheme. Notably, this plan is likely to exclude Europe’s financial capital, the City of London, even though it is the home of the region’s bank regulator.

The trouble is, of course, that a month is a long time in a financial crisis. Before the summit we have the twin hurdles of the Greek and French elections on June 17. The latter is no less significant than the former. If President Hollande is confronted by a badly fractured National Assembly, with the extreme Left and Right heavily represented, it will be even more difficult for him to drive through the economic reforms that France needs so badly.

And Germany is deadly earnest when it says it will not hand over its credit card to France, Italy and the rest without strict curbs on how the money is spent. France is going to have to venture a huge surrender of sovereignty as a precondition to fiscal burden-sharing initiatives such as eurobonds. Selling this to the French public will be an historic feat, even for a committed Europhile such as Mr Hollande.

More imminently, Europe faces the threat of accelerating flight from the periphery banking system. Spain urgently needs to be convinced to accept a European bailout of its banks, given that the cost is too much for Madrid alone to bear. It is a measure of the gravity of the situation that policy-makers are talking about capital controls and bank holidays in periphery nations as a way of stemming any full-blown bank runs.

European ministers may have to stand together and make a blanket declaration that they will keep depositors’ money safe, given that a deposit insurance scheme will take a long time to set up. Whether Europe’s citizens would find this convincing is anyone’s guess.

We stand on the brink of a new, 2008-style financial disaster. As Mario Draghi, the European Central Bank president, told the European Parliament last week, it is up to Europe’s politicians to fill the vacuum at the heart of the single currency. With a chill descending on the world economy and the panic in the periphery escalating, the fear is that they have left it too late.

 ... and consider a very bleak future of Germany hog-tied by the ne'er-do-wel of Europe, those who will hang onto the heels of Germany at work.

Update ...

HSBC is testing its cash machines in Greece to ensure that they can cope with a return to the drachma, if the country pulls out of the Euro. Britain’s biggest bank is taking the precaution because of concern that Greece could pull out of the 17-nation currency bloc amid political chaos. HSBC is understood to have conducted tests on the machines to establish whether they could be adapted to disgorge banknotes of a different size and texture.  

... a warning if ever there was !

Germany calling ...

... we can't prop them all up Angela !!!!!!!!!!

Does Wales have a Plague Party ...

... in waiting, waiting for that crisis that will send the electorate over the edge into "a plague on all your houses" state of mind.

Today's (£/$) Times has an analysis of Greece where Bill Emmott writes that he would vote for the Greek Plague Party (real name Syriza), Alexis Tsipras, the young head of Greece’s Plague Party (Syriza), says that he intends to call the Germans’ to demand better terms on the financial rescue loan and so stay in the euro.  Angela Merkel is going to agree to that, particularly as she has her own plague party snapping at her heals, in Germany it is called the Pirate Party.

The commonality between Syriza and the Pirate Party seems to be a frustration born out of austerity and disconnected politicians, the aftermath of a decade or more where everybody maxed out on their finances including governments, a frustration that doesn't see any end in sight.  In Wales we have the unusual circumstance that in the face of national austerity, we have a regional administration diametrically opposed to the Westminster administration which has been dealt the most uncomfortable hand of political cards, no opportunity for a plague in Cardiff Bay.

I'm sure that our separatist party in Wales would welcome an opportunity to wear the plague party mantel if it thought it could tip the electorate over its edge into independence mode, Alex Salmond has managed a scottish pseudo plague party that might just succeed, but in Wales the commonality is we can always combine to create an opposition to Westminster, we create temporary plague parties at the drop of a hat by combining the unconventional.

For Greece its Plague Party could begin a domino effect upon the Euro where the European underbelly jumps ship, in Germany its Pirate Party is nudging the electorate to ask the question "do we need to share our prosperity with the rest of Europe?"  If I were a banker I would be dumping the Euro, if I were a industrial leader I would be looking for opportunities elsewhere, if I were the UK government I would probably be making preparations for opposition.

In Wales UKIP is probably the party in residence to take up the "Plague Party" mantel, not Plaid Cymru, UKIP can appeal across politics left to right, and there is nothing in its constitution to cause undue concern to the electorate ........ after a crisis everything would return to normal ...

... what's normal in Wales ?

A tea party, or café para todos ...

... (coffee for everyone), and a hat tip to "labour uncut", the full story here.

The story of Spanish devolution is not well known outwith Europe and those organisations that would separate its regions into countries via independence.  It's that well trodden path of small fish needing its own pond, couple it with left wing economic models, then the use of smoke and mirrors (it's very rare for a separatist movement to be anything other than left wing, could there be a principle in there somewhere);  and of course, that ancient mantra of the separatist agenda everywhere - "the grass is greener over there.........".

The origins of Spanish, and devolution throughout the world, is that "local needs" should be addressed through "local channels", on the face of it a reasonable aspiration, in reality it has been the lazy way out, an admission that centralised government can often fail those citizens that are remote from the seat of government, or who have peculiar traits that are ignored as unimportant in the grand scheme, language variation being a prime candidate.

If the time-line of the European separatist movement is examined its start date coincided with today in 1773 the British Government passed the Tea Act followed by "The Boston Tea Party", the origins of the separatist movement.  This event is remarkable in that it demonstrates to the world the only legitimate reason why separatism should be enacted, it is when government, deliberately, gives an advantage to one section of society to the detriment of another.  footnote .... the argument that the act was to counter smuggling is superficial to say the least.

So where might Spain go from here, it seems that one regional government leader is proposing a winding back of its devolved administrations to gain economies of scale by streamlined regional spending, the spokesperson of this proposal is the leader of the seat of government for Madrid region, which by coincidence is also holds the capital the Spanish capital city of Madrid.  It might be prudent to ask how many jobs would be lost to Madrid if the regions relinquished their various administrations to central government, and how many jobs would migrate to the centre of government.

The Spanish crisis is an opportunity to re-model the governance of this ancient country, an opportunity to present a level of fairness through less government, to allow the seventeen autonomous communities of Spain to determine exactly which "Café para nosotros" is appropriate.  No longer are the words "you can have anything you want, as long as I want to give it" appropriate in the 21st century, regions should be allowed to make their own mistakes, they should be allowed to fail (just make sure the other regions are not underwriting their borrowings).


The crisis could also be the catalyst for other countries throughout the world with distinct regions to create a form of devolved governance that conjoins "separate" with "together", my guess is it closer to the USA model than to the China model.  There might also be a recognition that occasionally a separatist movement might gain a critical mass of such magnitude that mutual separation is the better course of action, Belgium is a prime candidate in this 21st century Europe, Scotland has become a close candidate, as do one or two Spanish regions, China has a peculiar problem with Tibet; a common cause of dissent seems to be a perception of unfairness ........ I am sure this particular hot potato is not beyond the wit of humankind to solve.

We want an elected government ...

... is the call by the people of Bahrain, the response by the ruling club (the kingdom) has been repression.

Described as a "constitutional monarch" Bahrain is lives a lie, the country is an absolute monarchy in which the monarch serves as the source of power in the state and is not legally bound by any constitution and has the powers to regulate his or her respective government.  In Bahrain this is Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa with his eldest son Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa supported by the unelected Prime Minister His Royal Highness Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa.

In 1775 the war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America kicked off, the result was the birth of a new democracy of the USA, with its own peculiar warts, that is an example of how people can expect to influence their governance;  the other combatant took another 150 years before it resembled a democracy.

The dreadful circumstances in Bahrain are supported by both democracies from that auspicious war of independence, both countries that have supported the other recent North African revolutions and struggles, both countries that fought alongside each other to topple the hideous regime of Saddam Hussein, both countries that are fighting the oppression of the Taliban in Afghanistan, yet not a whisper in support of the call for an elected government in Bahrain.



Obviously it's not convenient for our governments at this time, the people of Bahrain will need to bleed more before they have the support that the people of Libya was given by both Britain and the USA, the quest for democracy is for the faint of heart in the face of hypocrisy, and where are the voices of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal, it must be to difficult a choice .... repression versus democracy.

Myself, as an ardent fan of Formula 1 racing, I will give today's race a miss for the second time, has it been a whole year ............

It's all GRΣΣK to me, ...

... or is it Greece and Ireland and Portugal and Spain and Italy and Belgium, because each country is top heavy with debt.

In each case we are discussing the debts accumulated by the political leadership of each country, seemingly acting in isolation this past decade, but in fact following a "big government" agenda so often found amongst left leaning administrations that wish to push buttons in all areas of life, but each button costs a great deal of money.

Acting much like children in a candy (sweet) store, the politicians were acting out the Dutch "Tulip mania" of the early 1600's, the first recorded economic bubble, the politicians were certain that economic growth in their respective countries would outstrip government spending.  Unfortunately the intrinsic values of the asset base of each country in question, had been compromised by a herd mentality where politicians had become herd members, a herd that believed that prices (taxation) can only rise.

Today the countries in question are finding it difficult to sell probity to their respective populations, people riot in the face of austerity, whilst the politicians look for wriggle room from countries not in the same situation.  The people of Britain are being asked to fund the activities of the countries in question, even the poorest of the poorest part of Britain will be asked to bail out the governments of indebted lands.

The upshot is the prudent countries can either support the spendthrifts or let them sink in their ponds of indebtedness, I say let them sink soonest so as to rise like a phoenix in a few years time much as Russia did following its default in 1998.

Bye, bye GRΣΣCΣ, welcome back Athens.