Eurozone falling apart

Dumb idea to start with without having fiscal & political union was never going to work

A couple of articles or three that attracted my attention including one from Germany/


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/29/spain-riot-police/

 http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/28/greek-police-send-crime-victims-to-neo-nazi-protectors/

 http://www.theblaze.com/stories/thousands-protest-across-germany-for-higher-taxes-on-the-wealthy/


Going to be keeping a watch over the next few weeks as it looks to me like we are at a crucial juncture.

Austerity is it a new thing?

Sabrina reminded me of something and its sparked something intresting to me with modern economics.

I was christened into the Anglican faith, although my parents had moved from Devon to London before I
was born so summers when i was a kid were spent in the lovely devon countryside. Every sunday we were
required to go to church but even as a youngster I felt there was something wrong (and this may be the
connection with my later athiesm) it was depressing something almost puritanical about it.

As ive got older and had part of our group of friends who were Catholics after the pub on christmas eve
we would invariably end up at midnight mass which seem to be much more joyful.  Later visiting cathedrals
and churches as i love the architecture it struck much how much more intresting Catholic churches in
general were (the Vatican museum is an absolutely stunning group of buildings) Sabrina linked me
to some of her pentecostal sermons and reminds me of the Baptists as well of the feeling of the sermons
much more joyous.

Going back in time it appears that the anglican faith was related to the first Lutherian churches of
Northern central europe and puritanical in way that hard work and a simple life is the only  way to God.

Lets step forward into the Industrial revolution and into free market economics. The driver of course
in the Industrial revolution were the British especially what became known to the Germans as "manchesterism"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_capitalism

This form of capitalism was pre eminent in the Industrial revolution and was directly descended from
the protestant form of religion and hard work that the puritans had admired. Classical economics and
later Neoclassical economics are to come from this and spread right across the Northern European
countries that were and are mostly lutherian type protestants but for a long time they were sidelined
as a type of Keynesian Economics which was a synthesis of Keynes and Neoclassical economics, what us
Post Keynsesian types refer to (Coined by Joan Robinson, a Professor of Economics at Cambridge) as
bastard Keynesians.  Although was a mix it wasnt actually too bad at the time but had some major
flaws in trying to synthesise the 2 schools and when the oil crisis of the 1970s come along it failed
to predict or have any effect on it causing stagflation.
Waiting in the wings were the hardcore right wing of neoclassical economics, Milton Freidman, Friedrich
Hayek etc who were heavily influenced by Manchester capitalism and the free market economics of that
period. Although in the USA they were from northern european stock and therefore influenced in some
way by the puritanism of the forefathers?

Move forward into the early 1980s and along come 2 uber free market types in Margaret Thatcher and
Ronald Reagen amongst the backdrop of the ongoing cold war. It can be no surprise to learn that Thatcher
in particular was influenced by Hayek.  Straight away workers rights were eroded, the free market was
let loose to the final damage we are now seeing.   This become known to a lot as Anglo Saxon economics
but again driven by the Northern Europeans& the USA but including Germany & The Netherlands. To us
on the left its Neoliberalism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

Forward again to the Eurozone, it can be no surprise that the so called sinner states are Catholic
or in the case of Greece Orthidox that dont have the puritan anglo saxon work and austere thinking.
Being in the Euro these periphery states have no choice but to have this "austerity" enforced on them,
The UK conservative government doing the same thing, calls from the US right to do the same thing but
which makes no economic sense.   France dont be fooled is Catholic of course and will be next in line
to be shot at by the bond vigilantes and seems to be just be going along with the protestant countries
for now.

It seems to me that all this talk of austerity being the way out is some hold over from the differences
between the original protestent break from the Catholic church. Is the old split between northern and
southern Europe alive and kicking?

Andy

From right to left a journey

Sabrina put up a nice post about her journey, I think its worthwhile to bring up my own.
I am completely surprised at where I am now.

Up to the middle of 2008 I had always considered myself to the right of centre, conservative
with fiscal policies etc although to be really honest about it I had no real interest in
either politics or economics. I would suggest I did care about what happened to other people
so there was an element about my make up that wouldnt make me like a Randian style of world.


September 2008 the Great Financial Crisis come upon us and although it didnt have an effect
on me as such I was very curious about what happened as we had supposed to have learnt from
the Great Depression of the 1930s.

At first gravitated to blogs that where to my political leanings lay which were blaming competiveness, the
welfare states, national debt being a problem frankly the whole of right wing thinking economics
wise.
One day a question was asked by a blogger

It was "why do governments borrow except for in wartime? its madness"

Now the question was rhetorical really as he then went on to make a whole argument why they
shouldnt. But I was intrigued why indeed do they borrow? I knew the usual answer that it was
the difference between taxing and spending and that they borrow to make up the difference but
a quick check showed me something odd in that for most of the last 300 years the UK had borrowed
just about every year as by that standard we should have been broke as a country a long time
ago.
I decided to look a bit further as it didnt really make sense so I searched until a few searches
in a website was suggested

http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com/

Rodger was explaining something he called monetary sovereignty which was an understanding
of how a FIAT money system works and claimed that deficits were not only desirable but
actually necessary. In that kind of system it is the government that create money that is
used by the private sector and that a growing economy required an expanding quantity of money.
That government borrowing was actually an illusion, that taxes dont fund the government and
bonds dont play a financing role in todays system.
The government own the printing press and nothing backs that money ie gold, silver etc.
This was mind blowing to me and straight away knew without doubt that he was quite correct
and that it had to be that way. This was a few months after the general election in the UK
that had the prime minister to be saying "the country has overspent on its credit card" and
now ive found out thats a misleading slogan at best a complete lie being the worst. My whole
political beliefs were based on a non truth.

Reading more of Rodger (who is a lovely man I should add)it couldnt be this simple
but I kept coming across a reference to something called MMT which I found stood for
something called Modern Monetary Theory that Rodger said was related and a lot of the
comments on his pages were by people calling themselves MMTers.
A quick google and I found this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartalism

Where I found it was a school of economics that used the nickname MMT. On further investigation
I found it was part of what is called Post Keynesian Economics, now I knew a little bit
about John Maynard Keynes but what I didnt know that the Keynesian economics that the press
and the right like to believe is a school called NeoKeynesian economics who one of the
people that profess to be that are Paul Krugman. Further that the Post Keynesians claim to
be the real descendants of Keynesian theory and that the Neo Keynesians are part of the mainstream
current dominant school of Neo Classical economics.

Back to my story so I started reading some of the MMT sites (links to a few on my profile)
This was much more sophisticated than Roger and showed a truth to the system that I realised
we were not being told and it seem to be something certainly the right wing parties were seeking
to obscure.

My base for how the system works has then been changed, what else could be wrong?
It seems pretty much all the right wing ideology is based on Neoliberal/Neocon beliefs in the free
market and the equilibrium which then ensues is completely and damagingly wrong, its exactly why we
are in mess we have.

Next time you hear a politician say we have run out of money, stop think and ask yourself is this really
true?

Andy

Walking with God

"Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" Amos 3:3

There was a time when I loved the world more than God.  I wanted the desires of my own heart and my own will.  I loved the world.  The things of the world and worldly things were my desire and refuge.

The Lord saw the world under his curse, and I loved its favour and its blessing--seeking  to enjoy that which God had denounced.  The Lord saw that the world was full of evil, whilst I saw it full of good. Therefore we could not agree.

In order to be agreed with God, we must have God's thoughts in our heart, God's ways in our soul, and God's love in our affections.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord." Isaiah 55:8

We must strive for them to become one.  When God's thoughts become our thoughts and God's ways our ways, when we have the mind of Christ and see with the eyes of God, then God and we become agreed, and being agreed, we can walk together.

What is it to walk together?  It is to enjoy union, communion, fellowship, and friendship.   A few weeks ago I was on a roadtrip with Jesus.  I was listening to some old CD’s – non christian.  As I was listening the songs meanings changed in my mind as they were being sung.  In some songs I was singing to Jesus, in other songs he was singing to me and in others we sang together.  The Eagles song “Take it Easy” , lyrics “just find a place to lie your head and take it easy”  Jesus was saying just go where your feet take you and trust in me.  You have no need to worry, I’m right here with you.  Song after song this went on… for hours!  I was so excited I was dancing in my seat.  Jesus was with me!

As we are brought to agree with God, we walk with God.  Do we need to walk with God?

“Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with Confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”  Hebrews 4:16

As the eyes are enlightened to see the truth of God; as the heart is touched to feel the power of God; and as  affections are drawn forth to love the things of God, we meet at the mercy-seat.

It is sprinkled with blood; it contains and hides from view the broken tables of the law. There God meets man in gracious friendship, and enables us to pour out our soul before him and to tell him our troubles, trials, and temptations. Every now and then he sweetly relieves us by dropping in a gracious promise, applying some portion of his sacred truth, encouraging us to believe, and still to hope in his mercy.

"And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation." Psalm 107:7

"He led them forth." Forth out of the world--forth out of sin--forth out of a profession--forth out of a name to live--forth out of everything hateful to his holy and pure eyes. "To go to a city of habitation." They had no city to dwell in here below; but they were journeying to a city of habitation above, whose walls are salvation, and whose gates are praise; where there are eternal realities to be enjoyed by the soul; where there is something stable and eternal; something to satisfy all the wants of a capacious and immortal spirit, and give it that rest which it never could find while wandering here below. If we have a city here, we want no city above; and if we have a city above, we want no city here.

This then must be our state and case; either to be pilgrims, journeying onwards, through troubles, to things above, or taking up our abode below; seeking heaven here, or heaven hereafter; resting upon the world, or resting upon the Lord; panting after the things of time, or panting after the things of eternity; satisfied in self, or satisfied only in Christ. One of the two must be our state and case. The Lord reveals it clearly in the hearts of his people that they are on his side; and give us to know and feel that our very restlessness and inability to find food and shelter in the things of time and sense, are leading us more earnestly and believingly to seek after the things that have reality in them; that finding no city to dwell in here below, we may press forward to  being citizens of that city which is above, "which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God!"

Doubt

Judges 6:39, 40  "And Gideon said unto God, Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once: let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew. And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only and there was dew on all the ground."      

Many Christians live with doubts and fears.  Questions and suspicions as to the reality of the work of grace upon their hearts. Whether their convictions were not merely convictions of natural conscience, and whether their joys have been anything else but the joys of a fool. "O," they say, "what would I give to have a divine testimony that the God was leading me in the right path!" It is through these very doubts that the evidence is obtained. Doubts lead to cries and groans lead after to a divine testimony; and in answer to these cries the heavenly witness is given. A man without doubts is without testimonies. Doubts are to testimonies what the ring is to the finger, the lock to the key, the enigma to the solution.

1 Samuel 12” Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer,^[b]saying, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.”

Testimonies are Ebenezers, "stones of help" but the stone must have a hole dug for it to stand in, and that hole is doubt. Doubts of salvation are to manifestations of salvation what hunger is to food, nakedness to clothing, a thunderstorm to a shelter, a gallows to a reprieve, and death to a resurrection. The one of these things precedes, prepares, and opens a way for the other. The first is nothing without the last, nor the last without the first. Thus, next to testimonies, the best thing is spiritual doubts. To know we are right is the best thing; to fear we are wrong is the second best. To enjoy the witness of the Spirit is the most blessed thing this side of the grave; to pant after that enjoyment is the next greatest blessing

Psalm 84:5-7 “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baka, they make it a place of springs, the autumn rains also cover it with pools.  They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.”

The path through the valley of Baca is "from strength to strength," that is, according to the eastern mode of travelling, from one halting-place to another, where wells are dug, and "the rain fills the pools"   We do not learn either God or ourselves, sin or salvation, in a day. The question is not so much whether you have much faith, but whether you have any. It is not quantity, but quality; not whether you have a very great religion, but whether you have any at all. A grain of true faith will save the soul; and I have known many, many times when I should have been glad to feel certain that I had the thousandth part of a grain. A grain of mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds; and even faith as small as that can move mountains. Happy is he that has one divine testimony to his eternal interest in the electing love of the Father, in the atoning blood and justifying righteousness of the Son, and in the divine teachings of the Holy Spirit.

Central Banks

What are they good good for?

Have been watching online tonight mostly shrill comments on what Bernanke has been doing today and chuckling about some of the comments ive seen.
MMT sites have not of course been that bothered (see my QE primer.. even now its still just as asset swap, just changing differennt assets compared to earlier QEs,)

What seems to be the problem here is an understanding of the function of a central bank and what they can and cant do.

I would suggest a central bank isnt anything more than a backstop to the system.  If you look back through history what it shows you is that CBs come about through the instability of the system, private banks used to issue their own currencies so imagine that today its not just when you go abroad you need to know an exchange rate you actually would need that in your own country.  Think about using a different banks ATMs now you would have to shop around to see which is the better rate.

So bring a central bank into the equation, a central banks main task is to keep the payment system between the private banks stable thats their absolute main priority its the reason we have this system.

Ok so what are we asking them to do now after all the Feds mandates are to keep the system in order and to have full employment.    How they are supposed to do both nowadays beats me.All they can do is stop the system falling apart which to give them credit I have to admit they have done the last few years. Government have completely sidestepped their responsibilties on this regard and asking the central banks to do more.    But they cant do more all they can do is keep the system stable. QE has stopped some countries going into a debt deflation spiral but thats it thats all they can do.  To ask cbs to engineer growth isnt possible yes they can mess around with interest rates.asset swaps and affect the housing market (the main mechanism that monetatry policies work) but little else they can do.

They have no more power to engineer growth than I have.

Bernanke was diplomatic as the only tool they have in the real economy is to get people to think there will be inflation, and even then that is hope not fact.    Look through the BoEs website and find the QE article all they ever mention is "expectations" thats it thats all the have.

As ive explained all Central Banks can do is keep the system from imploding so lets stop looking to them for growth when its just not possible.

Governments now you have to do your job and not use departments that are not designed for the purpose.


Andy

Conspiracy Theories

What is it that captures the imagination of people with these things?

One very popular site is http://www.abovetopsecret.com which I find very entertaining but look through the articles and threads you will notice that all of their evidence is circumstantial, based on hearsay at best and even completely wrong but sounds really convincing.

For instance last night on facebook a friend was talking about the 9/11 attacks and when one of the aircraft disappeared off radar that it wasn’t passed over to the defence department and then fighters getting launched to intercept which of course is true but instead of looking at what actually happened its immediately confirmed their preconceived notion that this was a false flag attack.

Looking at what happened shows something different. Whenever looking at the 9/11 attacks we should always remember that nothing like it has ever happened before but plenty of crashes, technical problems so probably first thoughts were a problem with the aircraft and then maybe a hijacking.

Firstly the radar used in civil aviation doesn’t work like they think.  Modern aircraft use a transponder and it’s this that the radar tracks not the aircraft itself. Of course they have communications with ground as well but there could be all sorts of reasons that there was a delay in passing the info onto the defence department while they were trying to figure out what was going on.  Has the plane crashed? Is it just the transponder out? Etc

Now Boston to New York is only around 190 miles so in flying time that’s not very long certainly a lot less than an hour so I think then that I am not sure they could believe what was going to happen (wouldn’t have myself I suspect) that certainly would have taken plenty of time.

Secondly, scrambling fighters to intercept.  I think someone has been watching too many Second World War movies where they run out of dispersal and jump into their spitfires and off they go.   A modern fast jet fighter such as an F15 is a much more complex machine it needs time to get going.  Even if arguably they had been alerted straight away it would still have taken too long.

What’s forgotten is that the US wasn’t in cold war mode with alert birds and crew ready to go with a moments notice fully armed. Since then of course they would have alert birds all ready but even so arguable they would get there in time even now (during the London Olympics they moved a squadron of  RAF Typhoons down to RAF Northolt in West London from their base further north, you just do not normally base military aircraft in the middle of a city).

Now I have a very poor opinion of those in charge but a deliberate attack on their own citizens so they can invade another country I just cannot buy since when did they need an excuse like that before?  Can always make out it’s a hunt for WMDs.

The moon landing hoax.  

I am really staggered on this one.

Not one NASA staff member on the project has ever come out and said that it was a hoax and in fact are very indignant should it be suggested. We are talking about 1000s of people here.

The craft themselves were tracked by different stations at all times.  There is a wonderful Aussie movie called The Dish which is the true story of the Aussie radio telescope that tracked Apollo 13 and the TV signal of Neil Armstrong taking that famous first step actually come through that radio telescope (of course they have dramatised it and made it the very quirky type humour that the Aussies do well) but in truth these Scientists at those tracking stations would have noticed if the signal was coming from elsewhere. These radio telescopes are really precise and are listening into stars across the universe, a spacecraft a few thousand miles isn’t that difficult.

From what I can see of these moon hoax believers is that the reason they are not convinced is that the photos are too good and the flag looks like its waving in wind (it was actually designed to look like that and the when it was touched the lack of friction would keep it moving for quite a long time in a near vacuum) and other bizarre claims.

RIP Neil Armstrong your name will be remembered as long as the Human race exists I hope.

Area 51

Dreamland, Paradise Ranch, Groom Lake all names for this “top secret” air force base that the  whole world has heard of.   But aliens? Come on it’s simply a secure research base for the US Air force which funnily enough they don’t like people approaching or knowing what they are up to there as it’s supposed to be like that, it’s a testing centre for advanced aircraft and weapons.

More info and interesting speculation on the projects there now and in the past and generally what else is going on at Edwards AFB at http://dreamlandresort.com and its UFO free.

No doubt there are conspiracies out there in the world and always have been when a few people meet up and discuss things in private.

It would be naïve to think that cover ups do not happen and as I am writing this the truth about the Hillsborough disaster has been revealed that the police covered up their ineptitude by trying to blame the fans (no surprise to us who had stood on the Leppings lane terrace a few times, it was an accident waiting to happen) and note that its taken time but the truth has come out.

The scale of these so called theories are huge though, it’s just not possible without someone blabbing and having incontrovertible proof of what they say which never seems to turn up.

Is it more interesting to believe a sensational multi person conspiracy or the truth that tends to be pretty mundane or has there been a change in that traditional religion for a lot has taken a back seat so they feel need to substitute their beliefs with “something” as the feel they are missing something without knowing what?  

 Andy