Tower Hamlets Labour AM thinks hedge funds ‘add value’

Saturday’s Progressive London conference was peppered with Labour politicians. They did their best to stretch the word Progressive to breaking point.
John Biggs, the Labour Assembly Member (and Tower Hamlets stalwart) astounded the audience with his comments.
On a Saturday, dressed impeccably in a suit and tie, he highlighted his credentials of working in the City of London.
He told us that hedge funds added value to our economy (while the Chinese economists in the main hall were saying the opposite)…. how we had to ‘work with the City’… how it was a nostalgic dream for manufacturing to return to London………
This was a performance of an unreconstructed New Labour politician in thrall to the City and the banks.
Northern Rock, the collapse of the banks all seemed to pass by…..
He also came out against any EU regulation of the City…. which rather says it all. He made a comment that we don;t need Europeans to regulate us.. well, we wouldn’t if the UK Labour Government had the guts to do something (Darling’s speech last week was widely derided as Labour’s final capitulation to Finance)
If Singapore can operate as a financial centre, a manufacturing centre and a magnet for tourism why not London?
In any case his old boss, Ken Livingstone, told the main meeting that indeed we need to bring back manufacturing to the Thames Estuary….

Incredible..

Who controls the money? (4)

“The modern banking process manufactures currency out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented…….If you want to be slaves of the bankers, and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let the banks create currency”

Lord Josiah Stemp, former director of the Bank of England (1937)

Who controls the Money? (3)

“By this means (fractional reserve banking) government may, secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft”

John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1920)

Who controls the Money? (2)

“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before morning”
Henry Ford

Who controls the Money? (1)

“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws”
Amschel Rothschild

Could the UK unions look at their French cousins?

On the heels of a million people on the streets of France protesting about the unfairness of workers having to sacrifice jobs and income, we see comparative calm amongst many trade unions in the U.K..

I am concerned that the Unions are not mobilising their members to make their opinions heard in a time of the severest recession since World War Two.

Instead, some Unions preferred to support the Government over their disgraceful decision over the 3^rd runway at Heathrow, neglecting their stand on climate change as well as the plight of millions in the rest of the capital and country, fearful of losing their jobs.

Instead, can they not think more strategically?

This means taking action with national protests, demanding the complete nationalisation of the banks which have been ‘bailed out’.

They should insist this is accompanied by a guarantee that they will not be sold back to the market.

They should call for the removal of the top directors and end the scandal of some failed bankers being paid by this Labour government to extricate us from a mess they themselves created.

The massive protests over Gaza show that ordinary people are prepared to brave the cold and put pressure on the government when it is clear there has been injustice.

Domestically, an economic injustice is now occurring as the beneficiaries (and culprits) of the boom are being saved at the expense of millions of people, who are expected to suffer pay cuts, shutdowns and redundancies.

I wish to express sympathy for all those losing their jobs, such as the 1,000 announced yesterday at London Underground.

Let’s hope the Trade Union movement plays a more prominent role than it has done so far.

Farid Bakht

The banking crisis rolls on

The Royal Bank of Scotland is now 70% owned by the government. The second stage of the bailout begins. Gordon ‘I saved the world’ Brown jhas failed to get the banks lending. So today he has added more powers, along with the extra billions of the public’s money.
The clamour will rise over the next year for nationalisation – what we have now is a blank cheque and a plea to banks, to ready them for privatisation when the credit markets are unblocked.
The political agenda will shift to a choice:
bailout/handout or complete nationalisation.
I believe we should support nationalisation and direct the banks’ lending to where it’s needed, rather than what Labour seems to want – another wasteful debt binge, as implied by Margaret Beckett yesterday.

Farid Bakht