FEAR AND LOATHING IN THE CIRCLE OF BLAME: A SAVAGE JOURNEY INTO THE HEART OF THE BRITISH ECONOMIC NIGHTMARE
A Gonzo Review of Roger Lewis's Unholy Crusade Against the Money Changers
FEAR AND LOATHING IN THE CIRCLE OF BLAME: A SAVAGE JOURNEY INTO THE HEART OF THE BRITISH ECONOMIC NIGHTMARE
Jesus Christ, where do you even begin with Roger Lewis? I've been holed up in my study for three days straight, chain-smoking Marlboros and mainlining espresso while diving deep into this madman's literary corpus, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that we're dealing with either a genuine prophet of economic liberation or the most elaborate intellectual con job since Ayn Rand convinced a generation of sociopaths that greed was a virtue .
The man has produced more books than a meth-addled academic with tenure anxiety: "The Conquest of Dough," "Ten Steps to Affordable Housing," "The Circle of Blame Chronicles," "Biography of a Poetic Legislator"—Christ, the titles alone read like the fevered dreams of someone who's spent too much time staring into the abyss of late-stage capitalism and decided to stare back with both barrels blazing .
THE SAVAGE TRUTH ABOUT THE HOUSING APOCALYPSE
Lewis's central thesis—if you can call this sprawling, interconnected web of economic heresy a thesis—is that Britain's housing crisis isn't some natural disaster or inevitable market correction. No, friends, according to our Welsh Cassandra, it's a deliberate construction, a carefully orchestrated circle jerk of blame that keeps the peasants fighting each other while the landed gentry and financial parasites feast on the corpse of social democracy .
The gonzo style demands we abandon the pretense of journalistic objectivity, and frankly, after reading Lewis's work, objectivity feels like a luxury we can't afford . This isn't just economic analysis—it's a full-throated scream of rage against a system so fundamentally corrupt that it makes the Nixon administration look like a Sunday school picnic.
THE CIRCLE OF BLAME: A MASTERPIECE OF CONTROLLED FURY
In "The Circle of Blame Chronicles," Lewis dissects the psychological warfare that keeps ordinary people trapped in economic purgatory. Young people blame immigrants, immigrants blame the system, the system blames market forces, and market forces blame human nature. Meanwhile, the real culprits—the land speculators, the usury merchants, the political enablers—sit back and watch the show like Roman emperors at the Colosseum .
The beauty of Lewis's approach is that he doesn't just diagnose the disease; he performs surgery with a rusty chainsaw and a bottle of Wild Turkey. His analysis of Vienna's social housing program reads like a love letter to functional civilization, while his takedown of Britain's housing policy feels like watching a master torturer work over a particularly deserving victim .
GONZO ECONOMICS: WHEN ACADEMIC THEORY MEETS STREET REALITY
What separates Lewis from the usual parade of think-tank charlatans and university parasites is his willingness to get his hands dirty with actual solutions. "Ten Steps to Affordable Housing" isn't just another policy wonk's wet dream—it's a practical blueprint for economic revolution disguised as housing reform .
The man understands something that most economists seem constitutionally incapable of grasping: that behind every abstract market mechanism is a human being trying to find a decent place to live without selling their soul to a mortgage company. His writing style shifts seamlessly from technical analysis to poetic rage, like watching a trained economist suddenly sprout fangs and start speaking in tongues .
THE UNACKNOWLEDGED LEGISLATORS: POETRY AS ECONOMIC WARFARE
But here's where Lewis really loses his mind in the best possible way: "Biography of a Poetic Legislator" and "Philosoetry" reveal a man who believes that poets and artists are the real architects of social change. Shelley's famous line about poets being "the unacknowledged legislators of the world" isn't just romantic nonsense to Lewis—it's a battle cry .
The gonzo journalist in me recognizes a kindred spirit: someone who understands that the line between art and journalism, between poetry and politics, between sanity and madness, is just another artificial boundary imposed by people who profit from keeping us all in separate boxes .
THE CONQUEST OF DOUGH: FOLLOW THE MONEY TO HELL
"The Conquest of Dough" reads like what would happen if Marx and Hunter Thompson had a baby and raised it on a steady diet of British housing statistics and righteous fury. Lewis traces the flow of money through the British economy like a forensic accountant with a serious amphetamine habit, showing how every pound extracted in rent or interest is a pound stolen from human possibility .
His analysis of land value capture isn't just economic theory—it's a moral crusade against a system that treats basic human shelter as a commodity to be traded like pork bellies or Bitcoin. The man writes about housing policy with the passion most people reserve for describing their first sexual experience or their worst acid trip .
THE AI APOCALYPSE AND THE CLOCKWORK FOREST
And just when you think Lewis might be settling into comfortable middle-aged radicalism, he drops "The Conquest of AI: The Panopticon Jailer Bot" on your head like a brick through a window. The man sees the connection between economic oppression and technological surveillance with the clarity of someone who's spent too many nights staring at the ceiling wondering how we got to this particular circle of hell .
His vision of AI as the ultimate tool of economic control reads like science fiction, but it's grounded in the same brutal realism that drives his housing analysis. The robots aren't coming to steal our jobs—they're coming to perfect the system of extraction that's already bleeding us dry .
THE VERDICT: GENIUS OR MADNESS?
After three days in the Lewis literary labyrinth, I can report that the man is either completely insane or the sanest voice in British economic discourse. His work combines the analytical rigor of serious economics with the emotional honesty of great literature and the moral urgency of genuine prophecy .
The gonzo style demands that we acknowledge our own involvement in the story we're telling, and I'll be honest: Lewis's work has left me questioning everything I thought I knew about how the economy actually works . This isn't comfortable reading—it's the literary equivalent of having your comfortable assumptions dragged out behind the barn and shot.
But that's exactly what makes it essential. In a world where most economic writing reads like it was produced by committee in a corporate boardroom, Lewis writes like a man possessed by the ghost of William Blake with a PhD in monetary theory .
THE FINAL WORD: BUY THE TICKET, TAKE THE RIDE
Roger Lewis isn't just another economist with a book deal—he's a literary insurgent using poetry and prose as weapons in the war against economic injustice. His work deserves to be read by anyone who's ever wondered why finding decent affordable housing feels like trying to solve a Rubik's cube while falling off a cliff .
The man has created a body of work that's simultaneously deeply British and universally relevant, combining the righteous anger of the best protest literature with the analytical precision of serious economic scholarship. It's gonzo economics for the age of late-stage capitalism, and it's exactly what we need right now .
So buy the books, read the words, and prepare to have your worldview thoroughly scrambled. Because in the end, that's what the best writing does—it doesn't just inform you, it transforms you. And transformation, as Lewis would tell you, is the first step toward revolution .
The author consumed approximately 47 cups of coffee and questioned the nature of reality several times during the preparation of this review.
Sources:
: Katherine Luck, "How to Write Like Hunter S. Thompson," Medium
: FreelanceFiles, "Lessons on Writing and Journalism from Hunter S. Thompson," Medium
: "The Moral Economy of Shelter: A Review of Ten Pathways to Affordable Housing," LinkedIn
: Wikipedia, "Gonzo Journalism"
September 10, 2014
On Scottish Independence, Usury and The true purpose of Colonial Governent
Thomas Paine was an English Revolutionary he wrote a pamphlet which got the American Revolutions purposes against imperial /Colonial Rule form England cemented in the minds of ordinary people in the US at that time being milked by King George, Of course the US have had two further King Georges since then and exchanged one Aristocracy for another over the course of 250 Years.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense_(pamphlet)
Common Sense (pamphlet) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org
Common Sense[1] is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–76 that inspired p…See More
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Roger Glyndwr Lewis When another Country colonises and says it will run things better than the people of that other country themselves you know there has to be something uncommon in that reasoning. Jeremy Bentham published a long Correspondence with Adam Smith on the title The Defence of Usury, Bentham also in that Pamphlet set out the logical basis upon which Colonialisation would make sense to a colonising power. The value of a colony to the mother country, according to the
the common mode of computation is equal to the sum total of imports
from that colony and exports to it put together.
From this statement, if the foregoing observation be just,
the following deductions will come to be made.
1. The whole value of the exports to the colony.
2. So much of the imports as is balanced by the exports.
3. Such a portion of the above remainder as answers to so
much of the trade as would be equally carried on were the colony
independent.
4. So much of that reduced profit as would be made, where the
same capital employed in any other trade or branch of industry
lost by the independence of the colony.
5. But the same capital, if employed in agriculture. would
have produced a rent over and above the ordinary profits of
capital: which rent, according to a general and undisputed
computation may be stated at a sum equal to the amount of those
profits. Thence arises a further deduction, viz. the loss to the
nation caused by employing the capital in the trade to the
colony, in preference to the improvement of land, and thence upon
the supposition that the continuance of the trade depended upon
the keeping the colony in subjection.
The other mischiefs resulting from the keeping of a colony in
subjection, are:
1. The expence of its establishment, civil and military.
2. The contingent expence of wars and other coercive measures
for keeping it in subjection.
3. The contingent expence of wars for the defence of it
against foreign powers.
4. The force, military and naval, constantly kept on foot
under the apprehension of such wars.
5. The occasional danger to political liberty from the force
thus kept up.
6. The contingent expence of wars produced by alliances
contracted for the purpose of supporting wars that may be brought
on by the defence of it.
7. The corruptive effects of the influence resulting from the
patronage of the establishment, civil and military.
8. The damage that must be done to the national stock of
intelligence by the false views of the national interest, which
must be kept up in order to prevent the nation from opening their
eyes and insisting upon the enfranchisement of the colony.
9. The sacrifice that must be made of the real interest of
the colony to this imaginary interest of the mother-country. It
is for the purpose of governing it badly, and for no other, that
you wish to get or keep a colony. Govern it well, it is of no use
to you.
To govern its inhabitants as well as they would govern
themselves, you must choose to govern them those only whom they
would themselves choose, you must sacrifice none of their
interests to your own, you must bestow as much time and attention
to their interests as they would themselves, in a word, you must
take those very measures and no others, which they themselves
would take. But would this be governing? And what would it be
worth to you, if it were?
After all, it would be impossible for you to govern them so
well as they would themselves, on account of the distance.
10. The bad government resulting to the mother-country from
the complication, the indistinct views of things, and the
consumption of time occasioned by this load of distant
dependencies.Benthamns Defense of usury is flawed in that it misunderstands the Debt aspects of Money creation, which was not as bad then as it is now but was still a system being pedalled by the infamous John Law in France.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Law_(economist)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine
http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/bentham/usury
April 9, 2017
Economists, Apologists and Sophists for Usury. Positive Money sells out to Bankers? Or Donald Wheres ya Trousers.
The first part of this so-called debunking of the desert island interest myth caught my eye as did a similar debunking by Steve Keen in Forbes. One of my touchstones of the critical faculties of any Heterodox or Radical ´´Progressive´´these days is to see if they are Sophists for Usury or Sophists for Anthropogenic climate change.Fill in your own No True Scotsman arguments to taste.No true Scotsman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the practice of wearing a kilt without undergarments, see True Scotsman.
No true Scotsman is a kind of informal fallacy in which one attempts to protect a universal generalization from counterexamples by changing the definition in an ad hoc fashion to exclude the counterexample.[1][2] Rather than denying the counterexample or rejecting the original claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric, without reference to any specific objective rule (“no true Scotsman would do such a thing”; i.e., those who perform that action are not part of our group and thus criticism of that action is not criticism of the group).[3]
http://positivemoney.org/2017/02/interest/
−Roger Glyndwr Lewis • 23 days ago
Bernard Lietaers fable of the 11th round adresses this question, I have wondered why Steve Keen and others seem so keen to pooh pooh this as a naive urban myth.
Usury is the Price of money, it is the metric of Economists, the high priests of Economics Woo.
What we see in Keen and Varafoukis is really at best a controlled opposition clinging to the social control mechanism that is debt based money. They all do it.
Prouhdon scotched the artifice in his dialogue with bastiat, and also as described by Kropotkin.
Story of the 11th Round.
http://www.lietaer.com/2010…
We can learn a lot from the Swiss referendum on Citizens Income as discussed here.
´However, the nearly universal misunderstanding of money is a major obstacle. For too long we’ve allowed a small coterie of bankers and “court economists” to hold the secrets and “tutor” us. So, it’s time for total openness.
First, regarding the claim that the Swiss proposal would’ve been too costly, what’s entirely omitted from the discussion is that the proposal (and similar proposals elsewhere) appear to call for re-distribution of existing money—taking money from certain sectors through taxation and re-allocating it to the people at-large.
The implication is that the money supply is basically static and that re-distributing limited funds would require tough budget decisions—sparking tax hikes and associated spending increases in several areas; hence the claim “costs too much.”
But a successful basic-income plan can and must be based on the creation of new money, or “distributism,” not on reshuffling existing money, which is “re-distributism.” That’s the “state secret” that no one wants to touch.
The issuance of new money needs to happen to overcome the huge “gap” between today’s paltry purchasing power and the massive mountain of debt and the towering totality of prices on all available goods and services. We have full stores and empty wallets. (Ideally and importantly, governments should reclaim their interest-free money-creation rights and forbid private central banks from creating money any longer).´´
http://leconomistamascherat…
This is for me the nub of the matter something I have in common with Joseph Prouhdon, explained by Peter Kropotkin in the Encyclopedia Britannica thus.
https://archive.org/stream/…
”Now Proudhon advocated a society without government, and
used the word Anarchy to describe it. Proudhon repudiated,
as is known, all schemes of Communism, according to which
mankind would be driven into communistic monasteries or
barracks, as also all the schemes of state or state-aided Socialism
which were advocated by Louis Blanc and the Collectivists. When
he proclaimed in his first memoir on property that ” Property
is theft,” he meant only property in its present, Roman-law,
sense of ” right of use and abuse ” ; in property-rights, on the other
hand, understood in the limited sense of possession, he saw the
best protection against the encroachments of the state. At the
same time he did not want violently to dispossess the present
owners of land, dwelling-houses, mines, factories and so on. He
preferred to attain the same end by rendering capital incapable
of earning interest; and this he proposed to obtain by means of
a national bank, based on the mutual confidence of all those who
are engaged in production, who would agree to exchange among
themselves their produces at cost-value, by means of labour
cheques representing the hours of labour required to produce
every given commodity. Under such a system, which Proudhon
described as ” Mutuellisme,” all the exchanges of services would be
strictly equivalent. Besides, such a bank would be enabled to
lend money without interest, levying only something like 1 %,
or even less, for covering the cost of administration. Every one
being thus enabled to borrow the money that would be required
to buy a house, nobody would agree to pay any more a yearly
rent for the use of it. A general ” social liquidation ” would
thus be rendered easy, without violent expropriation. The same
applied to mines, railways, factories and so on. ”
Such is, substantially, Socialism’s theory of Capital and Interest.
DOI-IV-3.52
Not only do we affirm, in accordance with this theory (which, by the way, we hold in common with the economists) and on the strength of our belief in Industrial development, that such is the tendency and the import of lending at Interest; we even prove, by the destructive results of economy as it is, and by a demonstration of the causes of poverty, that this tendency is necessary, and the annihilation of Usury inevitable.
DOI-IV-3.53
In fact, Rent, reward of Capital, Interest on Money, in one word, Usury, constituting, as has been said, an integral part of the price of products, and this Usury not being the same for all, it follows that the price of products, composed as it is of Wages and Interest, cannot be paid by those who have only their Wages, and no Interest to pay it with; so that, by the existence of Usury,
Labor is Condemned to Idleness and Capital to Bankruptcy.
DOI-IV-3.54
This argument, one of that class which mathematicians call the reductio ad absurdum, showing the organic impossibility of lending at Interest, has been repeated a hundred times by Socialism. Why do not the economists notice it?
DOI-IV-3.55
Do you really wish to refute the ideas of Socialism on the question of Interest? Listen, then, to the questions which you must answer: –
DOI-IV-3.56
1. Is it true that, though the loaning of Capital, when viewed objectively, is a service which has its value, and which consequently should be paid for, this loaning, when viewed subjectively, does not involve an actual sacrifice on the part of the Capitalist; and consequently that it does not establish the right to set a price on it?
DOI-IV-3.57
2. Is it true that Usury, to be unobjectionable, must be equal; that the tendency of Society is towards this equalization; so that Usury will be entirely legitimate only when it has become equal for all, – that is, nonexistent?
DOI-IV-3.58
3. Is it true that a National Bank, giving Credit and Discount gratis, is a possible institution?
DOI-IV-3.59
4. Is it true that the effects of the gratuity of Credit and Discount, as well as that of Taxation when simplified and restored to its true form, would be the abolition of Rent of Real Estate, as well as of Interest on Money?
DOI-IV-3.60
5. Is it true that the old system is a contradiction and a mathematical impossibility?
DOI-IV-3.61
6. Is it true that Political Economy, after having, for several thousand years, opposed the view of Usury held by theology, philosophy, and legislation, comes, by the application of its own principles, to the same conclusion?
DOI-IV-3.62
7. Is it true, finally, that Usury has been, as a providential institution, simply an instrument of equality and progress, just as, in the Political sphere, absolute monarchy was an instrument of liberty and progress, and as, in the Judicial sphere, the boiling-water test, the duel, and the rack were, in their turn, instruments of conviction and progress?
DOI-IV-3.63
These are the points that our opponents are bound to examine before charging us with scientific and intellectual weakness; these, Monsieur Bastiat, are the points on which your future arguments must turn, if you wish them to produce a definite result. The question is stated clearly and categorically: permit us to believe that, after having examined it, you will perceive that there is something in the Socialism of the nineteenth century that is beyond the reach of your antiquated Political Economy.
P. J. PROUDHON.
Quite !
https://www.marxists.org/ar…
Steve Keen tried this already in his Forbes article the reality nheld up against Keens own beautiful theory is amply scothced in the comments.
https://www.forbes.com/site…Roger Glyndwr Lewis Roger Glyndwr Lewis • 23 days ago
http://simonthorpesideas.bl…
All Risk No Reward 2 years ago
Yes, the money flows, BUT NOT TO THE MAIN STREET DEBTORS IN AMOUNTS THAT MAKE THEIR DEBTS PAYABLE. Therefore, the choice is to exponentially grow the debt until the exponential debt-money growth implodes on its own or allow Main Street to implode sooner because there simply is not enough money available to Main Street in order to pay their debts.
That concept isn’t complex, rather it is extremely simple.
There is absolutely a positive net annual income flow into the Debt Money Monopoly Corporate Borg System and away from Mr. and Mrs. Main Street… and that annual income flow represents INEXTINGUISHABLE DEBT TO MAIN STREET CITIZENS…
The complexity you inject into your examples actually works to obfuscate the simple truths behind debt-money systems. It really isn’t complicated.
Two comments of note on the Keen article, also good to see others here are equally tunes into the Usury problem.
https://letthemconfectsweet…Roger Glyndwr Lewis Roger Glyndwr Lewis • an hour ago
Test Comment for Zack
http://positivemoney.org/2017/03/interest-2/
Roger Glyndwr Lewis • 6 minutes ago
The mechanism for the accelerated growth of indebtedness and corresponding monetary assets – a veritable infernal machine – is described in full detail in “The Money Syndrome” by Helmut Creutz.
http://www.themoneysyndrome…
The following graph is taken from the book “The Money Syndrome“. It shows the market participants divided into 10 groups according to their disposable income and the amount they are using for consumption per year (the green columns). The orange columns indicate the interest payments hidden in consumer prices and the blue columns show average interest returns that the members of the respective groups receive from owning an interest bearing asset.
redistribution mechanism
The following graph is an extraction of the above figure and shows the balance of interest payments and interest yields. The balance of group 9 is almost even. The members of this group own interest bearing assets worth at least 450,000 euros, which yield as much interest returns as they pay while annually spending 50,000 euros for consumption. All lower groups have smaller assets the returns from which don’t suffice to compensate for the losses in consumption. Therefore, their balance is negative. Only group 10 has a positive balance and collects what the majority of market participants (groups 1 to 9) lose in this game. The growing gap between rich and poor is often referred to in the public discussion, but no one ever asks how it is caused. At any rate, primarily the creditors in group 10 should be asked to contribute to the emergency parachute for Greece, because they are the winners in the game.
The whole premise of the article seems wracked with the same sophistry that we see in Jeremy Benthams , A defense of Usury. Why is PM bothering itself as an apologisdt and sophist for Usury?
Benthamns Defense of usury is flawed in that it misunderstands the Debt aspects of Money creation, which was not as bad then as it is now but was still a system being pedalled by the infamous John Law in France.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
http://socserv2.socsci.mcma…
ll3/bentham/usury
Where is the Debate about reforming money for England Wales and Ireland freeing people from the yoke of Debt!interest balance
This system of compound interest is the basic mechanism for redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich. Mathematically, compound interest is an exponential function, which inexorably leads to a crash of the financial system. Nothing can be done to prevent this crash.Bob Welham • a day ago
An old PM blog from 2012 that attempts to illustrate the pernicious nature of our commercially issued, debt-based money system, using the maligned “desert island economy” thought experiment. There is no mention of the “is there enough money to pay all the interest” red herring. The real danger is shown to be the accumulation of power and control by the banker who takes over from the people the function of money creation.
http://positivemoney.org/20…Kodexkodex • 9 days ago
First of all I’d like to point out that a Positive Money-system probably would not have these problems at all. This discussion and criticism is only about the current system. Still I’m worried that PM would put itself at the same side as Steve Keen in this matter!
The way I heard it (by talking to bank employees), private banks do NOT let their income disappear in some theoretical increase of their equity caused only by decreasing liabilities. What happens in reality is that banks buy government bonds for the money they receive, as fast as they could, simply to get someone else to pay interest on their earned money. This seems to me quite logically. In the past, banks deposited their surplus in a competing bank, nowadays they buy bonds.
So the money paid in as interest is treated as an asset after all. An asset which requires compound interest.
I’ve often wondered what people mean by “interest per se”. In a private banking system there is only compound interest. Interest is just a name, or a number showing the growth of the exponential function after a year. Compound interest is what really exists, it is the process that is actually working, day after day. So in order to find the root of the imperative we have the look at the compound interest from all aspects, and specially the compound interest on the hoarder’s deposits, and we have to keep in mind that there is almost no way for money to be interest- free in the current system.
Example: 10 people and 1000 silver coins on a desert island. They have 100 coins each. Someone comes up with the great idea that they should start a bank, because then everyone would be promised 2% interest on their deposits, and they will all get richer…
What will happen?
My answer: The system might seem to work for a short while, as long as borrowers work hard to pay everybody’s interest on deposits, including their own. But not in the long run. You can’t race against an exponential function and expect to win.The group will soon face a lack of ideas, new branches and borrowers. The circulation velocity slows down again, and they will end up with a zero interest rate on deposits, or close to zero, and now with less available money because of those greedy mr A, mr B and mrs C, who have been hoarding all their interest money all the time.
As we (hopefully) can see from this example, hoarding isn’t the only reason for the imperative to emerge. Hoarding make the situation worse, but the primary crazyness is the bank’s promise to make every single deposit grow exponentially over time and simultaneously pretending that such a system could actually work with a constant (non-growing) money supply.Graham Hodgson Kodexkodex • 6 days ago
Remember, interest is paid out of deposits but it arises because of the level of outstanding loans. If banks allow deposits to dwindle to nothing by not returning the interest back into the economy through spending on current goods and services, so that their source of interest income dries up, they can indeed restore things by creating new deposits. In the absence of current spending by banks, this can be done through extending new loans or buying existing securities, but that does not involve spending the hoarded interest: the level of equity does not fall, as it would with current spending. Interest received is not an asset for banks since it does not accumulate as cash on the asset side of the balance sheet as for all other institutions.
Kodexkodex Graham Hodgson • 5 days ago
Thanks for answering Graham, but you know perfectly well that cash isn’t the only item on the asset side of the bank’s balance sheet.
September 8, 2016
Democracy Unfolded, emergent reality of Brexit. ( A Poem, By Roger G Lewis ) #GrubStreetJournal #Brexit #Poem
Democracy Unfolded,
emergent reality of Brexit.
Who´s That, Unfold yourself?
I am Democracy.
Who are you, what business have you here
with your government?
You claim my mandate &
this is my torment.
Is there an election ? ‘It is then we
make you our promises, Come back then
and don’t trouble me´.
Democracy tells her tale ofAncient grudges
as old as Nixon’s shock and Older still.
One Government sought in referendum to
claim the peoples will, now Article 50 awaits more work.
Politicians some, wish democratic yokes to shirk.
Two Governments equal in wealth
reveal their darker purposes.
For them the will of the people simply Usurps.
Government should remain confined in Elitist Auspices.
Of recent history we might recap,
First Heath claimed his mooring
with the 72 act
Suckled at Elysium´s breast,
That fabled paradise, this was his rightful claim.
32.76% of the eligible vote
put him in the frame.
Then mr Wilson with a wave of his pipe
gave the great unwashed its first swipe.
In 75´s referendum do we stay or go.
43.55% of the eligible vote did not say no!
Famously Hung that parliament of 74,
a majority later that year of little more.
The mandate of the eligible vote?
in October almost percentage 34.
Passage aboard Heaths European vessel ,
was an awkward continuum.
Aye some saw GB limited , anchored as
the prison Ship in the bay.
Others had songs to sing, Britannia ,
Daughter of Elysium.
Some demanded return of sovereignty with
audible dismay.
An iron lady, raised her petticoats
a little, but said Non.
Mr Major fought his Bastards and
Lamont reported difficulties with
a certain mechanism.
A certain Goldsmith fashioned
some say of gold, others of fools gold,
a party preferring Kippers to Croissant.
Europeans mourned the recalcitrant.
Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown.
Europeans all & not letting Erasmus down.
Skeptics in their ranks always dwelt
briefing in secret with malicious dissent.
A quarrel on Green and Red benches ,
in paneled halls, plenary & committee,
all elite places, not for the mensches.
At last we arrive at the next hung election
Cameron and Clegg in 2010 form coalition
eligible mandate of 22.65 combined.
Hardly overwhelming but never-mind.
Lib Dems sue for AV referendum.
2011 petition a risible turnout,
eligible 28.67.Mandate? Thats Hokum!
A limp declaration hardly a rout.
Once more democracy is just a ghost
No prizes for guessing who it suited the most.
It twas though only a vote about votes.
The plebs can´t be trusted to not burn the toast.
Mr Cameron continued with dedication
to make bigger societies smaller, denying a Nation.
This time the subject, Scottish emancipation.
In 2013 his government prepared the legislation.
In 2014 his parcel of rogues,
bared democratic teeth worthy of the Pogues.
Better together or Scotland the Brave
The four estates of Establishment with a union to save.
The Nuclear deterrent saving oil of North Sea
With record turnout , 84.6. The Scots seem
somewhat more keen for Democracy,
What mandate did the vote Glean
eligible vote? 46.78% is worthy of note.
Indeed it is the best that will be seen.
Our History Lesson now comes full circle
To the latest referendum of interest to Madame Merkel.
On 24th June 2016, 37.47% of the eligible vote said leave.
Whilst by the same measure 34.74% said stay
Herein lies the rub of the present joy and dismay.
Mr Cameron´s 2015 mandate was what? you may ask,
This poem replies it is up to the task,
23.97% is the answer you seek
I’ll leave it to you to decide is that strong or weak?
To Leadership elections we will now meander
Sauce for the Goose, surely Sauce for the Gander.
To Complain of a Mandate of 24
having secured one of your own, 32.55, little more.
Whilst arguing the weak mandate of 37.5 for Brexit
When in a hole lay down your spade, and look for the Exit.
Comparing 46.7 for Union & 28.68 for First past the post,
who’s to say which mandate is most?
43.55 to stay in 75 & 32.76 in 72, blessed as sufficient,
it seems quite absurd, less than efficient?
What do we learn from Lies Damned lies and statistics,
Polling and rhetoric and voting logistics.
Perhaps that Mandates like beauty are
in the eye of the beholder. Who Whilst in Glass houses,
should Think twice before casting that Boulder.
Indeed one , should always be mindful
of the many known unknowns. And That politicians are rarely democrats even as they grow older.
So three Brexiteers to both boos and to cheers
prepare to Cast off from Heaths European Peers.
Prime Minister May with the Inners did lay,
But Mr Cameron’s mandate, she will now play.
Mr Corbyn in opposition she mocks as unfit for power
but at his 45.39% mandate, she can only glower.
perhaps we should next ask,the EU Commission
what mandate it claims & by whose permission?
On the European Parliament what is its turnout
no better than 42.61 in 2014, Democratic burnout?
Other Appointments by experts or politicians
are trafficked as trade, who´s mandates
in turn are less than well made.
The land of the brave and the home of the free
must also be consulted on how we do Democracy.
First what mandate does Liberty claim,
for her European Colony. Of Marshall Plans,
two world wars and may be three?
Across the Geo political scene we must cast a glance
at sovereign nations speared upon the Dollars Lance.
Refugees from Occidental conflict, as a great game plays out,
Oligarchs alone set the rules and set the price of Permit.
An ECB tied to global Capital which punished Greece
and placed the Pigs in manacles of debt.
Whilst Governments allow bankers alone
special and exorbitant privilege.
Again Democracy says,
”For them the will of the people simply Usurps.
Government should remain confined in Elitist Auspices.”
(CopyRight) Roger G Lewis September 2016.
Video Recording of First Live Reading.
Goethe‘s Ankunft im Elysium by Franz Nadorp
I am indebted to Caroline Lucas MP, newly elected co-Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales for making the connection between Turnouts and Mandates, with this speech to the Debate on The so called Neverendum Petition.
I would also like to Thank Gerraint Davies MP for asking this question of Theresa May the Prime minister regarding Ceta, ISDS and TTIP .In questions following her G20 briefing to the House of Commons. It restored my faith that not all Labour MP´s are lost in what Paulo Frieere says is the tendency of some on ´´ the Left to ”almost always (be)tempted by a “quick return to power,”(&) forgets the necessity of joining with the oppressed to forge an organization, and strays into an impossible “dialogue” with the dominant elites. It ends by being manipulated by these elites, and not infrequently itself falls in an elitist game, which it calls “realism.”
Notes for the Poems Figures and Themes.
Voter Turn Out, What is a mandate and Electoral Reform.
Questions for Democracy, and how we do it.
CONTEXT:
United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum, 1975
Labour‘s manifesto for the October 1974 general election promised that the people would decide “through the ballot box”[1] whether to remain in the EEC. The electorate expressed significant support for EEC membership, with 67% in favour on a65% turnout. This was the first referendum held throughout the entire United Kingdom, and remained the only UK-wide referendum until the 2011 referendum on alternative voting.
The referendum debate was an unusual time in British politics. During the campaign, the Labour Cabinet was split and its members campaigned on each side of the question, a rare breach of Cabinet collective responsibility. Most votes in the House of Commons in preparation for the referendum were only carried thanks to opposition support, and the Government faced several defeats on technical issues such as election counts. Finally, although the Government declared in advance that it would comply with to the result, the referendum itself was not legally binding upon the government.
During the campaign, almost the entirety of the mainstream national British press supported the “Yes” campaign. The left-wing Morning Star was the only notable national daily to back the “No” campaign. Television broadcasts were used by both campaigns, like party political broadcasts during general elections. They were broadcast simultaneously on all three terrestrial channels: BBC 1, BBC 2 and ITV. They attracted audiences of up to 20 million viewers. The “Yes” campaign advertisements were thought to be much more effective, showing their speakers listening to and answering people’s concerns, while the “No” campaign’s broadcasts featured speakers reading from an autocue.
The “Yes” campaign enjoyed much more funding, thanks to the support of many British businesses and the Confederation of British Industry. According to the treasurer of the “Yes” campaign, Alastair McAlpine, “The banks and big industrial companies put in very large sums of money”. At the time, business was “overwhelmingly pro-European”,[13] and Harold Wilson met several prominent industrialists to elicit support. It was common for pro-Europeans to convene across party and ideological lines with businessmen.[13] John Mills, the national agent of the “No” campaign, recalled: “We were operating on a shoe-string compared to the Rolls Royce operation on the other side”.[14] However, it was also the case that many civil society groups supported the “Yes” campaign, including the National Farmers Union and some trade unions.
Much of the “Yes” campaign focused on the credentials of its opponents. According to Alastair McAlpine, “The whole thrust of our campaign was to depict the anti-Marketeers as unreliable people – dangerous people who would lead you down the wrong path … It wasn’t so much that it was sensible to stay in, but that anybody who proposed that we came out was off their rocker or virtually Marxist.”.[14] Tony Benn controversially claimed: “Half a million jobs lost in Britain and a huge increase in food prices as a direct result of our entry into the Common Market”,[13] using his position as Industry Minister as an authority. His claims were ridiculed by the “Yes” campaign and ministers; the Daily Mirror labelled Benn the “Minister of Fear”, and other newspapers were similarly derisive. Ultimately, the “No” campaign lacked a popular, moderate figure to play the public leadership role for their campaign that Jenkins and Wilson fulfilled in the “Yes” campaign.
This was only the second nationwide referendum to be held (the first being the EEC referendum in 1975) and the first that was not merely consultative; being “post-legislative” and therefore committing the government to give effect to its decision
United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum, 2011
This was only the second nationwide referendum to be held (the first being the EEC referendum in 1975) and the first that was not merely consultative; being “post-legislative” and therefore committing the government to give effect to its decision[citation needed].
All registered electors over 18 (British, Irish and Commonwealth citizens living in the UK and enrolled British citizens living outside)[1] – including Members of the House of Lords (who cannot vote in UK general elections) – were entitled to take part.
On a turnout of 42.2 per cent, 68 per cent voted No and 32 per cent voted Yes. Ten of the 440 local counting areas recorded ‘Yes’ votes above 50 per cent; six in London, and those in Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh Central and Glasgow Kelvin in Scotland.[2]
The campaign was described in retrospect by political scientist Iain McLean as a “bad-tempered and ill-informed public debate”.[3]
Aftermath[edit]
Further details of campaigning decisions emerged after the referendum result with Dan Hodges reporting that the Conservatives had endorsed the No campaign’s targeting of Nick Clegg, although they had originally opposed the idea. Hodges also reported that an aide of David Cameron secretly met No campaign leaders in a hotel room in order to stop the Liberal Democrats finding out the scale of Conservative involvement.[204]
The Coalition Government continued and sought to present a united front after the fractious campaign. Former Conservative Cabinet minister Michael Portillo criticised Cameron, saying he “forgot the importance of courtesy” towards Clegg and the Liberal Democrats and, thus, the survival of the Coalition, when he joined what Portillo called “the disgraceful No campaign”.[204]
On 8 July 2011, the Alternative Vote Provisions were repealed, bringing the statutory process that had initiated the referendum to an end.[205]
Scottish independence referendum, 2014
A referendum on Scottish independence took place on 18 September 2014.[1] The independence referendum question, which voters answered with “Yes” or “No”, was “Should Scotland be an independent country?”[2] The “No” side won, with 2,001,926 (55.3%) voting against independence and 1,617,989 (44.7%) voting in favour. The turnout of 84.6%was the highest recorded for an election or referendum in the United Kingdom since the introduction of universal suffrage.
Eligibility to vote[edit]
Under the terms of the 2010 Draft Bill, the following people were entitled to vote in the referendum:[15]
British citizens who were resident in Scotland;
citizens of other Commonwealth countries who were resident in Scotland;
citizens of other European Union countries who were resident in Scotland;
members of the House of Lords who were resident in Scotland;
Service/Crown personnel serving in the UK or overseas in the British Armed Forces or with Her Majesty’s Government who were registered to vote in Scotland.
Convicted prisoners were not able to vote in the referendum. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) earlier ruled that this restriction was unlawful, but Scottish judge Lord Glennie said that he believed the ECHR judgment would apply only to parliamentary elections.[30] Appeals against his ruling were rejected by the Court of Session in Edinburgh[31] and the UK Supreme Court.[32]
The normal voting age was reduced from 18 to 16 for the referendum, as it was SNP policy to reduce the voting age for all elections in Scotland.[15][33][34] The move was supported by Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Greens.[35][36]
In January 2012, Elaine Murray MSP of Labour led a debate arguing that the franchise should be extended to Scots living outside Scotland, including the approximately 800,000 living in the other parts of the UK.[37] This was opposed by the Scottish Government, which argued that it would greatly increase the complexity of the referendum and stated that there was evidence from the United Nations Human Rights Committee that other nations “might question the legitimacy of a referendum if the franchise is not territorial”.[37]
In the House of Lords, Baroness Symons argued that the rest of the UK should be allowed to vote on Scottish independence, on the grounds that it would affect the whole country. This argument was rejected by the British government, as the Advocate General for Scotland Lord Wallace said that “whether or not Scotland should leave the United Kingdom is a matter for Scotland”.[37] Wallace also pointed to the fact that only two of 11 referendums since 1973 had been across all of the United Kingdom.[37] Professor John Curtice also argued that the Northern Ireland sovereignty referendum of 1973 (the “border poll”) created a precedent for allowing only those resident in one part of the UK to vote on its sovereignty.[38]
Legality of a referendum[edit]
Accusations of BBC bias[edit]
In January 2014, a year-long academic study by Dr John Robertson at the University of the West of Scotland found that coverage by the BBC and the Scottish commercial channel STV had favoured the No campaign, although Robertson conceded that this was partly due to there being more major political parties in favour of No.[386][387][388][389]In March 2014, BBC Scotland chiefs appeared before a Scottish Parliament committee to face questions from MSPs about the broadcaster’s coverage.[390] During that session, BBC Scotland director Ken MacQuarrie disputed the findings of Dr Robertson’s study.[386] MacQuarrie criticised its methodology, saying that its conclusions were largely based upon “flawed analysis” and contained factual errors.[386]
During the latter stages of the campaign there were further allegations by some independence supporters that the BBC – the UK’s national broadcaster – was biased against Scottish independence.[391][392] In an interview for the Sunday Herald, Alex Salmond said he believed the BBC had been unconsciously biased against independence.[391]Former BBC journalist Paul Mason commented: “Not since Iraq have I seen BBC News working at propaganda strength like this”.[391] The BBC replied that “Our coverage of the referendum story is fair and impartial in line with the editorial guidelines”.[393] Alex Massie wrote in The Spectator that the BBC’s coverage was consistent with their attitude towards other government proposals of such magnitude and that that it was incumbent upon the Yes campaign to prove its assertions.[394]
On 29 June, several hundred independence supporters gathered in a demonstration outside the BBC Scotland headquarters in Glasgow in protest at the BBC’s alleged bias.[394][395][396] A week before the vote, BBC political editor Nick Robinson said in a news item that Salmond “didn’t answer” his questions at a press conference.[397] This led to a protest by several thousand independence supporters at the BBC Scotland headquarters,[397] accusing the BBC of broadcasting pro-Union “propaganda” and “lies”.[391] The Independent reported that the protesters accused Robinson of conniving “with the Treasury to spread lies about the dangers to business and financial services of an independent Scotland”.[391] Alastair Campbell said that the “organised protests” amounted to media censorship “not far off” Vladimir Putin‘s Russia, telling Twitter users they should “Vote YES for intimidation”.[391] Robinson later expressed his “regret” at using the phrase “didn’t answer” in his report[397] and criticised the protests.[398]
Speaking after the referendum, Yes Scotland chief executive Blair Jenkins said that he did not believe there was a “systemic bias” against Yes or any “corporate intent to disadvantage the Yes campaign”.[392]
Opinion polling[edit]
Main article: Opinion polling for the Scottish independence referendum, 2014
Results of polls to 11 September 2014. Red: no, green: yes
Professor John Curtice stated in January 2012 that polling showed support for independence at 32%–38% of the Scottish population, a slight decline from 2007, when the SNP first formed the Scottish government.[399] By 2012, there had been no poll evidence of majority support for independence, although the share “vehemently opposed to independence” had declined.[399] According to Curtice, the polls were stable during most of 2013, with “no” leading by an average of 17% with a year to go.[400] Polling expert Nate Silver said in 2013 that the yes campaign had “virtually no chance” of winning the referendum.[401]
The gap narrowed after the release of the Scottish government white paper on independence: an average of 5 polls in December 2013 and January 2014 gave 39% yes and 61% no, once ‘don’t knows’ had been excluded.[402] The polls tightened further after the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, stated in February that the UK government was opposed to a currency union; the average yes support increased to 43%, once ‘don’t knows’ had been excluded.[403] There was little movement in the following months, with the average continuing to show 43% yes and 57% no (excluding don’t knows) in July 2014[404] and August 2014.[405]
In September, polls indicated that the vote would be closer than was indicated earlier. On 6 September a YouGov poll gave those in favour 47% versus 45% for those against; excluding those undecided, the figures were 51% and 49%, respectively.[406] The final polls, taken in the last few days of the campaign, indicated a lead for No of 4–6%.[407] There was no exit poll; instead, soon after polling stations had closed, YouGov released a final poll that had been taken during the day of voting, indicating 46% Yes, 54% No.[408][409]
Results[edit]
55.3% voted against independence,[417] with a turnout of 84.6%. 28 of the 32 council areas voted “No”, although the four areas that voted “Yes” (Dundee, Glasgow, North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire) contained over 20% of the Scottish electorate.
The overall turnout of 84.6% was very high for Scotland.[418] Turnout was around 50–60% for elections to the Scottish and UK parliaments in the early 21st century.[419] The most recent United Kingdom general election with a comparable turnout was in 1950, when 83.9% voted.[418] The last ballot in the United Kingdom with a higher turnout than 84.6% was in January 1910, when no women and fewer men were allowed to vote (i.e. before universal suffrage applied to UK elections).[418] Of the 32 areas, East Dunbartonshire had the highest turnout at 91.0%, and Glasgow the lowest at 75.0%.[418]
An academic study, surveying 5,000 Scottish voters soon after the referendum, found that the majority for No was formed by an “unusual alliance” of the very young, average earners, Protestants and women.[420] The study supported polling evidence that there was a gender gap, but countered beliefs that higher earners had supported No and that younger voters had mostly voted Yes.[420]
Results of the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016
United Kingdom[edit]
The result of the referendum for the United Kingdom and Gibraltar was declared by the Chief Counting Officer for the referendum, Jenny Watson. In a UK-wide referendum, the position of Chief Counting Officer is held by the chair of the Electoral Commission.[4] The results were declared at Manchester Town Hall at 0720BST on Friday 24 June 2016.[citation needed] The following figures are as reported by the Electoral Commission.[5]
United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016
Choice
Votes
%
Leave
17,410,742
51.89
Remain
16,141,241
48.11
Valid votes
33,551,983
99.92
Invalid or blank votes
25,359
0.08
Total votes
33,577,342
100.00
Registered voters and turnout
46,500,001
72.21
Source: Electoral Commission[6]
Campaign groups[edit]
Main article: Campaigning in the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016
The official campaign group for leaving the EU was Vote Leave.[28] Other major campaign groups included Leave.EU,[29] Grassroots Out, and Better Off Out,[30] while non-EU affiliated organisations also campaigned for the United Kingdom’s withdrawal, such as the Commonwealth Freedom of Movement Organisation.[31]
The official campaign to stay in the EU, chaired by Stuart Rose, was known as Britain Stronger in Europe, or informally as Remain. Other campaigns supporting remaining in the EU included Conservatives In,[32] Labour in for Britain,[33] #INtogether (Liberal Democrats),[34] Greens for a Better Europe,[35] Scientists for EU,[36] Environmentalists For Europe,[37] Universities for Europe[38] and Another Europe is Possible.[39]
Greens For Europe – The Issues
https://www.greenparty.org.uk/europe
1/ Climate & Environment
Being part of the EU makes sense when it comes to protecting our environment. Pollution and environmental degradation don’t respect national border – so we clearly need cross-border solutions to the challenges we face. If we join forces with other countries, strengthening the EU-wide rules on carbon emissions that are already in place, then we have a chance of keeping future generations safe.
Our beaches are cleaner, our air less polluted and our wildlife is far safer because of EU rules. Some of our dirtiest power stations have been closed thanks to EU directives.
The Government has dropped some heavy hints about what would happen to our environmental rules if we quit the EU. Ministers have tried their best to water down air pollution rules, the Chancellor has said that EU nature laws place ‘ridiculous costs‘ on British firms and, most worryingly of all, the Government has beenvigorously stripping away support for clean energy and renewable technology in the UK.
2/ Workers Rights
Being a member of the EU means being part of a cross-continental market. It is, therefore, crucial that workers’ rights also span borders.
From protection for part time and temporary workers to protection from discrimination; from rights for working parents to the right to paid holidays and a regular lunch break; from health and safety to promoting employee voice; the EU has been fundamental in making the British workplace a fairer and more equal place.
You only have to look at the Tories approach to workers’ rights to see the clear risk of leaving the EU. European rules are a safeguard against the tories love of deregulation and their attacks on trade unionists.
3/ Freedom of Movement
We are richer because of freedom of movement. Our lives are enriched when we share them with people from other countries, and our horizons are broadened because we can travel, work and study easily across the EU.
Students benefit from being able to study abroad. Brits can easily retire in Spain. Our economy is stronger because of people coming here to work and contribute.
Leaving the EU wouldn’t just risk our multicultural society here in Britain. It would could also stop us from being able to easily study at great European universities,work abroad or retire to the Spanish sunshine
4/ Jobs
Being a member of the EU gives us a better chance of getting a decent job.
A range of studies have taken place – by independent experts as well as the Government – which show that 3-4 million jobs are linked directly and indirectly to our trade with the EU.
Given that trading with the EU would be harder if we left, and would take many years to negotiate, these jobs would be vulnerable.
5/ Checks on Corporate Power
After the financial crisis of 2008 it has become increasingly clear that we need international rules to curb the excess of finance firms in the City of London.
The EU has brought in a cap on bankers’ bonuses and stricter rules on credit ratings agencies. The EU has also introduced a robin hood tax – which the UK refused to sign up to.
If we leave the EU the Tories would unleash a wave of deregulation on the City of London – possibly risking another financial crash in doing so.
6/ Economy
Being part of the EU gives British businesses, both small and big, access to a 500-million strong market.
We get out more than we put in. Our annual contribution is equivalent to £340 for each household and yet the CBI says that all the trade, investment, jobs and lower prices that come from our economic partnership with Europe is worth £3000 per year to every household.
Leaving the EU would risk economic stability in Britain. We’d be forced to negotiate trade deals with many countries – on terms dictated by the Tories.
7/ Education
Being part of the EU allows British students to broaden their horizons by living, working and studying abroad. Last year, over 15,000 students studied in another EU country as part of the Erasmus programme.
The EU provides billions in funding for research at British universities, opening up opportunities for further study for students here as well as funding that allows us to attract talented people from across Europe to contribute to research and innovation here.
Our membership of the EU helps British universities to thrive – leaving would do huge damage to the opportunities and prospects of British students.
8/ Keeping the peace
The EU has been crucial to bringing about a lasting peace in Europe after the bloodshed of the Second World War. Britain has a particularly important role in this peace mission. We have made the mistake in the past of thinking that the Channel will insulate us from crisis in mainland Europe. We are necessary to the effective management and conflicts of our continent; we cannot duck our responsibilities.
9/ Animals
The EU has improved conditions for animals where national governments have failed to act, and its influence is felt beyond European borders. The EU brought in a blanket ban on animal testing for cosmetics; banned the import of products newly tested on animals and suspended the use of toxic bee-killing pesticides.
The EU has also brought in bans on cruel factory farming practices: The EU prohibited the use of sow stalls and barren battery cages for hens.
We all know the EU isn’t perfect, but be in no doubt, if animals had votes they’d vote to stay in. The UK Government has already tried to weaken laws on laboratory animals – this doesn’t instill confidence that if we were to leave the EU, the current level of protection for animals would remain.
Results[edit]
Leadership[edit]
Bartley/Lucas won the leadership contest with 86% of first preference votes, on an increased turnout from the previous leadership election and the previous contested leadership election.[47] Womack was re-elected as deputy leader.[18]
Green Party of England and Wales
Leadership election, 2016[18]CandidateVotes %
Jonathan Bartley/Caroline Lucas
13,570
86.0
956
6.1
David Williams
527
3.4
Re-open Nominations
306
1.9
173
1.1
Martie Warin
133
0.8
Simon Cross
108
0.7
Turnout15,46737.1Bartley & Lucas elected as Co-Leaders
Deputy Leadership[edit]
Green Party of England and Wales Deputy Leadership election, 2016[48]Candidate1st Pref%Count 2%Count 3%Count 4%
4,742
41.8
4,882
43.7
5,231
47.5
6,063
57.1
Andrew Cooper
1,778
15.7
1,859
16.6
1,979
18.0
2,308
21.7
1,716
15.1
1,820
16.3
1,948
17.7
2,244
21.1
Kat Boettge
1,510
13.5
1,623
14.5
1,845
16.8
—
—
Daniella Radice
924
8.1
983
8.8
—
—
—
—
Storm Poorun
445
3.9
—
—
—
—
—
—
Alan Borgars
179
1.6
—
—
—
—
—
—
Re-open Nominations
44
0.4
—
—
—
—
—
—
Non-Transferable Votes
—
—
171
—
335
—
725
—
Turnout11,33826.3Amelia Womack re-elected as Deputy Leader[49]
Background[edit]
Caroline Lucas, then an MEP for South East England, was elected as the first Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales in 2008 (formerly a system of two principal speakers was used). In the new Constitution of the Green Party, it was also mandated that there would be leadership elections every two years.,[5] Lucas was elected as the first Green Party MP, for the constituency of Brighton Pavilion, and in the same year she was re-elected unopposed as Leader. In 2012, she announced she would not be standing again as Leader, saying: “The reason that I’ve decided not to re-stand… is because I want to give other people the opportunity to get well known, to have some profile in the party, hopefully to use that to get themselves elected as well.”[6]
In the 2012 leadership election, Natalie Bennett, a journalist for The Guardian, was elected as Leader. She was re-elected unopposed in the 2014 leadership election, and then led the party in the 2015 general election. At the general election, the Green Party’s vote share increased from 1.0% to 3.8%, but they did not increase their parliamentary representation.[7] Following the 2016 local elections, in which the Green Party lost four local councillors but came third in the London Assembly and in the London mayoral election, Bennett defended her record as Leader.[8] On 15 May 2016, Bennett announced she would not be standing again for election later in 2016, saying: “There have been times when I got things right, and times when I got things wrong, but that’s because I’m not a smooth, spin-trained, lifelong politician.”[3][9]
Campaign[edit]
During the course of the leadership campaign, the UK held a referendum resulting in a vote to leave the EU. This led to leadership contests starting in the Conservative Party, UKIP and the Labour Party.
A series of hustings was held,[10][better source needed] including in London,[11] Leeds,[12] and Manchester (for the Leadership[13] and deputy Leadership[14]).
Caroline Lucas stated that she and Bartley “want to forge a new “progressive alliance” with other political parties willing to advocate electoral reform – potentially including deals over who would contest particular parliamentary seats.”[15] Rival candidate Clive Lord criticised the plan, noting the rejection of the idea by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.[16] Lord said, “What else did anyone think Corbyn would say to the Green Party’s Progressive Alliance? It makes sense for Labour – both factions – to eliminate Greens wherever we do well, because we only take what they regard as ‘their’ votes and nobody else’s. So the four or five seats (if you include Sheffield Central) where we would want a clear run, are the last that Labour would allow us.”
Matt Townsend, a party executive member, expressed concern that Lucas’s early entry into the contest would lead it to become a “coronation”,[17] as did other party commentators.[18]
The campaign has been covered by various on-line and printed media, including Vice,[19] Bright Green,[20] Left Foot Forward,[21] The Guardian,[22] and The Huffington Post.[23]
As part of the election process, all candidates have been invited to answer a diverse range of questions related to Green Party policy by various party organisations and affiliates. One consistent question at hustings and in the questionnaires is the question of identity, diversity and LGBT BAME representation in the party and how noticeably homogenous the leadership race is in particular. All candidates have acknowledged this and it is not a point of contention. The question was put in the Electoral Reform Society’s questionnaire and all candidates answers and views on this issue were printed.[24] A campaign to support Re-open nominations in the leadership vote was founded upon an alleged lack of diversity in the make-up of the leadership candidates.[25][26][27]
Other major questionnaires were on Reddit from the UK Greens Reddit Climate Action Group,[28] The Green Party Trade union Group,[29] and from Bright Green, one of Britain’s leading left-wing blogs.[30]
Procedure[edit]
According to the Constitution of the Green Party the leadership should be “the primary public faces of the party, responsible for presenting Green Party policy and promoting its electoral activity and campaigns to the public on a daily basis.” Candidates must have been members of the Green Party for three years or more at the close of nominations, and must have signatures supporting their nomination from a minimum of twenty other party members. Elections are constitutionally mandated to take place every two years by a postal ballot of all members. The Constitution states that nominations for leadership will be open from 10:00 on the first week-day in June until noon on the last week-day in June. Polls will close either after the last mail delivery on the last week-day of August, or five week-days before Autumn Conference starts, whichever is sooner. The party elects a Leader and two Deputy Leaders, or two Co-Leaders and a Deputy leader (thus, as Bartley/Lucas won the leadership, only one deputy leader was chosen).[5] Several other executive positions are also being chosen. Re-open nominations(RON) is included as a voting option.[31] Votes are counted according to single transferable vote and alternative vote, as appropriate.
Timetable[edit]
On 20 May 2016, the party announced a provisional timetable for both the leadership and deputy leadership elections.[32] Further details were announced on 27 May 2016.[33] On the 29th June 2016, it was announced that the close of nominations would be postponed from 30/06/2016 12:00 to 30/06/2016 22:00 due to a “technical problem”.[34]
1 June 2016 (10:00) – Nominations open
30 June 2016 (22:00) – Nominations close
1 July 2016 – Campaign period begins
24 July 2016 – Campaign period ends
25 July 2016 – One month balloting period begins
25 August 2016 – Balloting period ends
2 September 2016 – Autumn Conference begins in Birmingham; results are announced
4 September 2016 – Autumn Conference ends
On Green Leadership.
Mandate,
37% turnout
41 690 active eligible voters
32.55%
Incumbents advantage
Incumbency advantage[edit]
In general, incumbents have structural advantages over challengers during elections. The timing of elections may be determined by the incumbent instead of a set schedule. For most political offices, the incumbent often has more name recognition due to their previous work in the office. Incumbents also have easier access to campaign finance, as well as government resources (such as the franking privilege) that can be indirectly used to boost a campaign. An election (especially for a legislature) in which no incumbent is running is often called an open seat; because of the lack of incumbency advantage, these are often amongst the most hotly contested races in any election.
In the United States, incumbents traditionally win their party’s nomination to run for office. Unseating an incumbent president, governor, senator or other figure during a primary election is very difficult, and even in the general election, incumbents have a very strong record. For instance, the percentage of incumbents who win reelection after seeking it in the U.S. House of Representatives has been over 80% for over 50 years, and is often over 90%.[4] However, this rate may be artificially inflated, as incumbents that feel unlikely to win may decline to run for reelection. Additionally, shifts in congressional districts due to reapportionment or other longer-term factors may make it more or less likely for an incumbent to win re-election over time. For example, a Democratic incumbent in historically conservative rural Texas would have less chance of winning than a Democratic incumbent in historically liberal New York City, because Texas has shifted away from the Democratic Party in terms of voting while New York City has shifted toward the same party (see also Congressional stagnation in the United States).
When newcomers vie to fill an open office, voters tend to compare and contrast the candidates’ qualifications, issues positions and personal characteristics in a relatively straightforward way. Elections featuring an incumbent, on the other hand, are as Guy Molyneux puts it, “fundamentally a referendum on the incumbent.”[5] Voters will first grapple with the record of the incumbent. Only if they decide to “fire” the incumbent do they begin to evaluate whether the challenger is an acceptable alternative.
ERS promoted a de facto incumbency advantage to Caroline Luca who in term blessed the Co Leadership status of Johnathan Bartley who also benefits from the in-group biases demonstrated by the Green establishment including publications who support its establishment. Wikipedia particularly promoted this incumbency element to the competition.
The deputy leadership is a more complex version of the same phenomena.
Tom Harris Caroline is re-elected and already the Party’s management is bending over backwards to accommodate her every whim. Watch out Green Party staff members who have their own opinion – I predict sackings and gagging clauses coming up very soon.
Tom Harris Labour would only enter into a pact if it was guaranteed to destroy, or at very least, severely disadvantage the junior partner. Just look at what measures the PLP is prepared to go to in order to get its own way. They are careerist monsters, dead set on pushing through their own agenda at all costs. Sound familiar?!
Roger Lewis I agree with Tom harris, the top down turn in the GP atmosphere is quite marked and the CO/ leadership bid was a coRONation. The presidential style of politics being promoted by the CO/ Leaders and their ´´Team´´ is straight out of Clinton Playbook 101, including terminology. `Progressive” is a very American term for watering down and neutering radicalism. Caroline, I am afraid to say, has caught westminsteritis and its contempt for Participative democracy. Chucka ummana displayed this very clearly in the debate of the neverendum in the Commons second chamber, yesterday. ´´Troubling our constituents with referendums´´he called it. Joseph Shumpeter described this as a competing elites model of democracy. ( quotes from Roy Madron, Super Competent Democracies).
‘Democracy is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote’.” Joseph Schumpeter, Quoted from Roy Madron , Super Competent Democracies who in turn Cites. “Participation, and Democratic Theory” by Carole Pateman. Dr. Pateman says that, Schumpeter and his followers: … set the current Anglo-American political system as our democratic ideal (with) a ‘democratic theory’ that in many respects bears a strange resemblance to the anti-democratic arguments of the last (i.e. 19th) century. No longer is democratic theory centered on the participation of ‘the people’; in the contemporary theory of democracy it is the participation of the minority elite that is crucial and the non-participation of the apathetic, ordinary man lacking in the feelings of political efficacy, that is regarded as the main bulwark against instability.” Natalie was/is a great Democrat and good for the Green Party. I am skeptical of the co/Leadership which I feel Tom has quite rightly questioned , the Blairite Blue/Green turn it seems is accelerating, the piece in the Guardian advocating a turn to the right all add up to a pretty obvious pre-planned and probably Establishment endorsed , ‘make the Green Party ´ electable´ploy, plausible deniability built in of course. Ironically on the alliance front, the establishment will have been thinking about Jeremy Corbyn and a real left wing Labour party which it obviously abhors. If PR is on the cards which it would be in almost by default in a Federated post BrettBritain ,( Think federated union to preserve the union) getting the Green into the centre ground to the left of neoliberalismbut also of it, would make sense for gaming Post Brexit federal Britain and its PR based parliament . It is clear that some form of federation will be required to accomodate Scottish autonomy within a re – modeledunion as clearly another indie referendum would see and end of the Union,as things currently stand. The neverendum debate yesterday was quite informative and Caroline was in the seconders chair, not a very democratic look for the new Blue/Green I feel. heres the full debate http://parliamentlive.tv/…/cb2f33f6-f9fe-463e-a6d5…
Elise Benjamin Roger, I don’t know where to begin responding to your comments! By Blue/Green do you mean a leadership that are proud socialists (Jonathan is a member of Green Left)? No policy decisions are being made, this is a genuine attempt to open up debate on working cross party (that’s including Plaid and SNP) to try to stop the Tories. There are clear red lines on the economy, energy production, welfare, and support for PR. It’s clear from the protest votes in the referendum and from our experience with on the street campaigning that voters want a more cooperative form of politics and we are the party taking a lead on this.
Mike Shone Elise Benjamin there is extremely serious problem with this initiative not being evaluated and evaluations running contrary not being absorbed. Overlooking the crisis in the Labour Party, its tribalism and reactionary nature including under the overexcited Corbynista surge indicates that a PA is not workable for the next General Election where Labour will suffer a devastating defeat,
Roger Lewis Elise Benjamin Hi Elise, I am writing an article fully addressing the problems I see regarding the coRONation which is nota mandate when one considers that 32.55% of eligible voters supported the co leader bid, why the turnout is so low is probably explained by concerns expressed about the shot gun announcement of the co leader campaign in May. A low turnout was always going to be to the advantage of Caroline who fully utilised incumbentsadvantage as the only Green Party MP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incumbent (see incumbency advantage section) On Brexit and PR , caroline made an excellent speech in the second chamber of the commons yesterday on the neverendum debate. On Johnathan’sleft wing credentials, Owen Smith claims to be of the Left, lip service is not praxis. I will explain in more depth what I mean by this in my article , I will post it here in the next few days. On Brexit lets not forget a referendum on EU membership was actually promised in the GP 2015 manifesto, reform of the EU ( and its neo liberal constitution and practical policy positions) is supported by caroline, a member of DIEM 25) but I highlight that her speech in the commons conflates policy and parliamentarypolitical will and electoral efficacy, the arguments will all be in my article and I will not summarise them here. The DIEM 25 vis the lexit position on EU membership are both valid positions,
. A rightward and top down drift of the greens is in the establishments agenda Shahrah in his conference speech makes the point that. ”There are many challenges ahead not just in party politics but in global politics.
But the end doesn’t justify means. As Gandhi well understood, rather the means is the ends in the making.
Take the media. It’s not the media that controls this party; it’s what we do in spite of the media that counts. (Please re tweet.)”https://www.greenparty.org.uk/…/shahrar-ali-speech-to…/ The establishment as I have said above may well find a federaland pr based system of uk government necessary to preserve the union, a left wing GP will not be allowed and the preferred meansof dealing with the GP nicely will be to encourage the right wing shift in return for PR. Similar to Labour and its rightward shift allowing the wastedyears of Blairism . The Blue Greens will be a watered down controlled opposition to neo liberalism at best. This is an interesting game of chess the question for me is not whether the greens have been targeted for infiltration but how far that infiltration has already got?
Ian Woodall Labour need a dose of realism. Pehaps Corbyn getting them virtually wiped out will provide that. But its a heavy price.
Roger Lewis this is pure speculation and there is no credible evidence to suggest this is the case. Certainly that is the establishment view and the media view. The elctorate may have very different ideas if it can be fully engaged. PArt of electoral reform should be about securing high turnout of all eligible voters, a measure by which the risible 37% turnout in the green leadership election fails by a long mark. The low turnout was assisted by the shotgun start of proceeding back in May.
Ian Woodall Oh dear. You are one of them arent you?
31% of the vote in national polls
A mid term position 14 points.No opposition party has ever won from that position
Corbyns poll rating amongst Labour voters is awful
behind May and her crew
The kind of media management Sports Direct woild reject as useless.
They are going to stall on 30% and May will cream them.
Sorry and all that but thems the facts.
Ian Woodall P.s. not being a git. But can we not have THAT fight amongst the nice people in the Green Party?
Roger Lewis Ian, what do you mean by one of them? polls have been discredited this past few years, It has not escaped all of our notice that they were wrong about 2015 and wrong about Brexit. It may well be that a Corbyn led Labour party is un electable, the position Labour finds itself in though is certainly due to the ´Coup´attempt and all of the media narratives that have preciently saged each twist and turn, I find such precience odd? perhaps that is because I am ´One of Them´? What are Corbyns greatest policy crimes? a stance against neo liberalism is certainly one of them, opposing the Austerity (There is no alternative ) narrative certainly another. The Green PArty 2015 mainifesto was well to the left of Labour certainly no more left/right than Corbyns political pallette I would argue. Maybe its corbyns stance on Trident, or Syrian bombing or EU agression in Ukraine? Perhaps it is that COrbyn doesn’t believe all he reads in the news papers. Shahrar Ali said this in his conference speech. ”There are many challenges ahead not just in party politics but in global politics.
But the end doesn’t justify means. As Gandhi well understood, rather the means is the ends in the making.
Take the media. It’s not the media that controls this party; it’s what we do in spite of the media that counts. (Please re tweet.)”https://www.greenparty.org.uk/…/shahrar-ali-speech-to…/ . We could all do a lot worse than to reflect on Shahrars words, I loook forward to his return to the leadership of the GP when democracy is restored.
Green Party | Shahrar Ali speech to conference – ‘Political Animal’
I wasn’t sure I’d be able to face you today. Not out of some misplaced sense of wounded pride, but the sheer weight of disappointment; the feeling that I still had so much more to give as your deputy.
GREENPARTY.ORG.UK
A more representative inclusive democracy. Democratic Control.
a political system that delivers government on the basis of just based upon just 24% of the eligible vote clearly does not give us that.
Second refernedum on the terms. The other side of the door?
Parliamentary scrutiny of the plan?
Max parliamentary scrutiny but referendum on one of the 7 alternatives.
Leave campaigners squeel? Lexit case is well made,
look at debate of DIEM 25 or Lexit two schools of thought on how to reform EU.
Doing referendums differently ERS.
Top down misleading claims with impunity.
Egregious lies of leave
Freedom of Movement
Single market access
EU rules
350million pound per week.
Peter Lilley intervention @ 5.21
50 free trade aggs 3 with freedom of movement and those from govts proposing to join.
Difference between Free trade and membership of single market.
Expand.
Direction of the train,
General election
Parliamentary scrutiny.
Stakeholder participation
Outside UK race to the bottom, tax haven.
Keeping what we have Gold standard, improving upon it?
Air water wildlife, Habitats directive birds directive preservation of environmantal settlement . EU derived human and workers rights.
Guarantee eu nationals welcome to stay.
Share your thoughts
We want to know what you think the future of the Green party will hold, and indeed what you think it should be. Are you happy with the new leadership? What strengths do you think the party has in the current political landscape? What message would you have for non-Green voters?
Get in touch via the form below and we’ll use some of your views as part of our reporting.
Roger G Lewis
Age 51.
Sweden place of residence.
Occupation. retired business man
best described as I´ve votd Green in the past.
What makes you a Green party supporter? If you are not a Green supporter, what would you like to see from the party?
I started supoporting the greens instead of Labour in the 2015 General election primarily due to policies on Monetary reform , I blogged about it at the time here.http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2015/04/paying-for-promises-trumpo-card-of.html
Check out policy EC661 The Green Party believes that,…
How do you feel about the new leadership pairing? How can the green party secure success under Lucas and Bartley?
The use of incumbents advantage by Carline to annoint Bartley has not played well at grass roots level. This device and the shotgun start in the 1 month head start Caroline awarded their co leader bid has led to complaints of a stitch up . The turnout was just 37% it would have been higher had the coronation not started its procession one month ahead of other candidates being able to declare. The Top down style the leadership race and also progressive alliance proposals agressivley trailed by Lucas/Bartley also have engendered suspicion. This suspicion is also compounded by Johnathans privelidged middle class and Tory past. His speech at conference explaining this away it is fair to say has met with some skepticisim. The lack of diverstiy in the leadership and in the candidates standing did not go un noticed and the loss of Shahrar Ali to the leadership is nothing short of a tragedy.
What do you see as the Green party’s biggest failing in the past?
I agree with David malone that the parties biggest failing in the past is ´´Kissing Whales´´a failure to address the broad spectrum of political economy and the very middle class , ´´tories doing gardeners question time´´ made the party irrelevant, even alien to the broad mass of working class voters. The new leadership team do nothing to address the too white, too middle class and altogether too bourgoise face of the Green party.
If you are a Green party supporter, what message do you have for someone considering voting Green?
Keep a close eye on the next manifesto, if it is watered down and moves to the centre ground to the right of whatever the ´´new ´´, Labour party position becomes when its civil war ceases, do not vote Green if Monetary reform, UBI and seeking reform of the EU disappear, also be very wary. It is it seems forgotten that the GP did have an EU referendum promise in its 2015 manifesto, I have been analysing very closely Carolines speech in the commons debate yesterday.Listening to Brexit is a very important discipline for a democrat, Carolines speech is a curates egg in this regard sadly.
What do you think the Green party needs to do to grow its membership/support?
The Green party is pretty poor when it comes to digital and online social media. It needs to walk the walk not just talk the talk of real electoral reform in Praxis and not just theory. Caroline said this yesterday in the neverendum debate. ‘A more representative inclusive democracy. Democratic Control.
@2.24mins ” a political system that delivers government on the basis of just based upon just 24% of the eligible vote, clearly does not give us that.´´
On Green Leadership.
Mandate,
37% turnout
41 690 active eligible voters
32.55% mandate?for Lucas/Bartley
Incumbents advantage.? fully employed for the co leaders, through to the actual online ballot presentation.
The leadership election figures tell a similar story, was it voter suppression? probably not, certainly though it was contributory negligence on the part of Lucas/bartley and the GP machinery.
Daniel Lee Why are you joining Labour Party members to mock our leadership just because your candidate didn’t win?
Roger Lewis Actually that isn´t the case at all Daniel,I think that it is an obvious question to make and in the electoral politics in 2020 or sooner we need to examine these questions. It is not just Johnathan that is not representative neither are Caroline and neither is Amelia, If David Malone or David Williams had won and there were two white middle class deputies I would level the same critisisim. Diversity and representation are key issues. My biggest regret is that Shahrar Ali Green Party is not in the leadership both he and David know that I would have preferred that Shahrar had run for the leadership and David as one of the deputies. Daniel Curtis is an irrelevance in my considerations Diversity was an issue for RON, the conduct of the election itself was institutionally biased to the incumbemncy of Caroline as the Green Party one trick pony MP (they will claim, not my view). Obviously these arguments must be met with pragmatic and openminded critique. Thats democracy as far as I am concerned Dan I do not do tribal I am afraid, and believe in speaking my mind. I have no idea what David Malones views are or those of Shahrah Ali, these are my own private views and I hold them sincerely and without any mallice found in any dissappointment that David Malone did not achieve more votes, thats not a consideration what is, is are the GP electable? with this danger of a drift to the RIght and possibility of being or becoming a controlled opposition to neo – liberalism. This ´´Progressive Alliance ´´stich ” strikes me as a bit over-played , is rather pooh poohed by a lot of greens I have read and respect, like Clive Lord for instance. There is a wider game and it saddens me that the GP seems to suffer selective memory loss regarding its own history and policy stances.
Europe The Green Party recognises that the UK is part of Europe and that we cannot cut ourselves off from our geography or its political realities. Our message on Europe is positive, not based on fear and nostalgia. Much EU action has been progressive: safeguarding basic rights, peace and security achieved through mutual understanding, environmental protection, the spread of culture and ideas, and regulation of the financial system. And in other areas, such as welfare policy, open discussion and coordination are useful. However, we prioritise local self-reliance rather than the EU’s unsustainable economics of free trade and growth. We would not adopt the Euro, which cannot work properly without much deeper political integration, and this would be contrary to our policy of subsidiarity. We support the proposal to have an in–out referendum so that the British people can have their say. This is because much has changed since the UK joined the Common Market in 1974. Endless debate on membership is a diversion from more important matters, such as ending inequality and adapting our economy to One-Planet Living. So it’s yes to Europe, yes to reform of the EU but also yes to a referendum. This is the policy that led to the election of an additional Green MEP, Molly Scott Cato, in the South West last year.
“In a situation of manipulation, the Left is almost always tempted by a “quick return to power,” forgets the necessity of joining with the oppressed to forge an organization, and strays into an impossible “dialogue” with the dominant elites. It ends by being manipulated by these elites, and not infrequently itself falls in an elitist game, which it calls “realism.”
Manipulation, like the conquest whose objectives it serves, attempts to anesthetize the people so they will not think. For if the people join to their presence in the historical process critical thinking about that process, the threat of their emergence materializes in revolution…One of the methods of manipulation is to inoculate individuals with the bourgeois appetite for personal success. This manipulation is sometimes carried out directly by the elites and sometimes indirectly, through populist leaders.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Jeremy Bentham published a long Correspondense with Adam Smith on the tilte The Defence of Usury, Bentham also in that Pamplhlet set out the logical basis upon which Colonialisation would make sense to a colonising power.The value of a colony to the mother country, according to the
common mode of computation, is equal to the sum total of imports
from that colony and exports to it put together.
From this statement, if the foregoing observation be just,
the following deductions will come to be made.
1. The whole value of the exports to the colony.
2. So much of the imports as is balanced by the exports.
3. Such a portion of the above remainder as answers to so
much of the trade as would be equally carried on, were the colony
independent.
4. So much of that reduced profit as would be made, were the
same capital employed in any other trade or branch of industry
lost by the independence of the colony.
5. But the same capital, if employed in agriculture. would
have produced a rent over and above the ordinary profits of
capital: which rent, according to a general and undisputed
computation, may be stated at a sum equal to the amount of those
profits. Thence arises a further deduction, viz. the loss to the
nation caused by employing the capital in the trade to the
colony, in preference to the improvement of land, and thence upon
the supposition that the continuance of the trade depended upon
the keeping the colony in subjection.
The other mischiefs resulting from the keeping of a colony in
subjection, are:
1. The expence of its establishment, civil and military.
2. The contingent expence of wars and other coercive measures
for keeping it in subjection.
3. The contingent expence of wars for the defence of it
against foreign powers.
4. The force, military and naval, constantly kept on foot
under the apprehension of such wars.
5. The occasional danger to political liberty from the force
thus kept up.
6. The contingent expence of wars produced by alliances
contracted for the purpose of supporting wars that may be brought
on by the defence of it.
7. The corruptive effects of the influence resulting from the
patronage of the establishment, civil and military.
8. The damage that must be done to the national stock of
intelligence by the false views of the national interest, which
must be kept up in order to prevent the nation from opening their
eyes and insisting upon the enfranchisement of the colony.
9. The sacrifice that must be made of the real interest of
the colony to this imaginary interest of the mother-country. It
is for the purpose of governing it badly, and for no other, that
you wish to get or keep a colony. Govern it well, it is of no use
to you.
To govern its inhabitants as well as they would govern
themselves, you must choose to govern them those only whom they
would themselves choose, you must sacrifice none of their
interests to your own, you must bestow as much time and attention
to their interests as they would themselves, in a word, you must
take those very measures and no others, which they themselves
would take. But would this be governing? And what would it be
worth to you, if it were?
After all, it would be impossible for you to govern them so
well as they would themselves, on account of the distance.
10. The bad government resulting to the mother-country from
the complication, the indistinct views of things, and the
consumption of time occasioned by this load of distant
dependencies.
Benthamns Defense of usury is flawed in that it misunderstands the Debt aspects of Money creation, which was not as bad then as it is now but was still a system being pedalled by the infamous John Law in France.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Law_(economist)
With Fat Boy Slims strains of praise
and Mr Blairs Things getting worse
Thematic Songs of triumph sung with zeal,
Kinnocks Áll rIght´,fist raised aloft,
Opponents ready to sharpen their Sheffield Steel,
to mock and to scoff.
“In a situation of manipulation, the Left is almost always tempted by a “quick return to power,” forgets the necessity of joining with the oppressed to forge an organization, and strays into an impossible “dialogue” with the dominant elites. It ends by being manipulated by these elites, and not infrequently itself falls in an elitist game, which it calls “realism.”
Manipulation, like the conquest whose objectives it serves, attempts to anesthetize the people so they will not think. For if the people join to their presence in the historical process critical thinking about that process, the threat of their emergence materializes in revolution…One of the methods of manipulation is to inoculate individuals with the bourgeois appetite for personal success. This manipulation is sometimes carried out directly by the elites and sometimes indirectly, through populist leaders.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
February 19, 2017
Meet The Fuggers, Brexit, The Euro and Clueless Elites.
Meet the Fuggers or, its the Money Power stupid.
Brexit, The Euro and clueless Elites.
The Eastern Roman empire under Justinian saw the seeds of its final fall to The Ottomans when Abd El Melik started paying tribute in Gold coinage under his own Political Branding you might say.
With all the talk of Brexit being the removal of a final obstacle to the deeper federation of a European State transcending tiresome nationalism, perhaps a little review of History, particularly Monetary history, might not be such a bad thing.
In the review of European competences carried out as a consultation by the foreign office regarding Brexit and or reform requirements of the Eu, two of the papers need to be considered in the context of the Money power argument.
The first paper considered is the Subsidiarity and proportionality aspects of the Lisbon treaty and the competences of the EU institutions vis National and regional democratic institutions. This is a trade-off between Centralised Efficiency and Local democracy.
The second trade-off is the mutually exclusive realities of either Democracy or Private Credit creation, both again are not possible you can have one or the other.
EU enlargement and The monetary union had already become a bridge too far for many British Voters by the time of the Maastricht treaty. The Lisbon was a bridge too far. to mix a metaphor, The straw that broke the camels back. The Irish The Danes, The Swedes, The Dutch pretty much most populations consulted have not given the EU zealots the right answer the first time around and the EU elite simply refused to see the point and have now simply adopted the expediency of not asking.
Two pieces of folk wisdom spring to mind.
´´Quit while you’re ahead´´anon.
´´If you love something, set it free; if it comes backs it’s yours, if it doesn’t, it never was ´´.
Richard Bach.
Having achieved the ultimate power through the ECB it seems that the EU Technocrats simply did not understand that they had already become the house, if they got out more instead of indulging in mutual backslapping, they would know that the house always wins in Casino Capitalism. What this paper will seek to do is show how the EU, in failing to quit while it was ahead, has proceeded with the inevitable process of being hoisted on its own petard of hubris and Elitist Know all knows bestedness.
What follows is the proof that The ECB rules Europe with all the power of financialised capitalist Alchemy, the ECB and The Commission further choose to sacrifice national Governments to Market discipline and certain ruin at the hands of Private Bankers with the power to create money secured against the commonwealth and commons of its own Citizens. With National Governments forced to borrow in open markets without any legal recourse to the ECB as a lender of last resort. Latterly the Five presidents report seeks to justify More Europe in ´´Completing Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union´´
in the Five presidents report Mr Junker , ´´President´Ís that President No1 or President No 5, A or E , Mr Junker Then,, Or, Our Cher Jean Claude.
tells us that;
Responsible national fiscal policies are therefore
essential. They must perform a double function:
guaranteeing that public debt is sustainable and
ensuring that fiscal automatic stabilisers can operate to
cushion country-specific economic shocks. If this is not
the case, downturns are likely to last longer in individual
countries, which in turn affects the whole euro area.
But this is not enough. It is important to ensure also
that the sum of national budget balances leads to an
appropriate fiscal stance(5) at the level of the euro area
as a whole. This is key to avoiding pro-cyclical fiscal
policies at all times.
(5). The concept of fiscal stance reflects changes to the fiscal balance in order to influence aggregate economic demand and output. Under the Stability and Growth Pact,
the fiscal stance is measured on the basis of the structural fiscal balance, i.e. the fiscal balance corrected for the effects of the economic cycle and net of one-off and
other temporary measures. Generally speaking, a fiscal deficit (surplus) would suggest an expansionary (contractionary) fiscal stance
4.2. A fiscal stabilisation
function for the euro area
There are many ways for a currency union to progress
towards a Fiscal Union. Yet, while the degree to which
currency unions have common budgetary instruments
differs, all mature Monetary Unions have put in place
a common macroeconomic stabilisation function to
better deal with shocks that cannot be managed at the
national level alone.
This would be a natural development for the euro area
in the longer term (Stage 2) and under the conditions
explained above, i.e. as the culmination of a process of
convergence and further pooling of decision-making
on national budgets. The objective of automatic
stabilisation at the euro area level would not be to
actively fine-tune the economic cycle at euro area
level. Instead, it should improve the cushioning of large
macroeconomic shocks and thereby make EMU overall
more resilient. The exact design of such euro area
stabilisers requires more in-depth work. This should be
one of the tasks of the proposed expert group.
An open Letter to President Trump regarding the federal reserve could with a few minor word changes apply equally well to the abject failure of the European presidents to understand Modern Money.
http://www.monetary.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/President-Trump.pdf
“In the modern economy, most money takes the form of bank deposits. But how those bank deposits are created is often misunderstood: the principal way is through commercial banks making loans. Whenever a bank makes a loan, it simultaneously creates a matching deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money. The reality of how money is created today differs from the description found in some economics textbooks: • Rather than banks receiving deposits when households save and then lending them out, bank lending creates deposits.” (Emphasis BoE), Money Creation in the Modern Economy, 2014
The Bank of England seems to have let the UK government know the ECB has perhaps not been so forthcoming with the ´´FIVE´´presidents.
At this point for you dear reader and the `Five Presidentees´, I would like to effect the Introduction of a Brilliant Finance Scholar, If only the Technocrats would seek out real experts rather than Cronies in considering such important matters.
Introducing Professor Richard Werner.
Joseph Schumpeter was good on money and Werner’s thesis quotes extensively from him, ( see below). Werners´ empirical evidence that private banks are making loans without reserves proves that the ECB MONETARY model is the same extractive ´´Bankster´model that has brought penury and poverty to all countries in the EU as it has across the Globalised economy. All countries even the richest ones. Schumpeter is also prescient with respect to the reality of democracy in his competing elites model. The modern model has now reached a kind of stagnation where the Elites seem now to dispense with the necessity to compete. Schumpeter’s other peculiar Genius was in identifying what democracy really means in the Modern form of Elitist Technocratic Government as represented By The EU and its Institutions. I refer of course to Schumpeter’s Competing Elites model of democracy.
To remain with Money, for now, not just the Euro and Stirling but all money falling under the auspices of the IMF, World Bank and International Bank of Settlements.
Here is Steve Keen, the very sharp professor of heterodox monetary theory tackling this question and Joseph Stiglitz in this Entertaining and educational article.
Note To Joe Stiglitz: Banks Originate, Not Intermediate, And That’s Why Aggregate Demand Is Stuffed
This is my Comment posted against the same article, providing the proof for Professor Keen´s assertions from Professor Richard Werner, Who I promised to introduce you to.
” Money created by banks when they make loans so says Ben Bernake on Live TV clip at 14.58 min
Richard Werner @ProfessorWerner First empirical test in 5000 years of banking on whether each individual bank can create money out of nothing is out
http://ac.els-cdn.com/S1057521914001070/1-s2.0-S1057521914001070-main.pdf?_tid=781b835e-8880-11e4-8cf9-00000aacb35f&acdnat=1419104788_bcaee65302916a2bab37a5cf7f63c992 …
https://positivemoney.org/2014/03/bank-england-money-money-creation-modern-economy/
If you skipped the links and took me at my word here’s a bit more of Schumpeter to tee up our shot.
“Something like a certificate of future output or the award of purchasing power on the basis of promises of the entrepreneur actually exists. That is the service that the banker performs for the entrepreneur and to obtain which the entrepreneur approaches the banker. … (The banker) would not be an intermediary, but manufacturer of credit, i.e. he would create himself the purchasing power that he lends to the entrepreneur …. One could say, without committing a major sin, that the banker creates money.” 14
Schumpeter (1912, p. 197, emphasis in original)“[C]redit is essentially the creation of purchasing power for the purpose of transferring it to the entrepreneur, but not simply the transfer of existing purchasing power. … By credit, entrepreneurs are given access to the social stream of goods before they have acquired the normal claim to it. And this function constitutes the keystone of the modern credit structure.”
Schumpeter (1954, p. 107)
And finally Professor Werner in his own words.
´´Among the many different monetary system designs tried over the past 5000 years, very few have met the requirement for a fair, effective, accountable, stable, sustainable and democratic creation and allocation of money. The view of the author, based on more than twenty-three years of research on this topic, is that it is the safest bet to ensure that the awesome power to create money is returned directly to those to whom it belongs: ordinary people, not technocrats. This can be ensured by the introduction of a network of small, not-for-profit local banks across the nation. Most countries do not currently possess such a system. However, it is at the heart of the successful German economic performance in the past 200 years. It is the very Raiffeisen, Volksbank or Sparkasse banks – the smaller the better – that were helpful in the implementation of this empirical study that should serve as the role model for future policies concerning our monetary system. In addition, one can complement such local public bank money with money issued by local authorities that is accepted to pay local taxes, namely a local public money that has not come about by creating debt, but that is created for services rendered to local authorities or the community. Both forms of local money creation together would create a decentralised and more accountable monetary system that should perform better (based on the empirical evidence from Germany) than the unholy alliance of central banks and big banks, which have done much to create unsustainable asset bubbles and banking crises (Werner, 2013a and Werner, 2013b).
Professor Werner is the Author of the wonderful book Princes of the Yen which is also the title of a Film of the same title. It shows how the forces of neo-liberalism and dollar hegemony were used through the Federal reserve to Liberalise and ruin the Japanese economy pulling down what it had created.
Of course the WTO, IMF and International Bank of settlements all figure in our story and the Private Federal reserve is a key player in the 2008 financial Crisis, Ben Bernake being in the front seat of this speech given by Jean Claude Trichet. In 2012
President Junker waffles on unperturbed by Empirical evidence and continues to network ever more intricacies and technocratic oversights into the dream of Fully connected full spectrum Global Governance.
Again from the Famous Five do Monetary Union fiction that is ´´The Five Presidents Report´´
Consolidating the external
representation of the euro
As EMU evolves towards Economic, Financial and Fiscal
Union, its external representation should be increasingly
unified. This process may take place gradually, but it
should be put in motion starting in Stage 1.
The EU is the world’s largest trading block and the
world’s largest trader of manufactured goods and
services. It has achieved this by acting with one voice
on the global stage, rather than with 28 separate trade
strategies. The large economic and financial size and
the existence of a single monetary and exchange rate
policy for most of its members make the EU policy
decisions and economic developments increasingly
relevant for the world economy.
However, in the international financial institutions, the
EU and the euro area are still not represented as one.
This fragmented voice means the EU is punching below
its political and economic weight as each euro area
Member State speaks individually. This is particularly
true in the case of the IMF despite the efforts made to
coordinate European positions.
p.17 5 presidents report IBID
“You are not expected to understand this”
/*
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* swapped out, set the stack level to the last call
* to savu(u_ssav). This means that the return
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* actually returns from the last routine which did
* the savu.
*
* You are not expected to understand this.
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samizdat
ˈsamɪzdat,ˌsamɪzˈdat/
noun
1. the clandestine copying and distribution of literature banned by the state, especially formerly in the communist countries of eastern Europe.
“a samizdat newsletter”
Surveying the damage done.
Summary of main points
from this corporate watch report into the ECB, Troika and the Pigs´ Crises.
https://corporatewatch.org/news/2015/jan/23/false-dilemmas-critical-guide-euro-zone-crisis
The EU is made up of a web of institutions; the main ones are the Commission, the Parliament and the Council of Ministers. It is grounded legally in a series of Treaties.
Setting up the euro zone was a lengthy process, that was from the beginning a corporate-led vision. The common currency imposed a single monetary policy (e.g. decisions about interest rates) decided centrally, but fiscal policies (e.g. decisions about taxes) decided nationally.
Monetary policy for all countries is decided by the European Central Bank (ECB), which is prohibited from lending directly to governments. Instead, governments borrow by issuing bonds bought and traded in financial markets.
Restrictions were put in place regarding targets for the size of debts (at 60% of GDP) and deficits (at 3% of GDP). These targets were enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty and further entrenched through the Stability and Growth Pact. No euro zone country ever fully complied with these targets, however, only some were berated about breaking them.
The crisis led to the creation of the Troika – comprised of the Commission, the ECB and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – three institutions that are unaccountable, opaque and fundamentally undemocratic. They dictate the bailouts and the conditions that must be implemented in order for the recipients to receive the money.
Corporate Watch.
“The Troika acts like a governor and visits it’s colonies in the south of Europe and tells them what to do.” Derk Jan Eppink, a conservative Belgian MEP
Jeremy Bentham published a long Correspondence with Adam Smith on the title The Defence of Usury, Bentham also in that Pamphlet set out the logical basis upon which Colonialisation would make sense to a colonising power.The value of a colony to the mother country, according to the
common mode of computation, is equal to the sum total of imports
from that colony and exports to it put together.
From this statement, if the foregoing observation be just,
the following deductions will come to be made.
http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/bentham/usury
8. The damage that must be done to the national stock of
intelligence by the false views of the national interest, which
must be kept up in order to prevent the nation from opening their
eyes and insisting upon the enfranchisement of the colony.
9. The sacrifice that must be made of the real interest of
the colony to this imaginary interest of the mother-country. It
is for the purpose of governing it badly, and for no other, that
you wish to get or keep a colony. Govern it well, it is of no use
to you.
To govern its inhabitants as well as they would govern
themselves, you must choose to govern them those only whom they
would themselves choose, you must sacrifice none of their
interests to your own, you must bestow as much time and attention
to their interests as they would themselves, in a word, you must
take those very measures and no others, which they themselves
would take. But would this be governing? And what would it be
worth to you, if it were?
After all, it would be impossible for you to govern them so
well as they would themselves, on account of the distance.
10. The bad government resulting to the mother-country from
the complication, the indistinct views of things, and the
consumption of time occasioned by this load of distant
dependencies.
https://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2014/09/on-scottish-independence-usury-and-true.html
To be fair to the Famous Five it is not only they who seemed confused, in respect of the great power vested in the ECB. The Scottish Government led by Nicola Sturgeon seem equally confused.
More from the Corporate watch excellent report.
Chapter 9: Austerity does not repay debts but it destroys people
Austerity has deepened the crisis and has created an institutional landscape that favours big business and states. Austerity turned the crisis into an opportunity by exploiting lower wages, worse working conditions, and by inviting investors to buy anything and everything at discount prices. This chapter lays out why it is imposed, some examples of what it achieves and what others have to say about it.Chapter 10: The European Central Bank’s actions and responses
The ECB was prohibited from covering the state’s borrowing costs when the crisis hit. Instead, it responded by flooding the banks with cheap loans. The banks then often used these cheap loans to lend at much higher rates to governments. This encouraged banks to buy the bonds from their own governments, raising the probability of both of them collapsing. Eventually, the ECB bought up troubled countries’ bonds in the secondary bond market, itself a profitable business. By doing this the ECB alleviated the big private banks from the risky business of holding debts.Chapter 11: Changes in EU structures: using the crisis as a good excuse
A new series of legislative changes alter the legal and governing frameworks of the EU. Each of these changes further entrenches austerity as well as introducing harsher repercussions if new rules aren’t followed. This means that the severe austerity implemented in the crisis countries is now generalised and applied across the EU. The Fiscal Compact and other such measures are explained.Chapter 12: New bodies: authorities chasing their own tails
The authorities have created several new bodies to deal with the crisis. Each one has failed spectacularly at diagnosing the problems, or predicting the next fallouts.
Keeping in mind the variety of perspectives about the causes of the crisis, it is interesting to cross check them with the reforms actually implemented. Under the excuse of the crisis, authorities are introducing measures which despite deepening the crisis, strengthen future opportunities for profit making. The ‘shock doctrine’ – a method which involves exploiting the violent destruction of the existing economic and social norms, in order to bring in a new laissez-faire capitalism – is being applied to the full.2Conclusion
By blending the state theories of Miliband and Poulantzas, we are able to see the neoliberal state in a multidimensional form. It is not solely the result of the decisions of those in power, but also a complex system that constructs its own acquiescence. The neoliberal state is a qualitatively distinct form of the capitalist state. Its authoritarianism is present not only in its unquestioned defense of the interests of capital, but also in the way that it actively seeks to shape society to be more favorable to its goals. Peripheral countries have borne the burden of this violence as their position within the world system is secondary and practically dispensable. Core countries require a much more skilled intervention through the introduction of reforms and the transformation of institutions to solidify obedience in the form of the market society. Austerity, understood as a social-historical force, is the tool of the neoliberal state to subvert democracy and promote authoritarianism.
By way of some further political theory.
http://newpol.org/content/neoliberalism-austerity-and-authoritarianism
And Political Economy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_in_a_Time_of_Debt
Economics professor L. Randall Wray criticized Reinhart and Rogoff for combining data “across centuries, exchange rate regimes, public and private debt, and debt denominated in foreign currency as well as domestic currency,” in addition to “statistical errors,” and for lacking a “theory of sovereign currency”.[5]
Other critiques point out that any correspondence between debt levels and insufficient economic growth could just as easily be reversed: it is the weak economic growth that leads to the high debt levels.[16][17][18] Others have argued that the relationship between debt and growth varies significantly between countries, meaning that an average “rule”, such as that suggested by Reinhart and Rogoff, has little meaning or policy relevance.[17][19]
Nobel Prize-winning Princeton economist Paul Krugman stated in 2013:[20]
What the Reinhart-Rogoff affair shows is the extent to which austerity has been sold on false pretenses. For three years, the turn to austerity has been presented not as a choice but as a necessity. Economic research, austerity advocates insisted, showed that terrible things happen once debt exceeds 90 percent of G.D.P. But “economic research” showed no such thing; a couple of economists made that assertion, while many others disagreed. Policy makers abandoned the unemployed and turned to austerity because they wanted to, not because they had to.
Corporate Watch point the fingure at Rogoff and Reinhart, George Osbourne one of the scalps claimed by the great Brexit debacle also quoted them famously in defence of his wrong headed Austerity Catechism. As we will see though,
There is nothing New under the sun when it comes to debt and Usury.
´´One Lesson of the Charlemagne era is that money systems should never be dependent on the presence of exceptional individuals or the existence of available gold or silver deposits.´´
Sarlenga . Lost Science of Money.
Meet The Fuggers.
Hans Fugger a weaver founded the house of Fugger in 1367 with 3000 florins . By 1488 his descendants had got control of the Tyrol silver mines by lending 150,000 florins to the Arch Duke and by that process he gained control of the Aubsburg mint, hence for 100 years control of both the Silver source and the mint gave great power to the Fugger dynasty by 1525 they charged as much as 30% on small loans and as little as 2% on large loans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugger
The Hanseatic League against the Credit bankers. Is one struggle between a group of entrepreneurs and a bunch of Banksters in their case the Banksters were in Bruges. Elsewhere across the channel,
Belloc characterised the reformation as
´´a rising of the rich against the poor´´,
´and indeed Calvin had written the unfortunate statement:
´´The people must always be kept in poverty in order that they remain obedient´´.
Kampshulte I 1869 p.430 as quoted by Grisar
Weber wrote of ´´Tooth Fairy Capitalism ´´ The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism.
The Levellers found inspiration in the Torah, Puritanism Oliver Cromwell Usury and all of that.
And then what passed as Fake news at the time.
1634 Flagellum Pontificum John Bastwick
1652 Apologetical Narration John Lilburne
1657 Killing no murder Colonel Titus and sexby
1673 England’s Appeal from the private cabal at Whitehall Lisola.
.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiuc.5260972_001;view=1up;seq=10;size=200
The degree of confirmation bias on both sides of the debate by zealots is un-nerving. Verhofstad and the Spinelli Group Zealots and the Libertarian Anarcho free market capitalism out types at the other extreme. What strikes me most about much of the expert analysis is a failure in understanding Monetary history and the huge problem of the EURO currency and ECB/Troika power relations contrasted with money as an expression of social relations. These aspects of the Enlargement and federalisation of the EU are coming around again in Greece and heating up horribly presently in Italy. Democracy and privatised monetary power are mutually exclusive, the EURO and ECB has failed to find the required compromise, which is ironic when the Father of the EURO really does have most of the answers.
Meet Bernard Leitaer.
Denmark and Sweden and the UK have the most interesting relationship with the EU, Sweden is very active in seeking parliamentary reasoned opinions and engages as a model of how good the system could be. Sadly the echo chamber aspects of EU zealotry have hampered reform. UK efforts to reform the EU have been unwelcome in the group think atmosphere and more shocks can be expected in France The Netherlands and even Germany. Finland also may well be looking for out of the EURO it has been a disaster for Finns.
https://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2017/02/article-50-globalisation-and-real-seat.html
The model of Swedish Engagement with the EU is a good one and some clues to the Swedish genius of Consensus building and following an even-tempered tuning in harmony with the European Chord is seen in this documented
It is perhaps interesting here to note that it is a Swede that invented to Tempered Guitar Fretboard system, And a German JS Bach that gave us the Mean Tempered system.
https://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2012/07/true-temperament-curly-frets.html
The metaphor is really just a variation on Square pegs and Round holes. Curly frets really are a pre requisite for reaching harmony with the mean temperament of the EU Piano.The question is what is concert pitch and which key will we play in? A promising metaphor this, look out for some more jokes and puns on this.
But here the federalist Band plays on as the titanic sinks.
http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2017/02/15/everything-you-need-to-know-about-article-50-in-five-minutes
Meanwhile in Italy, who learned a thing or two with Machiavelli, the Borgias and Medicis.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-italy-s-p-probe-idUKKBN1541H6
By Vincenzo Damiani | TRANI, ITALY
An Italian prosecutor has asked for five current and former managers at credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s to be jailed for alleged market manipulation in relation to a sovereign downgrade of the country, a court heard on Friday.
Rating agencies have come under fire in Italy for their role during the sovereign debt crisis, when a series of cuts to the country’s ratings compounded economic and political problems that sent borrowing costs soaring.
Italian prosecutor Michele Ruggiero asked for jail sentences of between two and three years and fines of up to 500,000 euros for the officials, as well as a fine of 4.6 million euros for the rating agency itself.
A new hearing is scheduled for Jan. 25 and the judge is expected to then set a date for the verdict.
S&P said none of the accusations were backed up by proof.
In emailed comments, the agency said the various hearings had repeatedly shown S&P’s analyses had been in line with reports from the Bank of Italy and leading international institutions.
“The accusations against Standard & Poor’s are based on a bad interpretation of normal analytical debate, crucial for our ratings process,” it said.
Only four of the five people Ruggiero wants jailed are still with S&P.
The investigation against Standard & Poor’s, as well as rivals Fitch and Moody’s, was launched by prosecutors in Trani, southern Italy, in January 2012 following complaints by consumer associations.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/european-business/charlotte-hogg-appointed-as-new-deputy-governor-of-bank-of-england/article33962727/
Canary´s from Coal Mines past. Continue to hum along to the Ode to Joy, or perhaps Colonel Bogey?
http://library.fora.tv/2009/11/06/Uncommon_Knowledge_Vaclav_Klaus
adv
But as Toby Nagle points out, it is not clear exactly what status this money has: do eurozone governments really have the right to create money, or are they simply leveraging the allowance made to them by the ECB? The behaviour of the ECB suggests that it regards eurozone governments as subordinate. They may only create the amount of money that the ECB allows them to. And that is limited by treaty.
The Maastricht treaty required European member states to limit their cyclical deficits to 3 per cent of GDP; the fiscal compact of 2012, drawn up in the aftermath of the crisis, additionally requires governments to balance their budgets over the business cycle. To ensure progress towards compliance with these rules, the ECB has several times threatened to withdraw liquidity support from commercial banks if governments did not implement the necessary fiscal consolidation measures. Banks denied liquidity support cannot facilitate government spending. The real spending constraint that eurozone member states face (and the UK does not) is the risk to the banking system arising from the conflicting objectives of central bank and fiscal authorities.
And this constraint is binding. Forced to balance their budgets and unable to reflate their economies or protect them from local shocks, eurozone governments have become more like US municipal authorities than sovereign states. But there is no equivalent of the US federal fiscal authority. As the ECB’s Mario Draghi observed recently, the monetary union is “incomplete”. In fact, the absence of a supranational fiscal authority in the eurozone is not a bug, it’s a feature. The union was designed with one monetary authority for many fiscal authorities. Such a design inevitably results in the single monetary authority also becoming the fiscal authority. Subordination of eurozone governments to the ECB is built into the design of the union.
So even if eurozone governments ended bond issuance tomorrow and funded their borrowing requirements entirely from bank lending, as Richard Werner of Southampton University has suggested, there would still be significant restriction of money growth due to ECB-enforced spending cuts and tax rises.
What should be done about Greece and what’s likely to happen
“The other half of the chief economists, like me, recognised that a single currency would be introduced, no matter how nonsensical the economics, since it was a political project. (The economics being bad, the politics was even worse: the end of democracy in Europe). They agreed with me that it was going to be a disaster. I asked the chief economist of what was then the fourth largest German bank: “If you think so, why don’t you speak up about this? You are forecasting gloom and doom, but I don’t see any reports by you or your bank about it.” His answer was shocking: He said that there had been clear instructions from the boards of all the large German banks to their staff that no report on the abolition of the D-Mark and the introduction of a European single currency that was in any way negative was allowed to be published. The economists in the private sector had been muzzled by their bosses. The same I heard from journalists. So the German media only quoted the rigged reports from the banking economists.
https://professorwerner.wordpress.com/2015/07/10/hallo-welt/
As I warned in my 2003 book Princes of the Yen, in the event the European Central Bank was to exacerbate matters greatly by creating massive credit bubbles, banking crises and recessions in its first decade of operation. The ECB then ensured a prolonged crisis by not ending these banking busts, such as in Ireland, quickly and without costs to the tax payer (as central banks are uniquely able to do). Instead, the ECB forced governments to incur massive national debts to rescue their now defunct banking systems. This way, Ireland moved from fiscal poster boy to virtual default, needing an IMF ‘rescue’.
And Still The Famous Five el Presidente’s strum on with the same old tune.
´´The euro is a successful and stable currency. It is shared by 19 EU Member States and more than 330 million citizens. It has provided its members with price stability and shielded them against external instability. Despite the recent crisis, it remains the second most important currency in the world, with a share of almost a quarter of global foreign exchange reserves, and with almost sixty countries and territories around the world either directly or indirectly pegging their currency to it. Europe is emerging from the worst financial and economic crisis in seven decades. The challenges of recent years forced national governments and EU institutions to take quick and extraordinary steps. They needed to stabilise their economies and to protect all that has been achieved through the gradual and at times painstaking process of European integration. As a result, the integrity of the euro area as a whole has been preserved and the internal market remains strong´´.
This section is developing the point that the struggle for continental European Hegemony is nothing new and that it has not always been obtained by means of war. War tends to happen only when the monetary hegemony is opposed. Arguably Saddam Hussien Accepting EUROS for oil Challenged US Dollar hegemony and caused the second Iraq War. This is a well-documented analysis that the causes of that war and also the Libyan Conflict /colour revolution against Colonel Gaddafi in Libya.
Ellen Brown, Libya Oil or Gold in Google will get you into the flow of discovering the subtexts of the greatest story never told.
From Butterboxes to Wooden Shoes: The Shift in English Popular Sentiment from Anti-Dutch to Anti-French in the 1670s
So What have the Europeans ever done for us?
´´The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore.” He continued “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
Suskind, Ron (2004-10-17). Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush. The New York Times Magazine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Rove
Contrast this with Marcel Champs
“I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art – and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position. (On giving up art to play chess)”
― Marcel Duchamp
And
Duchamp’s dictum, “It is the viewer [regardeur] who makes the pictures [tableaux],” would probably have been applauded by Baudelaire, who insisted on the active role of the beholder.´´
Baudelaire’s Media Aesthetics: The Gaze of the Flâneur and 19th-Century Media
By Marit Grøtta
or
“Beholder, wake up. Seer (and Apprentice Seer), stick out your thumb. Beholder, you may view the Seer’s card.”
From Bonus Pack 2, on Team Village
Normally, the Beholder and the Seer are on the same team and, like the Masons, can afford to have one party lie knowing other will be there to back them up. But this dynamic turns on its head if the Beholder sees that the Seer has been turned into a Werewolf.http://onenightultimate.com/?p=275
And
Today, chess programs have become so good that even grandmasters sometimes struggle to understand the logic behind some of their moves.
Kenneth Rogoff
karelvan wolferen says
´´But it still leaves us with the puzzle of why Asians as well as Europeans, whose EU trade commissioners have been mouthing the same job creating nonsense around the TPIP that has come with the TPP, appear unable to tackle intellectually the dominant power aspects of these treaties. Perhaps because they exist in a world of their own that is politically sterilized by current economic suppositions. More generally, the concept of power (not influence with which it is often confused) receives a stepmotherly treatment in popular as well as serious writing, and the social science denizens of academia are entirely at sea with it. Mainstream economics is ahistorcal on purpose and hence has no room for power, which has helped continue the fateful division of political and economic affairs into separate realms for discussion that has long served the interests of power elites´´
http://www.karelvanwolferen.com/49-the-predators-behind-the-tpp-14-oct-2015/
Wolferen has more to say , this for instance.
´´Since the political dimension to economic arrangements in the United States remains hidden in most discourse because political and economic reality are routinely treated as separate realms of life, few notice that what is justified in the United States by casting it in terms of the market at work, is frequently the result of heavy political involvement and interference. Politically well-connected American corporations, paying for the election expenses of Congress members who determine their fate, need not fear ‘market forces’. If the banks responsible for the credit crisis of 2008 and the subsequent world-recession that is still with us, had not been lifted out of ‘the market’ by the state, they would no longer exist. Powerful corporations have been allowed to swallow the state; they have as the power sensitive economist James Galbraith calls it, created a ‘predator state’, which they of course exploit for their own expansion. There is no frame of reference with which we can more convincingly define the TPP.´´
Some before and after Discourse on Brexit. Pillow Talk Tett and Lord King.
Gillian Tett and Lord King.Tett after New your law school
Tett before question time.
Will Rogers quote for 30´s trickle down
Brandon Weber
@brandon.weber.upw
I’m a labor union historian, educator, change catalyst, and a dreamer. I strongly believe in the ability of working people to kick ass via social media.
Brandon Weber´s meme posting on Facebook is a practical demonstration of the observation of Benjamin Franklin’s regarding ignorance of monetary policy in respect of general discourses on politics.
85000 views and 379 comments only One regarding the money power.
Number of mentions of money 1, One a SINGLE ONE.
In 1729 Benjamin Franklin wrote a pamphlet ´´A modest Enquiry into the nature and the necessity of a paper Currency.”
a modest enquiry,
”There is no Science, the Study of which is more useful and commendable than the Knowledge of the true Interest of one’s Country; and perhaps there is no Kind of Learning more abstruse and intricate, more difficult to acquire in any Degree of Perfection than This, and therefore none more generally neglected. Hence it is, that we every Day find Men in Conversation contending warmly on some Point in Politicks, which, altho’ it may nearly concern them both, neither of them understand any more than they do each other.
Thus much by way of Apology for this present Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency. And if any Thing I shall say, may be a Means of fixing a Subject that is now the chief Concern of my Countrymen, in a clearer Light, I shall have the Satisfaction of thinking my Time and Pains well employed.
To proceed, then,
There is a certain proportionate Quantity of Money requisite to carry on the Trade of a Country freely and currently; More than which would be of no Advantage in Trade, and Less, if much less, exceedingly detrimental to it.
This leads us to the following general Considerations.”
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-01-02-0041
https://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2016/11/the-giant-sucking-sound-sharp-intake-of.html
Nafta and EU enlargement are interesting siblings and of course, the promises made for CETA TTP and TTIP are all too redolent of the Apple not falling far from the tree.
First the comment that explained the probable meaning of Will Rogers in the Trickle down meme.
Mick Serridge Century of Enslavement: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy and the Federal Reserve Bank Conspiracy. The truth is that the Federal Reserve is not federal at all, but owned since 1913 by twelve super-wealthy International Banking families, such as the Rothschild’s and the Rockefellers. They are the ones that control this country behind the scenes. They make public enemies of anyone who questions their methods or throw light upon their obvious crimes. To understand this theory we must understand that the real power is not with the politicians, but with the International Bankers. The money powers preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. What JFK did was to create interest-free government money, backed up by the silver reserve, contrary to the Federal Reserve money, which is not backed up by anything as we will see. He wanted to pay off the US debt this way. So by signing Executive Order 110, he was about to put the Federal Reserve Bank and the International Bankers out of business. The Federal Reserve Notes would eventually not be in demand anymore, and by doing so, Mr. Kennedy probably also signed his own death warrant. Executive Order 110 gave the U.S. the ability to create its own money backed up by silver. He obviously knew the secret about the Federal Reserve, and decided to follow the Constitution. Of course, this was a very dangerous thing to do, because if he was allowed to continue, it could put the International bankers out of business in the long run. So this was even more serious than to reorganize the CIA. This is a well hidden secret, but can even be verified in “Encyclopedia Britannica”, and by the statements in this article, as we shall see. This setup is against the US Constitution, where the government is supposed to create our money (the 16th Amendment), which should be backed up by gold and silver.
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Roger Lewis Great Comment.
The Biggest Scam In The History Of Mankind -…
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. https://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2017/02/article-50-globalisation-and-real-seat.html
The Drive of this paper is based upon the more substantial book-length analysis by Dr Richard North, linked to by this web site.
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86251
The 406 page Flexcit report THE LEAVE ALLIANCE Flexcit A plan for leaving the European Union may be found at the link.
http://www.eureferendum.com/documents/flexcit.pdf
Flexcit Money?
Mansfield Money?
in 2014 the Institute for economic Affairs held a competition, The Brexit prize which awarded 100,000 pounds to the winning Brexit strategy.
The winner was Ian Mansfield a foreign office Staffer based at the time in the Philippines, here’s a link to the winning Paper.
UK commonwealth office Money?
This is an extensive report from consultation carried out to inform the UK prime minister in the seeking of a reform and change to the relationship of the UK with the EU. This report highlights a number of questions about the EU and its effectiveness and its failings. Clearly, there are successes in the EU as well and the EU and UK positions are both flawed by their failing to tackle the political economy questions and theory of democracy and governance questions related to Monetary policy and who creates the Credit or money of the Nation, or the Stae or the Alliance.
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/eu-enlargement-review-of-the-balance-of-competences
Subsidiarity, Proportionality and Democracy.
A. Subsidiarity Introduction 1.1 Subsidiarity is not a type of competence, but rather a principle that must be followed by the EU when considering whether or not to exercise competence. The subsidiarity principle sets out that the EU should only act if the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently met by the Member States, and can be better achieved by the EU. It therefore regulates the exercise of powers at EU level. This principle underpins the balance of competences as, when the EU has competence, there is an important question about whether the EU should exercise that competence or it should be exercised at Member State or sub-national level. Subsidiarity is also considered important for democracy, as it involves a preference for decision making closer to citizens.
The UK has a strong tradition of parliamentary sovereignty, that is to say, Parliament is the supreme legal authority. Its constitutional arrangements differ significantly from those found in many other EU Member States, which typically have single written constitutions. There have been considerable https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Rovechanges to the constitution in the UK in recent years, including through the devolution of substantial powers to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Subsidiarity in the EU, the choice between the EU, national or subnational levels, is therefore a subset of an even broader issue, as the same choice exists internationally; the choice of action at global, regional or national level and within nation states, the choice of action at national or a range of subnational levels.
18 Review of the Balance of Competences between the United Kingdom and the European Union: Subsidiarity and Proportionality 1.4 The subsidiarity principle in its current form only applies in areas of non-exclusive EU competence. If the EU has exclusive competence, the argument goes, then the EU is the only actor empowered to act, and it should therefore only consider whether or not to act.
Whilst it is a ‘legal’ principle, in the sense that the EU institutions are legally bound to apply it, putting it into practice requires significant political judgement and compromise. The Treaties’ definition of subsidiarity is high-level and general. Different decision makers will be influenced by diverse political views, national cultures and constitutional orders when judging which actor – an EU institution, the Member States, or subnational authorities – is best placed to achieve an objective.1
Stalin´s Idea of Subsidiarity and Proportionality according to krushev.
When Stalin Died Krushev denounced him, Brexit is an analogue for the denunciation of the EU (Stalin) yet the EU is still alive or though diminished. I quote the passage in Krushevs´ Speech as it deals with Stalins´ treatment of the Yugoslav crisis.
One can draw one´s own conclusions, but I draw parallels to Putin, To Syria to the Ukraine and of course the Slovenian debt crisis of a few years back. ´´Once as Tragedy and then as Farce´´ Indeed. The parallels to the Errancy of the UK, by some measures and rhetoric, are startling.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/khrushchev/1956/02/24.htm
Speech Delivered: February 24-25 1956;
At the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU February 24-25 1956, Khrushchev delivered a report in which he denounced Stalin’s crimes and the ‘cult of personality’ surrounding Stalin. This speech would ultimately trigger a world-wide split:
The July Plenum of the Central Committee studied in detail the reasons for the development of conflict with Yugoslavia. It was a shameful role which Stalin played here. The “Yugoslav affair” contained no problems which could not have been solved through Party discussions among comrades. There was no significant basis for the development of this “affair.” It was completely possible to have prevented the rupture of relations with that country. This does not mean, however, that Yugoslav leaders made no mistakes or had no shortcomings. But these mistakes and shortcomings were magnified in a monstrous manner by Stalin, resulting in the breakoff of relations with a friendly country.
I recall the first days when the conflict between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia began to be blown up artificially. Once, when I came from Kiev to Moscow, I was invited to visit Stalin, who, pointing to the copy of a letter recently sent to [Yugoslavian President Marshal Joseph] Tito, asked me, “Have you read this?”
Not waiting for my reply, he answered, “I will shake my little finger – and there will be no more Tito. He will fall.”
We have paid dearly for this “shaking of the little finger.” This statement reflected Stalin’s mania for greatness, but he acted just that way: “I will shake my little finger – and there will be no Kosior”; “I will shake my little finger once more and Postyshev and Chubar will be no more”; “I will shake my little finger again – and Voznesensky, Kuznetsov and many others will disappear.”
But this did not happen to Tito. No matter how much or how little Stalin shook, not only his little finger but everything else that he could shake, Tito did not fall. Why? The reason was that, in this instance of disagreement with [our] Yugoslav comrades, Tito had behind him a state and a people who had had a serious education in fighting for liberty and independence, a people who gave support to its leaders.
You see what Stalin’s mania for greatness led to. He completely lost consciousness of reality. He demonstrated his suspicion and haughtiness not only in relation to individuals in the USSR, but in relation to whole parties and nations.
We have carefully examined the case of Yugoslavia. We have found a proper solution which is approved by the peoples of the Soviet Union and of Yugoslavia as well as by the working masses of all the people’s democracies and by all progressive humanity. The liquidation of [our] abnormal relationship with Yugoslavia was done in the interest of the whole camp of socialism, in the interest of strengthening peace in the whole world.
The importance of the Central Committee’s Politbiuro was reduced and its work was disorganized by the creation within the Politbiuro of various commissions – the so-called “quintets,” “sextets,” “septets” and “nonets” Here is, for instance, a Politbiuro resolution from October 3, 1946:
“Stalin’s proposal:
“1.The Politbiuro Commission for Foreign Affairs (’Sextet’) is to concern itself in the future, in addition to foreign affairs, also with matters of internal construction and domestic policy.
“2.The Sextet is to add to its roster the Chairman of the State Commission of Economic Planning of the USSR, comrade Voznesensky, and is to be known as a Septet.
“Signed: Secretary of the Central Committee, J. Stalin.”
What [sophistry]!
(Laughter in the hall.)
It is clear that the creation within the Politbiuro of this type of commissions – “quintets,” “sextets,” “septets” and “nonets” – was against the principle of collective leadership. The result of this was that some members of the Politbiuro were in this way kept away from participation in reaching the most important state matters.
One of the oldest members of our Party, Klimenty Yefremovich Voroshilov, found himself in an almost impossible situation. For several years he was actually deprived of the right of participation in Politbiuro sessions. Stalin forbade him to attend Politbiuro sessions and to receive documents. When the Politbiuro was in session and comrade Voroshilov heard about it, he telephoned each time and asked whether he would be allowed to attend. Sometimes Stalin permitted it, but always showed his dissatisfaction.
Because of his extreme suspicion, Stalin toyed also with the absurd and ridiculous suspicion that Voroshilov was an English agent.
(Laughter in the hall.)
It’s true – an English agent. A special tap was installed in his home to listen to what was said there.
(Indignation in the hall.)
By unilateral decision, Stalin had also separated one other man from the work of the Politbiuro – Andrey Andreyevich Andreyev. This was one of the most unbridled acts of willfulness.
Looking at the experiences of different countries under the European Union Enlargement since Maastricht and the Political tourniquets applied ever tighter since Lisbon and one sees all of the Failings of Stalinist Five-year plans and a sort of Lysenkoism regarding their efficacy
A doubling down on the insistence upon an elite narrative of Ideal reality which simply could never become the Picture of any objective observer.
There is no shortage of empirical reports that show the realities of the failure of European monetary policy as dictated by the ECB and the Troika and yet the Theories are clung to furiously in all of their Pareto, Turing complete, algorithmically opaque beauty, The evidence must surely be wrong? Think again mon Cher Jean-Claude.
Abstract Based on survey data covering 8,387 firms in 20 countries we compare credit demand and credit supply for firms in Eastern Europe to those for firms in selected Western European countries. We find that firms in Eastern Europe have a higher need for credit than firms in Western Europe, and that a higher share of firms is discouraged from applying for a loan. The higher rate of discouraged firms in Eastern Europe is driven more by the presence of foreign banks than by the macroeconomic environment or the lack of creditor protection. We find no evidence that foreign bank presence leads to stricter loan approval decisions. Finally, credit constraints do have a real cost in that firms which are denied credit or discouraged from applying are less likely to invest in R&D and introduce new products.
WORKING PAPER SERIES NO 1421 / FEBRUARY 2012 WHO NEEDS CREDIT AND WHO GETS CREDIT IN EASTERN EUROPE? by Martin Brown, Steven Ongena, Alexander Popov and Pinar Yesin
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article54197.html
The Balkanization of Europe
Politics / European UnionFeb 25, 2016 – 02:37 PM GMT
By: Raul_I_Meijer
The Balkanization of Europe is well on its way in, appropriately, the Balkan area and surrounding nations. A conference on closing borders in Austria yesterday was attended by Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. But not Greece or Germany. These are not all EU members, but most would like to be. Greece doesn’t like it one bit, it has threatened to block all EU decision until this is resolved, and recalled its ambassador to Vienna today..
Six countries has (re-)introduced border checks: Belgium, France, Austria, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Many more have have erected razor wire fences. Hungary has the loudest voice; it announced a referendum on refugee quota yesterday. Quota that by the way are not worth the paper they’re written and translated into 20-odd languages on. Out of 160,000 agreed on, only some 500 refugees have been relocated.
The EU’s response so far has been a sort of para-military police force, Frontex, and now even NATO. As if refugees are a military threat. It’s amusing to see that many nations accuse Greece of not closing its borders properly, but never explain how that should be done when that border happens to be at sea. Just like they’ve never sent the people or equipment they vowed to make available. The EU in the end is proving to be toothless.
A German newspaper reports that a government document in Berlin talks about 3.6 million refugees in the country by 2020. That can only make one wonder what Europe will look like in 2020. But more importantly, we should wonder what Greece will look like in, say, a month from now. Since Frontex and NATO can’t stop the refugee flow any more than Greece itself can, and borders to countries to the north are closed, tens if not hundreds of thousands of people may get stranded in the country.
Europe has played a major role in turning Ukraine into a failed state, and did the same in Libya, Iraq and Syria. Unless someone shows some leadership soon and the chaos is stopped from spreading further, Greece could well be next on the list.
What I personally find deep black hilarious is that many if not all of the countries involved have signed a whole slew of both European and international laws, but even something as elementary as the Geneva convention gets thrown out the window seemingly at will. Just as black is the question: do refugees also have the right to asylum when they’re fleeing your own bombs?
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2016/02/the-balkanization-of-europe/
Back to the Democratic deficit. And Subsidiarity and proportionality.
in the Maastricht Treaty which entered into force in 1993. Provisions in the Treaty were broad, stating that ‘in areas which do not fall within its exclusive competence, the Community shall take action, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, only if and in so far as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can therefore, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed action, be better achieved by the Community’.5
5 Article 3b in the Treaty establishing the European Community (TEC) as set out in the Maastricht Treaty. Text as adopted in 1992, available at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:JOC_1992_224_R_0001_01&from=EN
1.15 In particular, the Lisbon Treaty introduced changes to subsidiarity in terms of: • Scope – adding an explicit reference to regional and local dimensions: the Treaties now require consideration of the effectiveness of European, national and local/ regional action towards achieving the desired objective; and • Enforcement: creating new mechanisms to police compliance with the principle by national parliaments, arguably the actor with the greatest connection to citizens in the EU context. 1.16 One commentator described three purposes of these changes as being: 1) To shift the focus from ex-post judicial enforcement of subsidiarity, more towards ex-ante political enforcement of subsidiarity; 2) […] To introduce an external scrutiny of EU competence by engaging the institutions which had the greatest interest in the enforcement or abuse of subsidiarity, i.e. the national parliaments; and 3) […]To borrow some of the democratic legitimacy of the national parliaments so as to bolster the EU’s own political mandate.14
14 Professor M. Dougan and Dr T. Horsley, University of Liverpool, submission of evidence.
NOTE RL. Note that exclusive competence on Monetary policy is excluded from the Subsidiarity principle.
´´Give me control over the money creation and I care not who makes its laws´´Mayer Rothschild-.
Under the principle of subsidiarity, where the EU does not have exclusive competence it can only act if it is better placed than the Member States to do so because of the scale or effects of the proposed action.
1.20 The ‘ordinary legislative procedure’ (formerly known as ‘co-decision’) is now the main way that EU legal acts such as regulations and directives are adopted. In most cases, only the European Commission can propose a new legal act. For the proposal to become law, it must be jointly adopted by the Council (which is composed of Ministers from each Member State) and the European Parliament. Under this procedure, the Council acts on the basis of qualified majority voting (QMV), where a specified majority of votes is required, with the share of votes of each Member State reflecting its population size. In a small number of areas, EU legal acts are adopted under ‘special legislative procedures’ with different voting rules or actors. For example, in some cases, the Council acts by unanimity, without co-decision by the European Parliament.
Parliamentary Scrutiny: Document-Based, Mandating and Mixed Systems One Mechanism for National Parliaments to Feed in Subsidiarity Concerns
Document-Based Systems In document-based systems, parliaments focus on scrutinising legislative proposals and other documents produced by the EU institutions. They do not generally aim to mandate government ministers. Countries with document-based systems include the UK, as well as France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Cyprus, Portugal, Belgium, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic. The relevant committee will normally report to the full chamber its views on an EU document’s political and legal importance, which may include views on subsidiarity and proportionality. Some systems have a scrutiny reserve which provides that ministers should not agree to proposals at Council until scrutiny has been completed. Both chambers of the UK Parliament adopted a document-based scrutiny system in the 1970s when the UK joined the EU. The UK Government deposits most types of EU documents in Parliament shortly after publication, along with an Explanatory Memorandum summarising the document and the Government’s position. The European Scrutiny Committee in the House of Commons and the EU Select Committee, and its six sectoral sub-committees, in the House of Lords scrutinise these documents. The scrutiny reserve resolutions of both Houses provide that government ministers should not agree to proposals in the Council until scrutiny has been completed. Whilst the UK Government can override the scrutiny reserve by agreeing to documents in the Council, both Committees are able to hold the Government to account for overrides including by calling ministers to appear before them.
Mandating Systems
The Danish Folketinget was the first national parliament in Europe to establish a mandating system. The Danish Government must inform the European Affairs Committee about the Council agenda, seek a mandate on proposed negotiating positions, and obtain a negotiating mandate before important decisions. Some 75 mandates issue each year. The Government is expected to stick to the mandate and may have to ask for a new mandate if a proposal changes fundamentally during negotiations. The Danish tradition of minority coalitions means that it is in the Government’s interest to ensure parliamentary support for EU policies. Its subsidiarity checks are based on close cooperation between the European Affairs Committee and the sectoral committees.*
1.39 Since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, two ‘yellow cards’ have been issued but as yet no ‘orange cards’.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35471248
In May 2012, the commission withdrew a draft law, Monti II, that would have introduced a new EU mechanism for settling labour disputes, after 12 parliaments objected.
According to Ian Cooper, a political analyst at Cambridge University, the Danish parliament led that yellow-card initiative. National MPs had co-ordinated their arguments face-to-face, helped by their representatives in Brussels, he said in a blog.
In October 2013, the UK was among 11 parliaments that objected to a commission proposal to create an EU public prosecutor’s office. On that occasion, the commission decided to maintain the proposal, despite the yellow card.
An orange-card procedure also exists, but has not been used yet. If a majority of national parliaments jointly oppose a draft law, the commission has to review it.
The failure to use the orange card shows that national MPs are focused on national interests, and “struggle to find a common stance on European issues”, Agata Gostynska of the Centre for European Reform told the BBC.
1.41 The Lisbon Treaty also introduced new provisions which allow national parliaments to request their government to take a case to the ECJ on their behalf where they determine that legislation adopted breaches the subsidiarity principle. The UK Government and the European Committees in both Houses of Parliament have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to set out the procedures by which the UK Parliament may make use of these new powers.32 1.42 These new provisions have not yet been used in the UK, or indeed in any other Member State. But the UK Parliament has indicated its willingness to consider making use of the power to bring a legal challenge to proposals on subsidiarity grounds. In July 2014, the Chair of the House of Lords EU Committee wrote to the President of the European Commission regarding a proposal for a directive on occupational pension schemes (8633/14) which the Committee considered failed to respect subsidiarity, as the vast majority of such schemes were in four countries only and the Commission had not provided any qualitative or quantitative substantiation of the need for EU action and that they could not be addressed sufficiently by Member States.33 The letter concluded that if the proposal were adopted as currently drafted, the Committee would be minded to recommend consideration of a legal challenge to it. A revised draft was published in October 2014, and it remains under consideration.
European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) National parliaments delivered a second ‘yellow card’ on 28 October 2013 on a draft legislative proposal to establish a European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO); with a total of 19 votes from Parliaments in 11 Member States, including the UK. The proposed EPPO would be able to prosecute fraud against the EU budget directly in national courts. The Commission published its response on 27 November 2013, announcing that the proposal would remain unchanged. The House of Lords EU Committee and the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee wrote to the Commission to express their concern at the swiftness with which the decision had been made to retain the proposal and the lack of consideration given to other options. They were concerned by the lack of engagement in the review process and the failure in addressing national parliaments’ concerns as well as the narrow view of subsidiarity set out by the Commission. The Commission maintained its position without making any concessions. The House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee registered its continued disappointment at the Commission’s handling of the ‘yellow card’ and concluded that the Commission has undermined faith in the ‘yellow card’ procedure. It should be noted that the UK has not opted into this proposal (which is within the scope of the Justice and Home Affairs opt-in) and so is not bound by it. * European Commission, Decision to Withdraw the Proposal for a Council Regulation on the Exercise of the Right to Take Collective Action Within the Context of the Freedom of Establishment and the Freedom to Provide Services, 2012.
1.45 The Swedish National Legislature (Riksdag) has issued a noticeably high number of reasoned opinions, and the specific way in which its scrutiny system works has been put forward as an explanation for this. The Riksdag operates a mixed scrutiny system, and examines all EU legislative proposals (as well as other EU documents) for their compliance with the principle of subsidiarity. Each proposal is sent to one of the fifteen parliamentary committees. These committees are different from the UK Parliamentary Select Committees, being more like permanent bill committees that scrutinise all domestic bills as well as EU proposals in their subject area. As such, EU proposals are dealt with and discussed via a mainstreamed process which divides the workload across committees according to their substantive area of expertise.
Quiqqly, Price and Value Money????
Money and Goods Are Different
Thus, clearly, money and goods are not the same thing but are, on the contrary, exactly opposite things. Most confusion in economic thinking arises from failure to recognize this fact. Goods are wealth which you have, while money is a claim on wealth which you do not have. Thus goods are an asset; money is a debt. If goods are wealth; money is not wealth, or negative wealth, or even anti-wealth. They always behave in opposite ways, just as they usually move in opposite directions. If the value of one goes up, the value of the other goes down, and in the same proportion. The value of goods, expressed in money, is called “prices,” while the value of money, expressed in goods, is called “value.”
http://www.wanttoknow.info/articles/quigley_carroll.tragedy_hope_banking_money_history
B. Proportionality
1.54 Article 5(4), paragraph 1 TEU and TFEU states: Under the principle of proportionality, the content and form of Union action shall not exceed what is necessary to achieve the objectives of the Treaties.
59 Some important ECJ judgements found proportionality to be a ‘general principle’ of EU law. In Fedesa, the ECJ set out an overview: The Court has consistently held that the principle of proportionality is one of the general principles of Community [EU] law. By virtue of that principle, the lawfulness of the prohibition of an economic activity is subject to the condition that the prohibitory measures are appropriate and necessary in order to achieve the objectives legitimately pursued by the legislation in question; when there is a choice between several appropriate measures recourse must be had to the least onerous, and the disadvantages caused must not be disproportionate to the aims pursued.45
Comparison of Proportionality and Subsidiarity 1.78 Much of what has been said above with respect to subsidiarity applies equally to proportionality, although there are notable differences. Both principles are recognised by the ECJ as general principles of EU law. They therefore have a powerful status in the EU legal system, just below the status of Treaty articles, but also to be used when interpreting the Treaties. EU legislation can be struck down by the ECJ for breach of general principles of EU law. 1.79 The EU institutions must consider respect for proportionality and subsidiarity throughout the process of drafting and negotiating of legislation. Practical guidance, derived in part from the Edinburgh European Council guidelines on subsidiarity and proportionality (1992) has been carried through to the European Commission’s impact assessment process, and the Lisbon Treaty’s Protocol 2 on Subsidiarity and Proportionality. 1.80 The scope of the two principles is different. Proportionality is applicable more broadly than subsidiarity, in that it applies not only to all EU institutions but also to Member States when acting or legislating in areas governed by EU law. And proportionality applies across the board of EU law whilst subsidiarity (so far as Article 5 TEU is concerned, at least) does not apply in any area of exclusive EU competence. 1.81 There are some major differences in the role of different institutions, both in theory and in practice. Proportionality has largely been developed through the case-law of the ECJ, whereas there is very little case-law on subsidiarity. Chapter Two examines views on why courts have not played a major role to date on subsidiarity. 1.82 The development of subsidiarity as a concept has gone hand in hand with growing support for an increased role for national parliaments in the EU legislative processes, and the creation of specific mechanisms, such as yellow cards, as a means of helping increase the democratic legitimacy of the EU. However the current mechanism for national parliaments (described at 1.37) is explicitly focused on subsidiarity rather than proportionality. Whether it should also cover proportionality is considered in chapters two and three. 1.83 Whilst proportionality appears to be a less controversial concept, insofar as less evidence was received on it, the cases above illustrate its powerful role in many cases before the ECJ – as well as national courts.
C. Flexibility Clause (Article 352 TFEU) Introduction 1.84 Article 352 TFEU provides a power that can be used where no specific provisions of the Treaty confer express or implied powers to act, if such a power appears nonetheless necessary to attain one of the Treaty objectives. It provides: If action by the Union should prove necessary, within the framework of the policies defined in the Treaties, to attain one of the objectives set out in the Treaties, and the Treaties have not provided the necessary powers, the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament, shall adopt the appropriate measures. Where the measures in question are adopted by the Council in accordance with a special legislative procedure, it shall also act unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.63
Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union –
C. Flexibility Clause (Article 352 TFEU) Introduction 1.84 Article 352 TFEU provides a power that can be used where no specific provisions of the Treaty confer express or implied powers to act, if such a power appears nonetheless necessary to attain one of the Treaty objectives. It provides: If action by the Union should prove necessary, within the framework of the policies defined in the Treaties, to attain one of the objectives set out in the Treaties, and the Treaties have not provided the necessary powers, the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament, shall adopt the appropriate measures. Where the measures in question are adopted by the Council in accordance with a special legislative procedure, it shall also act unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.63
1.94 Some Member States have enacted additional controls on the use of Article 352 involving national parliaments. The UK has brought in additional controls on the use of Article 352 at the national level, under Section 8 of the European Union Act 2011 (‘EU Act 2011’), which requires prior parliamentary approval (in the form of an Act of Parliament) before a UK minister can support an EU proposal based in whole or in part on Article 352, with certain exemptions. Similarly, under German law, the German Government may only support the use of Article 352 after prior approval from the parliament, following an important decision by its Constitutional Court on the compatibility of the Lisbon Treaty with the German Constitution.67 1.95 Recent case-law confirms that there is no obligation on the EU actors to use powers which may be available to them under Article 352 TFEU.68
Article 352 and the German Constitution • The German Constitutional Court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht, was asked to consider whether Article 352 was compatible with the German Constitution. It found there was a problem: ‘because the newly worded provision makes it possible substantially to amend treaty foundations of the European Union without the constitutive participation of legislative bodies…’. • The German Constitution does not allow the executive (the government) to transfer the power to create new powers or competences (the Kompetenz-kompetenz) to other bodies without the involvement of the legislature (parliament). The Lisbon Treaty requires the Commission only to draw the national parliaments’ attention to Article 352 proposals but does not require national parliament approval. The Bundesverfassungsgericht therefore required any Article 352 proposals to be approved by the Bundestag and Bundesrat (the two chambers of the German Parliament) before the German representative in the EU could approve the proposal. • Much like Section 8 of the UK European Union Act 2011, that requirement poses a clear limitation on the potential for the use of the flexibility clause.
Reasons for a Growing Focus on Subsidiarity 2.8 Some evidence set out factors which could explain the growing focus on subsidiarity in the EU context. These include: • Enlargement from 6 to 28 members. It was suggested that this has made subsidiarity more important as the Commission and its officials are no longer so familiar with the situations in each Member State.10 It has also increased the diversity within and among a greater number of Member States, rendering very detailed, centralised legislation less appropriate in a number of areas.11 • Expansion of the EU’s competences. Successive Treaties have conferred new powers on the EU to act in many areas, greatly increasing the possibilities for choices to be made between EU and national or regional powers and policies. • Popular discontent with EU action. This has been one of the main drivers to develop subsidiarity protection. For example, the Senior European Experts Group notes that the European Council promoted the concept of subsidiarity following the initial Danish rejection of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 ‘in order to counter the sense, widespread after the rush of legislation necessary for the establishment of the Single Market on 1 January 1993, that the EU had begun to intrude into too many policy areas and in too much detail’.12 • The financial crisis: Whilst some consider it resulted from too much subsidiarity (Member States inadequately controlling their financial sectors), others consider that the EU’s response has gone too far the other way by bringing in very detailed supra-national control which has limited the scope for Member States or indeed national parliaments to make choices.13 • Changing of voting rules: The shift to more frequent use of QMV rather than unanimity means individual Member States no longer have the ability to veto the adoption of laws in those areas.14 • Dissatisfaction on the part of national parliaments: in particular a perception that the EU institutions do not take into account their views.15 • Accountability: The preamble to Protocol No 2 sets out the aspiration, ‘[…] to ensure that decisions are taken as closely as possible to the citizens of the Union’.16 There remain concerns about the ‘democratic deficit’ in the EU, meaning the gap, or perceived gap, between Member State citizens and the EU institutions.
2.14 Evidence was received from the Scottish Government, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA), National Assembly of Wales and academics about the mechanisms for ensuring subsidiarity within the UK’s devolution settlement. The Welsh Assembly praised the excellent working relations among the different UK legislatures on subsidiarity issues. UK reasoned opinions have reflected regional/devolved concerns, for example on the European Public Prosecutor proposal reflecting the devolution of justice within the UK.27 The devolved administrations have offices in Brussels, and participate in the UK delegation to the CoR.28 2.15 Local authorities in England are represented by the Local Government Association (LGA) which also provided evidence. They estimate that half of all legislation which applies to the sector derives from EU law, whether through directly effective Regulations or through domestic implementation of Directives. For example, respondents to the Environment and Climate Change Report highlighted a number of such issues where they thought that UK competence was more appropriate than EU competence, for example, on land use planning. 2.16 Whilst Article 5(3) TEU acknowledges for the first time the place of regional and local level in EU governance, EU law itself creates no self-standing rights for regional bodies to be involved in the assessment process. Subsidiarity at this level is important – as the Electoral Reform Society observed: ‘much of EU policy is actually implemented at the sub-state level, by regional and local governments. For instance, many EU structural funds are designed to be implemented at regional level’.29 One participant in the Brussels seminar considered that national authorities tended to focus on [subsidiarity] issues
2.15
Improving the Democratic Legitimacy of the EU 2.23 Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform notes that theory on political institutions considers different aspects of legitimacy:35 • Input legitimacy: are the institutions accountable through elections? • Output legitimacy: are the resulting laws effective and respected? Do the institutions deliver good outcomes for people? 2.24 Grant assesses the input legitimacy of the EU as somewhat mixed: ‘Given the complexity of decision-making, with power shared among many institutions, lines of accountability in the EU have never been easy to follow’.36 He considers that the recent euro area crisis has weakened input legitimacy in the EU, and as he and others point out, euro area legitimacy cannot be addressed by greater European Parliament involvement since the EU budget, over which the European Parliament has oversight, is marginal in this regard. Grant therefore argues for greater involvement of national parliaments as a way to increase the EU’s input legitimacy (whilst calling for better policies as the best way to increase output legitimacy). 2.25 Garcia argues that more time for consultations would increase input legitimacy by allowing greater consultation with civil society and other stakeholders.37 The need for longer consultation was a consistent theme in other Balance of Competences reports. And at the Emerging Themes workshop, a particular concern was raised about rushed policy making in response to crises, which caused problems further down the line.38 A Dutch parliamentary report also identifies a disconnect between citizens and EU policy-making: ‘Few citizens know that ministers attend every Council and that a key responsibility of Members of Parliament (MPs) is to scrutinise the actions of these ministers, and that MPs also operate independently in Brussels. This is a problem of input legitimacy’.39
Subsidiarity in Economic and Monetary Policy: Tensions between Efficiency and National Ownership • Participants at a panel event hosted by Bruegel considered the trade-offs between the Commission’s ability to provide rigorous and robust advice and to police properly the governance system and the question of national ownership. They argued that proper co-ordination and better analysis from the Commission would require giving up a level of national ownership that Member States were not willing to do. This presented a problem and a trade-off between an effective system and subsidiarity concerns. • They commented that different Member States or groups of Member States may be willing or need to tolerate different levels of intrusiveness from the Commission depending on the level of integration between them. They discussed the challenges that can flow from a lack of delivery on the part of Member States, which can lead to the Commission tightening the rules but in turn leads to further lack of ownership because discretion is removed. • There was a suggestion that the authority of the system (the Commission) needs to find a better balance between rule implementation and the use of a certain amount of discretion. For example, it was argued that the Commission needs to apply the Stability and Growth Pact rules with an element of discretion as this is in the common interest of all Member States. This was seen as a difficult thing to get right. However, if it is not, it was argued that co-ordination will not work. Source: HMG, Review of the Balance of Competences between the UK and the EU: Economic and Monetary Policy (published in parallel).
2.46 The subsidiarity principle applies to legislation in areas of shared or supporting competences but not when the area in question is one of exclusive EU competence. Some contest the rationale behind the exclusion of areas of exclusive EU competence from the scope of subsidiarity mechanisms in the Treaties. Barber, for example, considers that, where the EU has exclusive competence, it should be encouraged to defer as much as possible to Member States in those areas, and thus uphold the principle of subsidiarity. Barber notes that in areas of exclusive EU competence, the EU may authorise Member States to act.66 Others were not convinced that this exclusion was significant in practice. For instance, the Senior European Experts Group pointed out, ‘there are only five areas of exclusive competence (one of which does not currently affect the UK as we are not part of the eurozone) but 18 areas of shared or supporting competence, [and therefore] the application of subsidiarity is a significant issue in large parts of EU activity, including the Single Market, justice and home affairs, the environment and social policy’.67
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0959680108097494
Wages and Immigration and Economic Migration within EU, Refugees and Asylum Economic Migrants outside of EU?
Wages is not the only question there are terms and conditions and the spectre of Zero Hours contracts in the UK. In the US they call it the right to work which loosely means the right to be exploited by predatory race to the bottom capitalist.
Historical Development of Economic and Monetary Policy
1.9 Economic objectives have been at the heart of the EU’s historical development since the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 (the forerunner of the EEC). The Treaty of Rome contained the first references to co-ordination of economic and monetary policy. Member States were to regard their macroeconomic policies as a ‘matter of common concern’, while the Treaty placed a number of constraints on the way Member States should run their balance of payments. 1.10 It is arguable that these provisions were primarily motivated by the desire to ensure that balance of payments crises did not threaten the Community’s trade policy. However, they did provide a basis for the deeper economic and monetary co-operation that eventually followed.
1.11 During the decade after the Treaty of Rome, although the European Commission had put forward the idea of a single currency, few concrete moves were made towards deeper economic and monetary co-ordination. That began to change, however, following a series of events which gradually undermined the prevailing international monetary framework, namely the Bretton Woods system, with the US dollar and gold at its centre. In Europe, the resulting market turbulence forced a devaluation of the French franc (after a period of inflation) in August 1969 and shortly afterwards, a revaluation of the German deutschmark, following major capital flight from the US dollar into the deutschmark. Chapter 1: Historical Development 17
1.12 It was against this background of the rolling disintegration of the Bretton Woods system that the then EU Member States called, at the Hague Summit of 1969, for the ‘creation of an Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)’ and the ‘harmonisation of economic policies’
.2 Some immediate actions followed, such as the creation of automatic and unconditional short-term credits amongst Member State central banks in order to bolster exchange rate parities. But more fundamentally, the Hague Summit led to the establishment of the Werner Committee, under the then Luxembourg Prime Minister Pierre Werner, in order to map out the Community’s path to its declared intention of EMU. The Werner Committee reported in 1970, recommending:
• Full currency convertibility with exchange rate parities irrevocably fixed;
• Centralised monetary policy with a single external monetary policy;
• Major aspects of fiscal policy to be co-ordinated at Community level;
• Completion of EMU by 1980, with early steps focused on reducing the margin of exchange rate fluctuation, alongside greater harmonisation of national economic policies; and
• Mechanisms for monetary support over the short-term and for financial aid over the medium-term.
3 1.13 It was clear from the outset that monetary integration was to be taken in step with wider economic integration, including through the provision of the necessary monetary as well as financial mechanisms. The logic was that greater economic harmonisation should bolster the durability of the monetary arrangements. In addition, on the monetary side, exchange rate fluctuations would be reduced gradually, and within an overall zone of fluctuation against the US dollar. Initially, this objective was pursued via an arrangement that came to be known as ‘the snake in the tunnel’, created in March 1972.
1.14 However, the ‘snake’ ran into multiple problems during the 1970s, as Member States failed to adequately co-ordinate policies in the face of major external stresses, such as the US ending the Bretton Woods system in 1971 by breaking the dollar’s convertibility to gold, and the 1973 oil crisis. By 1977 only five of the Community’s nine Member States had managed to stay inside the system, and it became clear that the goal of the Werner Report (a full EMU by 1980) was badly off track.
1.15 Instead attention then focused on developing a less ambitious approach, namely exchange rate management through the European Monetary System (EMS), an idea put forward in 1977 by Roy Jenkins, the then President of the European Commission.4 The EMS, created in March 1979 in a more limited form than that put forward by the Commission, involved a deliberate degree of flexibility, both in terms of the relatively wide bands that were permitted, and through the fact that collectively agreed devaluation and revaluations were permissible within the system. Such valuation changes happened on a number of important occasions, including the major French devaluation of 1983. Initially, a 2 In 1969, the then EEC consisted of the six founding Member States: France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
3. The Werner Committee, Report to the Council and the Commission on the Realisation by Stages of Economic and Monetary Union in the Community (1970).
4. This involved the creation of the European Currency Unit (ECU), a weighted basket of Member States’ currencies. The ECU was used as the yardstick for assessing whether countries’ currencies were fluctuating within agreed bands around a central rate. It was also used as the denominator, and means of settlement, for central bank interventions in support of the agreed exchange rate parities. Over time, it also began to be used, unofficially, as a basis for private transactions.
18 Review of the Balance of Competences between the United Kingdom and the European Union: Economic and Monetary Policy number of countries opted out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) part of the EMS, including the UK. But by 1991, following the UK’s entry in 1990, the only Member States to remain outside were Greece and Portugal.
1.16 Meanwhile, the European Council meeting in Hanover in June 1988 set up the Committee for the Study of Economic and Monetary Union, chaired by the then President of the Commission, Jaques Delors, and including all European Community Central Bank Governors. The resulting Delors Report on EMU, submitted in April 1989, set out, like the Werner Report nineteen years earlier, a plan of action to make a full EMU a reality. On the basis of the report, the December 1989 Strasbourg European Council called for an intergovernmental conference which eventually led to the Maastricht Treaty, signed in February 1992. This was the Treaty that laid out the architecture for the euro, and the process for its creation. Amongst other important measures it:
• Established that governments should avoid excessive deficits. A protocol to the Treaty specified the values of deficits and debts that countries should not exceed;
• Established a prohibition on the Union assuming the liabilities of Member States, or of Member States assuming the liabilities of other Member States;
• Abolished remaining capital controls; and
• Created a three-stage process that Member States and the Union would have to go through to create (or join) the euro: – Membership of the ERM; – A period of centralising and building the monetary institutions, including creating the ECB, alongside testing the Member States against entry criteria; and – The introduction of the single currency itself.5
1.17 However, very soon after the Maastricht Treaty was signed, the ERM entered a crisis phase. In June 1992 Denmark voted against the Maastricht Treaty in a referendum and German opinion polls suggested a majority of its population were not in favour of joining. Meanwhile, inconsistencies in the policies many Member States were running at this time, to try to keep their currencies in line with the deutschmark while also tackling high unemployment, encouraged speculative attacks against a number of currencies in the ERM. Sterling and the Italian lira exited the ERM in September 1992. Spain and Portugal devalued in November, and the Irish punt followed in January 1993. Both Spain and Ireland re-imposed temporary exchange controls during this time. Then, in August 1993, the whole system was decisively loosened, with all but the deutschmark and the Dutch guilder widening their bands to +/– 15 per cent against the European Currency Unit (compared to the original +/– 2.25 per cent for most countries).
1.18 For the UK, the painful exit from the ERM in September 1992 came on top of an already ambivalent attitude to further economic and monetary integration that had resulted in the negotiation of an opt-out from euro area membership at Maastricht earlier that year. For the other participating countries however, the experience did not stop them, from 1994 onwards, pushing on with the ‘second stage’ of EMU (primarily focused on institutionbuilding, and on meeting the macroeconomic convergence criteria) as envisaged in the Maastricht Treaty. Eleven countries adopted the euro formally at the start of 1999. Greece 5 At Maastricht, the UK secured an opt-out from joining the euro, which is set out in Protocol 15 of the TFEU. See Box 3A for further details of the UK’s unique relationship on economic and monetary policy. Chapter 1: Historical Development 19 joined two years later, one year before euro notes and coins entered circulation. Since then, Slovenia, Cyprus, Malta, Slovakia, Estonia and, most recently, Latvia have also joined, with Lithuania expected to join on 1 January 2015.
1.19 Along with the rules on excessive deficits set out in the Maastricht Treaty, the euro was underpinned by detailed rules on fiscal policy. These were enshrined in EU regulations known as the ‘Stability and Growth Pact’ (SGP), alongside a degree of closer economic co-ordination, with surveillance of Member States’ policies by the Council on the basis of Commission assessments. Additionally, a broader strategy for EU level growth and reform was agreed in the Lisbon Strategy in 2010, which set out a range of reform targets monitored largely through peer review and the open method of co-ordination.6
The Euro Area Crisis
1.20 The seeds of the euro area’s sovereign debt problems were sown in the years leading up to the crisis, reflecting weaknesses in the initial design and institutional structures of EMU, which were obscured by the relative strength of growth through most of that period. From 1999 onwards, when the ECB began to set a single interest rate for the euro area as a whole, much of the euro area periphery enjoyed low (in some cases negative) real interest rates that fuelled excess demand. Market adjustments to the euro area’s single interest rate did not function fully, with markets mispricing the risks attached to sovereign and private sector debt in a number of economies. This led to rapid consumption and credit growth, a build-up in debt, investment in non-productive assets including housing bubbles, and a steady erosion of export competitiveness against euro area partners.
1.21 The euro area sovereign debt crisis was, in many respects, the trigger that exposed and magnified these underlying problems:
• Even before the start of the crisis, trend growth had started falling under strain from adverse demographics, reflected in revisions to the Commission’s trend growth projections. As growth weakened in light of the euro area’s deleveraging challenge, it became increasingly clear that pre-crisis improvements in the real economy had been driven more by cyclical rather than structural factors than had previously been assumed. Furthermore, the structural fiscal balances of many economies (both within and outside the euro area) were materially weaker. Fiscal consolidation to address past mistakes and ensure that public finances were returned to a sustainable path became essential;
• This consolidation would also prove extremely challenging against a backdrop of deteriorating growth. Countries for which real interest rates had previously been low or negative experienced a rapid reversal, with real rates rising as growth and inflation fell, and the ECB, by definition, unable to respond optimally to economic conditions in every part of the euro area. Debt dynamics worsened markedly;
• In parallel, and as with many countries, banks came under immediate pressure as risks arising from bad debts, weak loan management and housing bubbles, began to materialise. The cost of the financial sector interventions that became necessary, allied with further market concern over the underlying health of many other banks,
6 The open method of co-ordination is an instrument of the Lisbon Strategy. It provides a framework for co-operation between Member States whereby national policies can be directed towards certain common objectives. The Lisbon Strategy was agreed by the European Council in March 2000 as an economic development plan for the EU from 2000-2010 and was the forerunner of the Europe 2020 strategy. It aimed to deal with issues such as low levels of productivity and economic growth across the EU through close co-operation between the EU and Member States, but the main targets (such as 70 per cent employment rate, and three per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) spent on research and development) were not reached.
20 Review of the Balance of Competences between the United Kingdom and the European Union: Economic and Monetary Policy represented a second, growing challenge to the public finances in a number of economies. This was true even in countries such as Ireland and Spain where general government debt had previously fallen progressively to very low levels;
• An adverse feedback loop developed between a number of sovereigns and their banking sectors, under which concerns over banking sector fragility and fear that problems had not been fully and transparently identified and addressed fed concerns over each government’s ability to deal with pressures it might face. This, in turn, increased market concerns over the strength of the support that might be available to banks;
• These concerns were triggered in earnest in late 2009 when Greece made successive revisions to its 2009 deficit estimates from three per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 12.7 per cent of GDP (Greece was subsequently assessed by Eurostat as having engaged in the ‘deliberate misreporting of [public finance] figures’).
7 For the first time, the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) reprimanded a Member State (Greece) for policies that threatened the functioning of monetary union.
1.22 Collectively, these factors would represent a challenge to almost any economy. But four factors specific to monetary union lay behind the steady ratcheting of market concerns that led to the most acute phase of the crisis. The first factor was that, until the creation of temporary assistance mechanisms in 2010, and the permanent European Stability Mechanism (ESM) (which entered into force on 8 October 2012), the euro area had lacked any agreed means of providing medium-term financial assistance, by way of loans, to each other. Because of their size, International Monetary Fund (IMF) resources alone were insufficient to insulate euro area economies from market tensions. Furthermore, and as the crisis evolved, the size of the firewall available was arguably never large enough to convince markets that the euro area had the resources at its disposal to deal with the countries that might next come under market scrutiny.
8. Absent such a framework for the resolution of sovereign debt pressures, and with no precedent to draw upon, markets were unsure how and whether the euro area would address emerging pressures.
1.23 The second factor was uncertainty over whether a vulnerable economy would abide by the commitments embodied in the Treaty which referred to the ‘irrevocable’ fixing of exchange rates in EMU, or might try to negotiate an exit from the euro area. Even the suspicion of the latter would lead to markets seeking a higher reward for the redenomination risk they would bear on loans to any country unable, or unwilling, to make an unambiguous commitment to its future inside EMU.
1.24 The third factor was the absence of an effective and agreed system for addressing crossborder banking risk and resolving banking sector vulnerabilities. A sovereign’s capacity to provide recapitalisation finance is limited by the constraints of EMU membership and the bank/sovereign feedback loop. The provision of liquidity support is effectively pooled, and is the responsibility of the Eurosystem (the ECB and national central banks), implying risk would be transferred, in extreme circumstances, to the euro area as a whole. Until the creation of banking union, the euro area lacked the institutional means decisively to break the link between weak banks and weak sovereigns.
7 European Commission, Report on Greek Government Deficit and Debt Statistics (2010).
8 Although, see below on the European Central Bank (ECB), there is a legitimate question over whether it could ever have been large enough.
Chapter 1: Historical Development 21
HM Treasury compilation from various sources.
1.25 But probably the single most important factor was that the crisis revealed a significant gap in the euro area’s macroeconomic policy architecture. There was an absence of a lender of last resort to sovereign governments, which allowed a lack of confidence alone to turn liquidity problems into solvency ones (as explained by De Grauwe).10 In this context no individual euro area country had the firepower to prevent a self-fulfilling prophecy in which it could be forced by markets, through charging ever higher yields on its debt, towards needing external support. There was, in other words, no circuit breaker to prevent market concern pushing yields up, creating additional financing pressures, in turn further threatening the public finances and feeding further concerns. The ECB’s announcement of its Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) programme in autumn 2012 provided the euro area, for the first time, with such a circuit breaker. This was vital if the euro area was to be able credibly to convince markets that it could address problems in any of the largest Member States, including Italy, were they to emerge. 9 The Outright Monetary Transactions programme under which the ECB makes purchases in secondary, sovereign bond markets, under certain conditions, of bonds issued by euro area Member States. 10 P. De Grauwe,’ Governance of a Fragile Eurozone’, CEPS Working Document, 346, May 2011.
The ECB’s announcement of its Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) programme in autumn 2012 provided the euro area, for the first time, with such a circuit breaker. This was vital if the euro area was to be able credibly to convince markets that it could address problems in any of the largest Member States, including Italy, were they to emerge. 9 The Outright Monetary Transactions programme under which the ECB makes purchases in secondary, sovereign bond markets, under certain conditions, of bonds issued by euro area Member States.
Box 1A: The EU and the International Community The IMF has a number of important but overlapping roles. Primary amongst them are: expert surveillance of the global economy, both bilaterally via Article IV reports, and multilaterally via flagship publications such as the World Economic Outlook, Fiscal Monitor, Global Financial Stability Reports and spillovers reports; and official lending to its members who cannot meet their external balance of payments. Lending is accompanied by detailed surveillance and policy advice in order to restore economic stability. The UK contributes to the IMF’s resources via its quota subscription and temporary resources, such as bilateral loans. The IMF draws on the contributions of its membership as a whole in order to finance its lending programmes. Surveillance or analysis by the IMF often informs the work of the Group of Seven (G7) and the Group of Twenty (G20) on economic issues. There are also long-standing links between the IMF and EU mechanisms to address external imbalances amongst Member States, which have adapted and become stronger during the recent euro area sovereign debt crisis. The G20 regularly calls upon the IMF as an expert, trusted and independent advisor on economic issues. Under the Australian G20 presidency, members have agreed to ‘develop ambitious but realistic policies with the aim to lift our collective GDP by more than two per cent above the trajectory implied by current policies over the coming five years.’ Each G20 member has produced a growth strategy, outlining how it will contribute to this target. The IMF was asked, alongside the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), to help quantify the potential impact, both individually and collectively, of these strategies on growth over the next five years. They will continue to act as an advisory body into 2015, looking at the progress made in implementing the measures put forward by the G20. Like the IMF, the EU is also able to provide financial assistance to Member States and third countries (non-Member States with whom the EU has close geographic, economic and political ties). These loans are subject to the recipient implementing a structural adjustment programme which aims to address the underlying problems. These assistance mechanisms have generally only been activated alongside financial and technical support from the IMF. During these programmes of assistance, both the IMF and the European Commission conduct regular reviews of the recipient to determine whether the implementation of reforms is satisfactory. In recent years, Commission proposals to provide EU financial assistance have only allowed for the disbursement of EU loans where the recipient has satisfactorily completed its most recent IMF review. Finally, in order to co-ordinate the response to the euro area sovereign debt crisis, the IMF worked in close co-operation with the European Commission and the ECB. This informal relationship between the three institutions became known as the ‘Troika’. The IMF notes that ‘co-operation through the Troika is aimed at ensuring maximum coherence and efficiency in staff-level program discussions with governments on the policies that are needed to put their economies back on the path of sustainable economic growth’. However, the decision making processes of these institutions are independent of each other
IMF FUNDING?? COLLATERAL SKIN IN GAME SERIES:
https://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2015/05/on-tides-of-global-capital-david.html
https://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2015/07/bricks-without-straw-economic-recovery.html
https://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2015/07/bricks-without-straw-pharoh-merkel.html
https://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2015/07/so-how-much-skin-do-troika-have-in-game.html
https://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2015/07/on-skin-in-game-interestinf-question.html
https://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2015/07/bankers-and-skin-in-game-taleb.html
https://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2016/01/tragedy-and-hope-from-whence-we-came.html
https://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2016/02/usury-hells-fuel-and-mans-oppressor.html
Concluding prayer.(from your writers´ epic poem, Usury Hells Fuel.)
A central lack of fibre. Either moral or physical around which myths of debt are spun.
As spiders spin webs and weavers warp clothe. Spartan Ephors of prudence pass judgement on all
and stand above and astride the law. Dispensing injustice and taking clothes off the backs of The freezing
and food out of the mouths of the hungry. Passing judgement on those who perform real work,
asking always for more and demanding to pay less.
So draw the bow of truth with intentness in the eye,
Seek out the irreducible posits, the epistemological gods of homer.
If there be one free miracle let the ephors explain the rest.
What is this power of usury? Where did this power come from ?
Who is it exercised for and to whom do you ephors of usury answer to ?
And now let me ask. How do we take this power away?
Only then we shall see good faith and brotherhood restored to the commons.
©RogerG Lewis 2016
Box 1B: Fiscal Co-ordination: the Six-Pack and Two-Pack In response to the euro area sovereign debt crisis, the EU has enacted a number of measures to strengthen budgetary and economic co-ordination for the EU as a whole and for the euro area in particular. In December 2011, a new set of enhanced economic governance rules, commonly known as the six-pack, entered into force. This contained six pieces of legislation, the main components of which were as follows: • Strengthening the preventive arm of the SGP, requiring countries to make significant progress towards their Medium Term Budgetary Objectives (MTOs) and introducing expenditure benchmarks; • Strengthening corrective action under the SGP, meaning an excessive deficit procedure can be launched on the back of debt developments and setting a benchmark for the reduction of debt above the EU’s target of 60 per cent GDP; • Introducing sanctions to the preventive arm of the SGP for the euro area Member States, and new sanctions at an earlier stage of the corrective arm; • Setting out minimum standards for national budgetary frameworks and, for all but the UK, introducing the need for numerical fiscal rules to be respected in national frameworks; • Introducing a new Macroeconomic Imbalances Procedure, which extends surveillance to the macroeconomy with the aim of identifying early risks and preventing the emergence of harmful imbalances; and • Introducing sanctions for euro area countries for failure to adhere to corrective action plans under the MIP. The six-pack was reinforced for the euro area through the adoption of the two-pack, a set of further economic governance measures which entered into force in May 2013. The main components are as follows: • The introduction of additional surveillance for the euro area Member States, which must submit draft budgetary plans to the Commission by 15 October each year, set up independent bodies in charge of monitoring national fiscal rules, and base budgetary forecasts on independent macroeconomic forecasts. For those in the Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) there will be even tighter monitoring by the Commission; and • A process for the approval and disbursement of financial assistance for euro area countries and for the monitoring of those in financial difficulty.
Stability and Growth Pact.
2.9 As detailed in Chapter Three, although the UK participates in co-ordination mechanisms such as the SGP it is not bound by the coercive elements and has carve outs from many areas (see Box 3A). This reflects the UK’s position as a Member State with an opt-out from the commitment to join the euro. The same degree of co-ordination is not needed. So, while the UK participates in the EDP and is the subject of recommendations, these remain precisely that. No evidence suggested that the UK should be the subject of deeper economic co-ordination with the EU. Given its opt-out, some respondents questioned whether the UK needs to participate in these mechanisms at all.3 2.10 This chapter considers the reasons for policy co-ordination at international level and explains why policy co-ordination in the EU is particularly important.
2.24 The OECD argues that the payoff from collective action to tackle unsustainable public finances and rebalance global growth through pro-growth structural reform is potentially large.12 It argues that unless tackled, high government indebtedness can dampen medium-term growth prospects, through higher long-term interest rates and risks to future stability. The OECD paper further argues that through a combination of fiscal consolidation and structural reforms, a sustained reduction in global imbalances could be achieved.13 In this scenario output is higher, due to lower long-term interest rates and the removal of distortions that constrain consumption and investment in surplus countries and savings in deficit countries.
Check this ( cricular reasoning????)))
Rogoff et al, see Corporate Watch paper.
At the April 2009 G20 summit held in London, world leaders pledged to support growth in emerging markets and developing countries by raising the IMF’s lending resources to $750 billion. They also supported a general allocation of the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights, which are an international reserve asset, equivalent to $250 billion in order to boost global liquidity. In 2010, the IMF then committed to double its quota-based resources to just over $715 billion at current exchange rates, while its temporary resources grew to include New Arrangements to Borrow (NAB) worth about $575 billion and bilateral loans totalling $461 billion. The IMF also plays a crucial role in surveillance of the global economy and international monetary system, including joint Early Warning Exercises with the Financial Stability Board to spot emerging imbalances and systemic risks. In 2011, the IMF agreed an action plan to sharpen its surveillance of interconnectedness, risk assessments, financial stability, and balance of payments stability. Furthermore, its Integrated Surveillance Decision in 2012 clarified the importance of focusing on global economic and financial stability in the context of multilateral surveillance, and made Article IV consultations a vehicle not only for bilateral but also multilateral surveillance, thereby allowing the IMF to discuss the full range of spillovers from a member’s policies that might affect global stability. 2.27 Some of the earlier work on macroeconomic policy co-ordination suggested international discussion forums such as the G7 or the OECD as the best place to discuss policy co-ordination. In fact, when the global financial crisis hit, the G20 replaced the G7 as the primary steering group for the world economy.18 Pisani-Ferry argues that the G20 is a less suitable forum for the discussion of regulatory matters, as opposed to macroeconomic issues and their implications for the institutions of global governance.19 The regulatory issues, mainly the responsibility of a small number of countries with sophisticated financial systems, may overshadow the macroeconomic dimension of the global agenda. Check this ????? SKIN IN GAME???
Box 3A: The UK Opt-Out During negotiations over what became the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, the UK secured an optout from the commitment to join the euro. This opt-out, now set out in Protocol 15 to the EU Treaties, is clear that ‘the United Kingdom shall not be obliged or committed to adopt the euro without a separate decision to do so by its government and parliament’. Protocol 15 paragraph 1 states that ‘unless the United Kingdom notifies the Council that it intends to adopt the euro, it shall be under no obligation to do so’. Meanwhile, paragraph 3 is clear that ‘the United Kingdom shall retain its powers in the field of monetary policy according to national law’. As a result of this, the majority of monetary provisions and a number of economic and fiscal provisions in the Treaties and in secondary legislation do not apply to the UK. A detailed list of provisions is set out in Appendix B. In practice, this means: • First, that the UK retains competence for its own monetary policy, which is decided by the Bank of England and not the ECB; • Second, that the UK Government has a different legal obligation to all other Member States with regard to the EU’s requirements on government deficits. For example, whereas all other Member States ‘shall avoid excessive deficits’, as set out in Article 126 of the TFEU, the UK shall ‘endeavour to avoid an excessive government deficit’. In particular, and importantly, this means that the UK cannot be subject to sanctions under the SGP as the coercive provisions do not apply to the UK; • Third, that the UK’s voting rights are suspended in the areas that do not apply to it because of the opt-out. So the UK does not get to vote on areas of euro area policy, such as decisions on the Excessive Deficit Procedure and the appointment of the President and other members of the Executive Board of the ECB; • Fourth, that as a result of the opt-out, there are a number of areas of secondary legislation which do not apply to the UK. For example, the ‘two-pack’ regulations, which were adopted under Article 136 TFEU and involve tighter surveillance over euro area fiscal policy, do not apply to the UK at all. Nor do the new sanctions provisions of the ‘six-pack’ which were also agreed under Article 136 TFEU. In addition, Articles 5 to 7 of Directive 2011/85/EU on requirements for budgetary frameworks of the Member States, which place an obligation on Member States to have in place domestic numerical rules for meeting their EU fiscal targets, do not apply to the UK. Indeed, Recital 17 of the Directive explains that that the SGP reference values in Protocol 12 to the Treaties ‘are not directly binding on the UK’. ‘The obligation to have in place numerical fiscal rules that effectively promote compliance with the specific reference values for the excessive deficit, and the related obligation for the multiannual objectives in medium-term budgetary frameworks to be consistent with such rules, should therefore not apply to the United Kingdom’;
The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).1
The Treaty of Lisbon amended both the Maastricht Treaty (also known as the TEU) and the Treaty of Rome (henceforth known as the TFEU).
Fifth, that despite the above, the UK does participate in the EU mechanisms for surveillance and co-ordination of fiscal and economic policies. For example, the UK participates in the Stability and Growth Pact and the European Semester. However, this is often on different terms to euro area Member States and even some non-euro area Member States, in particular due to the fact that the coercive elements of these procedures do not apply to the UK; and • Finally, the UK is not a signatory to the TSCG (the ‘Fiscal Compact’), the ESM Treaty, or the Single Resolution Fund Treaty. These are all intergovernmental Treaties that apply to the euro area or signatory Member States only. This different relationship to a number of important EU Treaty rules and pieces of legislation often means the UK takes a different approach towards this area of policy than many other Member States. Further details on legal provisions referred to in this box can be found in Appendix B.
Monetary Policy Special Position of the United Kingdom 3.5 Article 3 of TFEU states that the Union shall have exclusive competence for monetary policy for the Member States whose currency is the euro. However, when provisions on economic and monetary union were introduced in the Maastricht Treaty, the UK gave notice that it did not intend to participate in full economic and monetary union or the introduction of the euro. Furthermore, the current UK Government, in its Coalition Programme for Government, stated that Britain will not join or prepare to join the euro in this Parliament.4
3.6 The UK therefore retains its powers in the field of monetary policy according to national law. As a result, a number of Treaty provisions (notably large parts of Title VIII of the TFEU as well as provisions of the ECB Statute) do not apply to the UK.5 Protocol 15 to the TFEU specifically sets out where provisions do not apply to the UK, as shown in Appendix C.6
3.9 Article 119(2) TFEU states that the activities of Member States ‘shall include the single currency, the euro’. Therefore all Member States are expected to join the euro, unless they have negotiated a specific opt-out. The UK and Denmark are the only two Member States to have obtained a formal opt-out from joining the euro.
There is an increasing tide in favour of reconsidering fiscal austerity programmes, in recognition of the persistent effects of underemployment of labour and capital on potential output. At the same time, however, it should be recognised that weak growth in countries facing precarious fiscal positions is not sufficient evidence against fiscal austerity. Where sovereign risk is high, fiscal tightening remains an important avenue to bring down deficits at a limited cost to economic activity, as risk premiums recede over time. In addition, fiscal austerity may well have important unobserved benefits, by preventing greater macroeconomic instability which tends to arise in the presence of high sovereign risk.38
39 European Commission, Europe 2020: A Strategy for Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth (2010).
Rogoff etc see skin in game, austerity and monetarism, Bollocks!!!!
from Erwan Mahé
Regular Thaler’s Corner readers are well aware of the importance I assign to money circulation, as per the famous MV of MV=PQ equation, which has enabled to avoid a good number of pitfalls in recent years.
But it is crucial to view this equation in the context of today’s real world, and not as some of our Stone Age monetarists would have us believe, with a more or less stable V, and a confusion between money supply and monetary base!
As such, my approach is at the polar opposite of that adopted in the ECB statutes. I admit to taking cruel pleasure in citing the relevant excerpts (emphasis mine, link here)
The ECB’s monetary policy strategy
At its meeting on 13 October 1998 the Governing Council of the ECB agreed on the main elements of the stability-oriented monetary policy strategy of the ESCB. These elements concern: the quantitative definition of the primary objective of the single monetary policy, price stability; a prominent role for money with a reference value for the growth of a monetary aggregate; and a broadly based assessment of the outlook for future price developments.
The prominent role of money has been signalled by the announcement of a reference value for the broad monetary aggregate M3.
The reference value for monetary growth
In December 1998 the Governing Council of the ECB announced the first reference value for monetary growth, namely an annual growth rate of 4½% for the broad monetary aggregate M3. This reference value was confirmed in December 1999. It was also announced then that the reference value would henceforth be reviewed on an annual basis.
The derivation of the reference value was based on the standard relationship between money, prices, real activity and the velocity of circulation.
This premise, which recalls the gold standard days, assumes a static relationship between money supply, prices and money velocity as per MV=PQ, but with a V set in concrete, which explains how the ECB ended up impaling itself on the Great Financial Crisis. It sparked the crisis in Europe by hiking key rates in July 2008, due to its total inability to understand that the collapse of the securitisation market would also collapse V !
3.97 Taking into account the reforms that have been made, one attendee at the Bruegel event characterised the new economic governance structure as breaking down into four unconcentric circles: • An EU circle ( the European Semester); • A euro area circle (for example, the two-pack regulations and sanctions provisions of the SGP/MIP); • An intergovernmental circle (the ESM, the TSCG and the Single Resolution Fund Treaty); and • A circle for opt-outs/exclusions (including the UK and Denmark’s opt-outs of the euro).56 3.98 One of the biggest sources of instability in the euro area arises from shortcomings in the economic governance of the single currency and associated economic policies. The economic and financial crisis exposed shortcomings in the design of the euro and the EMU. The euro area has shortcomings due to the lack of economic convergence between its members. The rules determining membership were too weak. Stephen Pickford and Paola Subacchi argued that the governance structure supporting the EMU did not provide it with an effective mechanism to achieve proper convergence, or to compensate for the lack of convergence. As a result, prior to the euro area sovereign debt crisis the SGP, the fiscal surveillance mechanism in place to safeguard the stability of the EMU, did not provide sufficient incentives for the correction of fiscal imbalances in the euro area. 3.99 Furthermore, there was insufficient responsibility on surplus countries within the euro area to reduce imbalances. Stephen Pickford and Paola Subacchi noted that: Looking back at the period from 1999-2007, it is clear that wider economic policies were insufficiently co-ordinated to prevent the buildup of serious economic imbalances within the currency area.57 3.100 Stephen Pickford and Paola Subacchi argued that greater integration of euro area policy requires fundamental reforms to its governance entailing: • A move towards a single fiscal authority; • An effective mechanism to resolve failing financial institutions; • Better incentives for the implementation of economic policy reforms; • More effective co-ordination of the single monetary policy with wider economic policies; and • An effective lender of the last resort for euro area Member States.58 56 Record of 4 June 2014 stakeholder event, Bruegel. 57 Stephen Pickford and Paola Subacchi, submission of evidence. 58 Idem.
The Role of the European Central Bank 4.39 The ECB is the central bank for the euro and administers the monetary policy of the euro area. It is one of the seven institutions of the EU listed in the TEU. The central banks of the 28 EU Member States own the capital stock of the ECB, and as such they are the owners and shareholders of the ECB. 4.40 The ECB and the national central banks of those countries that have adopted the euro together constitute the Eurosystem. The main objective of the Eurosystem is to maintain price stability, safeguarding the value of the euro. The Governing Council in October 1998 defined price stability as inflation (according to the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices) of below, but close to, two per cent over the medium-term. Beyond this, the basic tasks of the ECB are to define and implement the monetary policy for the euro area, to conduct foreign exchange operations, to take care of the foreign reserves and the promotion of the smooth operation of payment systems. 4.41 The Governing Council is the main decision-making body of the ECB. It consists of the six members of the Executive Board as well as the presidents of the eighteen national central banks of the euro area. From January 2015, when Lithuania joins the euro area, the national central bank governors will switch to holding rotational voting rights. The Executive Board will continue to hold permanent voting rights. 4.42 The Governing Council usually meets twice a month. At its first meeting each month, it assesses economic and monetary developments and takes its monthly monetary policy decision. At its second meeting, it mainly discusses issues related to other tasks and responsibilities of the Eurosystem. 4.43 The legal basis for the single monetary policy is the Treaty establishing the European Community and the Statute of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) and of the ECB. The TFEU generally refers to the ESCB rather than to the Eurosystem, since it was drawn up on the premise that all EU Member States would eventually adopt the euro. The ESCB comprises the ECB and the national central banks of all EU Member States. 4.44 The ECB has played an active role in managing the euro area sovereign debt crisis. Interest rates fell sharply in 2008, and have since fallen further, so that nominal interest rates in the euro area are now only marginally above zero (see Chart 4A). The ECB has also taken measures that go beyond conventional monetary policy. This section discusses some, but by no means all, of these measures. 4.45 As financial market turbulence unfolded and interbank lending slowed down, the ECB stepped in to provide liquidity to support the orderly functioning of money markets in August 2007. This was followed by joint action with the Federal Reserve in December 2007 to offer US dollar funding to Eurosystem counterparties. 4.46 In 2008, a number of further measures were undertaken to improve the overall liquidity position of the euro area banking system. The most important of these was a switch to a policy of ‘full allotment’ and fixed rates, whereby euro area banks were able to get unlimited liquidity from the ECB at the main refinancing rate provided they offered adequate collateral.
4.47 In 2009, the ECB continued to make changes to its refinancing operations. In addition, it launched its first covered bonds purchase programme in June 2009, with the aim of encouraging banks to maintain and expand their lending. 4.48 The (now terminated) Securities Markets Programme (SMP) was introduced in May 2010 to ensure depth and liquidity in dysfunctional market segments. Under the programme, the ECB could start purchasing certain debt securities markets, notably government bonds, in the secondary market. The purchases were originally sterilised so that liquidity conditions in the interbank money market remained unaffected, but in June 2014 the sterilisation was suspended.40 4.49 In 2011, the ECB continued its active financial market engagement. It changed its main refinancing operations; reaching agreements on liquidity swap arrangements, both with the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve, and announcing a second covered bond purchase programme. Arguably, the most important of these were the two Longer-Term Refinancing Operations (LTROs) offered at a fixed rate and with a maturity of 36 months. This followed severe market tensions that threatened the functioning of the money market. Over €1 trillion were allotted to banks over the two operations in December 2011 and February 2012. 4.50 In July 2012, ECB president Draghi delivered a speech saying that Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough.41 4.51 Six weeks later, the ECB announced the possibility of Outright Monetary Transactions (OMTs). OMTs are interventions in secondary sovereign bond markets, providing a backstop to avoid potentially severe challenges for price stability in the euro area. As of yet, OMTs have never been used. 40 When a central bank intervenes in financial markets via the purchase of assets, it increases the money supply. A central bank can decide to ‘sterilise’ this intervention by acting in a way to keep the money supply (and its own balance sheet) of constant size. This can be done by offering commercial banks interest to deposit money in its facilities (as is the case with the ECB and the SMP programme) or by selling other assets. 41 Mario Draghi, Speech at the Global Investment Conference in London (26 July 2012). Available at: http://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2012/html/sp120726.en.html, accessed on 25 November 2014.
Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Keynote Speech by Eurogroup President at the Atlantic Council, New Growth Deal for the Eurozone: Connecting Reform Agenda, Budgetary Consolidation and Supportive Investments, (10 October 2014). Available at: http://www.eurozone.europa.eu/newsroom/news/2014/10/keynote-speechjdijsselbloem-at-atlantic-council/, accessed on 5 November 2014.
Federalists to petition Parliament on fiscal union
January 23, 2012 3:13 PM
At meetings in Barcelona on Friday and Saturday (20-21 January), the European federalists took a stance on the emerging intergovernmental treaty on fiscal discipline.
The UEF took note of the circumstances which led up to the drafting of a new treaty outside the framework of the European Union, but welcomed the fact that the British bluff had been called and their veto by-passed.
Several problematical issues in the 4th draft of the treaty were noted, including the problem of discordance with the official EU structure and treaty-based criteria.
In the view of UEF, the new treaty does not address the critical problem of sovereign debt and is therefore only one further step towards what must be done to salvage the euro and to begin economic recovery.
Andrew Duff MEP, President of the UEF, said:
“For all its complications, the new treaty does contain some features which federalists can welcome warmly. These are that it goes further than the Six Pack in terms of budgetary discipline; it commits to the greater use of enhanced cooperation among the eurozone; it will enter into force before all signatory states have ratified it; and it is to be incorporated into the EU treaty within five years.
“What Europe now needs, however, is a draft treaty on fiscal union run by a federal economic government. For this reason the UEF has decided to petition the European Parliament to use its new constitutional powers to initiate this next decisive step.”
END
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_Klaus
European Parliament[edit]
On 5 December 2008, members of the Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament visited the Czech Republic prior to the start of the Czech presidency of the European Union. They were invited by Václav Klaus to meet him at Prague Castle. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, chairman of Green Group, brought a European flag and presented it to Klaus.[16] Cohn-Bendit also said that he “did not care about Klaus’ opinions on the Lisbon Treaty, that Klaus would simply have to sign it”. This was negatively commented in the Czech Republic as an undue interference in Czech affairs. Co-president of the Independence/Democracy parliamentary group, Nigel Farage, compared Cohn-Bendit’s actions to a “German official from seventy years ago or a Soviet official from twenty years ago.[17]
Further, then Irish MEP Brian Crowley told Klaus that the Irish people wanted ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon and were “insulted” by Klaus’ association with Declan Ganley and Libertas. Klaus responded that “the biggest insult to the Irish people is not to accept the results of the Irish referendum”.[18] Crowley replied, “You will not tell me what the Irish think. As an Irishman, I know it best.”[18] In the UK the confrontative atmosphere of this meeting was criticized by some of the media: “This bizarre confrontation … confirms the inability of the Euro-elite to accept that anyone holds views different from their own.”[16]
On 19 February 2009, Klaus made a speech to the European Parliament where he criticized the European Union’s lack of democracy, continuing integration and economic policies:
The present decision-making system of the European Union is different from a classic parliamentary democracy, tested and proven by history. In a normal parliamentary system, part of the MPs support the government and part support the opposition. In the European Parliament, this arrangement has been missing. Here, only one single alternative is being promoted, and those who dare think about a different option are labelled as enemies of European integration… There is also a great distance (not only in a geographical sense) between citizens and Union representatives, which is much greater than is the case inside the member countries. This distance is often described as the democratic deficit, the loss of democratic accountability, the decision-making of the unelected – but selected – ones, as bureaucratisation of decision-making etc. The proposals to change the current state of affairs – included in the rejected European Constitution or in the not much different Lisbon Treaty – would make this defect even worse. Since there is no European demos – and no European nation – this defect cannot be solved by strengthening the role of the European Parliament, either.[19][20]
After this point was made, a number of MEPs walked out of the chamber.[21][22] Klaus continued to state:
I fear that the attempts to speed up and deepen integration and to move decisions about the lives of the citizens of the member countries up to the European level can have effects that will endanger all the positive things achieved in Europe in the last half a century… Let us not allow a situation where the citizens of member countries would live their lives with a resigned feeling that the EU project is not their own; that it is developing differently than they would wish, that they are only forced to accept it. We would very easily and very soon slip back to the times that we hoped belonged to history… We must say openly that the present economic system of the EU is a system of a suppressed market, a system of a permanently strengthening centrally controlled economy. Although history has more than clearly proven that this is a dead end, we find ourselves walking the same path once again.[19][20]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinoviev_letter
http://www.cambridgeclarion.org/press_cuttings/gladio_graun_5dec1990.html
The Gladio File: did fear of communism throw West into the arms of terrorists?
Richard Norton-Taylor, Guardian, 5 December 1990, page 12
As scandal unfolds, Whitehall’s response is silence, writes Richard Norton-Taylor
A CHANCE discovery by an assiduous Italian magistrate investigating a neo-fascist terrorist attack has unearthed a secret paramilitary network run by units of the armed forces and intelligence services throughout western Europe.
Over the past few weeks, government after government, with the notable exception of the British, has been forced to admit that the organisation – whose original purpose was to set up resistance groups against occupying Warsaw Pact forces – still exists. It has come be to known as Operation Gladio, after its Italian branch.
Two threads have emerged. Ministers, let alone parliaments, knew nothing about the secret units; second, while nominally established as “stay-behind” sabotage groups to combat communist forces, in some countries they soon had internal political targets in their sights.
Representatives from these units have been meeting regularly in Brussels in the Allied Coordination Committee. This consists of civilian and military personnel, according to Italian and Belgian sources. Guy Coeme, the Belgian defence minister, has said it last met in Brussels in late October.
The network was not confined to Nato countries. An inquiry in Switzerland recently revealed the existence of a secret organisation, P26. It had 400 agents with access to guns and explosives with a German radio system, Harpoon, set up in 1985 to contact parallel groups in neighbouring countries.
One early task was to take over plans for a Swiss government-in-exile in south-west Ireland in the event of invasion. Another was to prepare for action against “subversion”.
P26 was backed by P27, a private foreign intelligence agency funded partly by the government, and by a special unit of Swiss army intelligence which had built up files on nearly 8,000 “suspect persons” including “leftists”, “bill stickers”, “Jehovah’s witnesses”, people with “abnormal tendencies” and anti-nuclear demonstrators.
On November 14, the Swiss government hurriedly dissolved P26 – the head of which, it emerged, had been paid £100,000 a year.
Although the Ministry of Defence has repeatedly refused to comment on Britain’s involvement, Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley, a former commander of Nato forces in northern Europe, has confirmed that a secret network of arms – to be handed out to a civilian guerrilla force in the event of an invasion – was set up in Britain after the war.
The Guardian has learned of a secret attempt to revive elements of a parallel post-war plan relating to overseas operations. In the early days of Mrs Thatcher’s Conservative leadership, a group of former intelligence officers, inspired by the wartime Special Operations Executive, attempted to set up a secret unit as a kind of armed MI6 cell.
Those behind the scheme included Airey Neave, Mrs Thatcher’s close adviser who was killed in a terrorist attack in 1979, and George Kennedy Young, a former deputy chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.
Mrs Thatcher is said to have been initially enthusiastic but dropped the idea after the scandal surrounding the attack by the French secret service on the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior, in New Zealand in 1985.
British co-operation with the Gladio network since the 1950s appears to have concentrated on offering training expertise for continental cells. Werner Carobbio, a member of the Swiss parliamentary inquiry, referred the Guardian to Swiss press reports that P26 personnel had received training in Britain.
General Gerardo Serravalle, a retired officer, told the Italian parliamentary inquiry that a Gladio unit trained in Britain in the early 1970s. General Fausto Fortunato, head of the Italian Gladio cell until 1964, referred to a “crucial” meeting of the network held in Britain, followed by others in France, Belgium and Luxembourg in the early 1960s.
Revelations about the Gladio network have provoked embarrassed reactions. Wilfried Martens, Belgium’s prime minister almost continuously since 1979, has said he was never told about its network, now under investigation after allegations that it was linked to a series of terrorist attacks in the 1980s.
The Dutch prime minister, Ruud Lubbers, told parliament last month that a secret organisation had been set up inside the defence ministry in the 1950s originally to provide intelligence to a government in exile. Members of the cell are believed to have taken part recently in a training exercise in Sicily.
The French defence minister, Jean-Pierre Chevènement, has announced that the French section, code-named Gallio, had been dissolved by presidential decree.
The German section, set up with the help of second world war army veterans and the extreme rightwing Federation of German Youth, allegedly drew up plans to assassinate leading members of the opposition Social Democrat party in the event of a Warsaw Pact invasion. The German government has promised to consider winding it up.
In Greece, where it was given the code-name, Sheepskin, a cell was set up by the CIA in the 1950s but was dismantled in 1988, according to the government. Officers in the underground unit were involved in the Colonels’ coup in 1967.
In Turkey, Bulent Ecevit, prime minister at the time of the invasion of northern Cyprus in 1974, has said he was informed at the time of a “special warfare” department within the headquarters of the general staff. He said he was told it had been financed until then by the US but needed funds from Ankara.
A former Italian Gladio officer has said Gladio agents were trained by US instructors at a military base in Spanish Canary Islands from 1966 to the mid-1970s. He said France proposed Spain for membership of the network in 1973 but Britain, Germany and the Netherlands blocked the move on the grounds that Spain was not a democracy.
Remoaners, the Gladio Stay behind crew
´We are the resistance´.
Jacob Funk Kirkegaard (PIIE)
February 23, 2016 10:30 AM
The last-minute deal between Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain and the leaders of the European Union on February 19 was aimed at persuading Cameron, his government, and the Conservative Party leadership to support staying in the European Union in the referendum scheduled for June 23. Will it do the trick?
Almost certainly, yes. The burden on those favoring a British exit (Brexit) is to make the case that life on the outside will be better than staying in under this new deal—a difficult challenge. Most Scottish, Welsh, and perhaps even Northern Irish voters are likely to support EU membership, leaving it up to the numerically dominant English voters to drag the entire United Kingdom out of the European Union. Were that to happen, Scottish (and perhaps other) nationalists would seize the opportunity to demand a new referendum on whether to remain part of the United Kingdom or break free and seek membership in the European Union as a new independent country. Voting for UK secession could thus produce a series of votes to break up the United Kingdom itself, creating a Little England in its wake.
The Lobbying Problem. Is Lobbying consultation?
Interest group influence on EU policy-making: A quantitative analysis across issues Heike Klüver, University of Mannheim Abstract: This paper presents a large-scale empirical analysis of interest group influence on EU policy-making across a wide range of issues. The explanation of policy outcomes as well as the democratic legitimacy of the EU crucially depends on how much influence interest groups have and how influence is distributed among them. However, only few studies have addressed the question of influence and most are limited to case studies focusing only on one single issue. Recent literature however suggests that interest group influence varies considerably across issues. It is assumed that influence is not a mere function of interest group characteristics, but strongly shaped by the issue context. The lack of large-N studies controling for issue variables is mainly due to methodological difficulties in measuring influence. Hence, this paper employs a new approach: Drawing on a quantitative text analysis performed with Wordfish, policy preferences of interest groups will be compared with the policy proposal in order to identify the winners and the losers of the decision-making process. While controling for interest group characteristics, the effect of issue-related variables on interest group influence will be tested across 15 policy issues.
A prominent hypothesis in interest group research is that cause groups are less influential than sectional groups. It is hypothesized that cause groups are less influential since they cannot provide resources to decision-makers (Dür/de Bièvre 2007a: 81). 4 Another stream of research is concerned with the effect of organizational form on interest group influence. Pieter Bouwen (2002, 2004) presented a well-elaborated theoretical framework explaining influence of business associations in the European Union. Resources are defined as money, information as well as electoral support. With little to exchange, cause groups are not able to shift the policy position of decision-makers towards their ideal point. The inability to provide resources lies in the nature of the interest they represent: Since cause groups defend some diffuse ideal or principle, everyone can join these groups and thus the membership is very heterogenous. Due to the fact that the interest is of secondary nature to members and members face only diffuse costs and benefits associated with this interest, they will not provide the same financial resources and electoral support as members of sectional groups whose primary material interests are affected. Since cause groups defend a diffuse ideal or principle and since they lack financial resources they can only provide decision-makers with much less detailed information than sectional groups. Thus, even though cause groups have overcome the problem of getting organized, they constantly suffer from collective action problems, leading to an undersupply of resources (Dür/de Bièvre 2007a: 82). Sectional groups by contrast represent welldefined homogenous constituencies with specific interests. Since these interests are of primary material concern to their members they are willing to supply the interest group with the necessary financial and electoral support. Thus, the following hypothesis can be formulated: Hypothesis 1: Sectional groups are more influential than cause groups.
http://aei.pitt.edu/33094/1/kluever._heike.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_theory
Martin Gilens and Benjamin I.
´´In their statistical analysis of 1,779 policy issues Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page found “that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.”
Pareto etc.Pareto Theory Of Maximum Economics
Pareto turned his interest to economic matters and he became an advocate of free trade, finding himself in difficulty with the Italian government. His writings reflected the ideas of Léon Walras that economics is essentially a mathematical science. Pareto was a leader of the “Lausanne School” and represents the second generation of the Neoclassical Revolution. His “tastes-and-obstacles” approach to general equilibrium theory were resurrected during the great “Paretian Revival” of the 1930s and have influenced theoretical economics since.[18]
In his Manual of Political Economy (1906) the focus is on equilibrium in terms of solutions to individual problems of “objectives and constraints”. He used the indifference curve of Edgeworth (1881) extensively, for the theory of the consumer and, another great novelty, in his theory of the producer. He gave the first presentation of the trade-off box now known as the “Edgeworth-Bowley” box.[19]
Pareto was the first to realize that cardinal utility could be dispensed with and economic equilibrium thought of in terms of ordinal utility[20] – that is, it was not necessary to know how much a person valued this or that, only that he preferred X of this to Y of that. Utility was a preference-ordering. With this, Pareto not only inaugurated modern microeconomics, but he also demolished the alliance of economics and utilitarian philosophy (which calls for the greatest good for the greatest number; Pareto said “good” cannot be measured). He replaced it with the notion of Pareto-optimality, the idea that a system is enjoying maximum economic satisfaction when no one can be made better off without making someone else worse off. Pareto optimality is widely used in welfare economics and game theory. A standard theorem is that a perfectly competitive market creates distributions of wealth that are Pareto optimal.[21]
Concepts[edit]
Some economic concepts in current use are based on his work:
The Pareto index is a measure of the inequality of income distribution.
He argued that in all countries and times, the distribution of income and wealth is highly skewed, with a few holding most of the wealth. He argued that all observed societies follow a regular logarithmic pattern:
1.
where N is the number of people with wealth higher than x, and A and m are constants. Over the years, Pareto’s Law has proved remarkably close to observed data.
The Pareto chart is a special type of histogram, used to view causes of a problem in order of severity from largest to smallest. It is a statistical tool that graphically demonstrates the Pareto principle or the 80–20 rule.
Pareto’s law concerns the distribution of income.
The Pareto distribution is a probability distribution used, among other things, as a mathematical realization of Pareto’s law.
Ophelimity is a measure of purely economic satisfaction.
https://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2016/01/the-iron-law-of-oligarchy.html
Hypothesis 4: The higher the complexity of a policy proposal, the higher the chance of an interest group to be influential.
Hypothesis 5: The higher the number of interest groups that belong to the same lobbying perspective, the higher the chance of an interest group to be influential.
´´The preliminary results show no evidence for a significant effect of interest group type on interest group influence. Neither nature of the interest nor organizational form had a consistent effect on interest group influence. Hence, based on this preliminary analysis, two existing hypotheses in interest group research need to be rejected. By contrast, issue characteristics explained a high share of variation in interest group influence: Being located on the same side of the initial Commission position as the status quo had a significant and strong positive effect on interest group influence. The size of the lobbying perspective understood as the number of interest groups located on the same side of the initial Commission position also had a significant and positive effect on interest group influence. Whereas the significance and direction of these two effects remain robust over a plurality of different models, the effects of salience and complexity of the policy proposal are inconclusive. Salience and complexity only have a very small effect which is not significant across all models. The direction of the salience effect even varies across the models. Hence, whereas the size of the lobbying perspective and being located on the same policy side as the status quo have a strong and robust effect, salience and complexity of the policy proposal need to be further investigated. However, it can already be concluded from this preliminary analysis that issue characteristics have a high explanatory power whereas interest group type cannot account for variation in interest group influence´´.
10
Similarly, an important recent strand of participatory theory, so-called agonistic theory, holds that the essence of democracy is a widespread ethos of contestation of differences.
11
From the perspective of elite democracy, such critiques ring hollow because they impose onto modern institutions an external ideal of democracy that is fundamentally incompatible with the scale and pluralism of nation-states in the 21st century. Most crucially, today the vast majority of citizens are by necessity primarily occupied with work and lack the leisure to participate in public life. Even if participatory ideals are persuasive in some abstract sense, elite democracy argues convincingly that any viable concept of democratic legitimacy in the present should focus on making elite institutions more transparent and accountable to the citizenry rather than contesting their elite character as such
A first key theme in theories of elite democracy is a view of
institutional systems as self-regulating
. That is, in the view of elite democracy, rather than an active citizenry, institutional systems are primarily responsible for providing for their own legitimacy and accountability. Seeking a more stable source of authority than the citizenry, Madison, for example, develops a system of central institutions which contains within itself its own mechanisms for distributing power: ÒÉthe defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper placeÉThe different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled byitselfÓ (318-21). Madison is clear that the people must surrender their power,
Finally, following from its view of institutions as self-regulating, an important corollary theme in elite democratic theory is its minimal view of citizenship. If accountability is to be located in the institutional system itself, active participation by citizens in collective decisions is unnecessary
Elite democracy is deeply intertwined with, but not identical to, the political theory of liberalism, which holds that public institutions can be justified only in terms of individual freedom.
18
Liberalism is properly understood as a theory of the balance between individual freedom and the state, as distinct from the balance of power between the many and the few. Liberalism and elite democracy are analytically distinct, for representative government can in principle be either liberal or authoritarian, just as liberal
17
On the Madisonian tradition’s rejection of the classical teachings, see Wilson C. McWilliams,
Redeeming Democracy in America
, ed. Patrick J. Deneen and Susan Jane McWilliams (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011), esp. 9ff.
18
Louis Hartz,
The Liberal Tradition in America
(New York: Harcourt Brace, 1955); John Rawls,
A Theory of Justice
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971).
12 regimes can be in principle be governed by the few or the many. However, representative government has evolved historically intertwined with liberalism and cannot be understood in isolation from its ideological context and the powerful ways in which liberalism reinforces elite rule. Liberalism (including Madisonian republicanism) tends to be suspicious of popular rule, for fear that tyrannical majorities will exert state power.
19
Moreover, political theorists have recently recognized the ideological role of liberalism in legitimizing corporate power, masking inequalities in the private sphere, and encouraging a view of citizens as passive and individualistic consumers.
20
Rather than critique of the liberal tradition as such, my immediate focus for the purposes of this paper is whether representative government can be recognized as oligarchical from AristotleÕs distinctive perspective.
In Book IV, an important shift occurs in AristotleÕs thought toward a distinct focus on democracy and oligarchy in particular. Aristotle suggests that political science should also address questions of how to preserve existing regimes, even if they are flawed: É
[O]ne should study not only the best regime but also the regime that is [the best] possible, and similarly also the regime that is easier and more attainable for allÉsince to reform a regime is no less a task than to institute one from the beginningÉ Hence in addition to what has been said the political expert should be able to assist existing regimes as well (1288b35-1289a7)
Whether the regime is an oligarchy or democracy is thus a basic question that must be confronted at the outset of analysis of existing regimes, without taking for granted the assumptions of conventional political discourse
Early in the
Politics
, Aristotle refers to the conventional opinion of Spartan Senate as oligarchic and the mixture with the kingship and (overseers) (a select group drawn from the people by lot to supervise the education of the young) as aristocratic (1265b28-40).Again, Aristotle argues that SolonÕs reforms were not as radically democratic as commonly supposed because they preserved the elite practice of election to offices(1273b39-43). Election on the basis of wealth (ploutinden) is oligarchic, while election on the basis of virtue (aristinden) is aristocratic (1293b11). Moreover, as aristocracy inevitably inclines toward oligarchy, so even the most noble forms of (hairesis) would be expected to degenerate.
Moreover, all empirical evidence suggests that political participation within the representative system in practice privileges the wealthy and highly educated.
28
William Pitt made this statement: “Let the American people go into their debt-funding schemes and banking systems, and from that hour their boasted independence will be a mere phantom.
The saying is apocryphal and was originated by the populist author T. Cushing Daniel, a Washington-based lobbyist and lawyer, in his testimony before the U.S. Congress in 1911 in hearings on House Resolution 314 (whether financiers were restricting trade by domination of the money supply). This is what Daniel said:
William Pitt made this statement: “Let the American people go into their debt-funding schemes and banking systems, and from that hour their boasted independence will be a mere phantom.” He realized the maxim that Rothschilds laid down as fundamental: “Let us control the money of a country and we care not who makes its laws.”
It is true that the Rothschilds had “maxims” and these were published by London weeklies in the 1890s. All of these maxims were homey things like “Be sure you are right, then go forward.” Cushing simply invented the imaginary “control the money” maxim for the purposes of his books and testimony.
The original Rothschilds were very religious, modest people. Its hard to imagine Nathan R. or his brothers as having said such an arrogant thing and it conflicts with what is known about his personality. Long after Nathan R. was dead, during the period 1890-1910, which was a period of anti-trust and anti-wealth agitation in the United States many writers made up all kinds of stories to portray the Rothschilds and other “barons” according to their stereotypes of rich, arrogant puppet masters. These stereotypes often did not resemble the actual people.
Concerning the phraseology and idea that Daniel expressed, this was not original to him, but, as you might imagine, was adapted from the works of others. In this case the phrase appears to have come from a short paper on the History of New York State published in 1892 by Welland Hendricks, a school principal. This is what Hendricks wrote:
Our Dutch forefathers who seemed to care little whether the flag of England or of Holland floated over the weak fort of New Amsterdam so long as their trade was uninterrupted have bequeathed their spirit to our keen-sighted non-voting business men of to-day, and all along the motto of our leading citizens has seemed to be — let us make the money of the nation and we care not who makes its laws.
Daniel completely perverted the original sense of the sentence to his own purpose. Hendricks was borrowing the phrase as well. In 1890, a meddlying clergyman named Wilbur Crafts, who tried to get all kinds of moralistic laws passed in New York, wrote a tract promoting the banning of work on Sunday containing the paragraph:
Massachusetts took upon herself the appointment of Boston’s Police Commissioners, and so of her police. The lawless had been saying for years, “Let us appoint the city’s police and we care not who makes its laws.”
The actual origin of the printed phrase dates back to the 17th century Scottish Parliamentarian, Andrew Fletcher:
I said I knew a very wise man so much of Sir Christopher’s sentiment, that he believed if a man were permitted to make all the ballads he need not care who should make the laws of a nation, and we find that most of the ancient legislators thought that they could not well reform the manners of any city without the help of a lyric, and sometimes of a dramatic poet.
— An ACCOUNT of A CONVERSATION concerning A RIGHT REGULATION of GOVERNMENTS For the common Good of Mankind: In A LETTER to the Marquiss of Montrose , the Earls of Rothes, Roxburg and Haddington, From London the first of December, 1703′.
Now, of whom is Fletcher speaking? Who is the “very wise man”? It is, of course, Sir Phillip Sydney (1554-1586), the English poet who came to completely dominate the court of Queen Elizabeth even though he was only in his 20s. Sydney is the one who originated the phrase “Let me make the ballads of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.”
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b37377;view=1up;seq=13
https://www.amazon.com/Real-Money-versus-False-Credits/dp/1410104729
From Greenwald’s article:
A failed, collapsed party cannot form an effective resistance. Trump did not become president and the Republicans do not dominate virtually all levels of government because there is some sort of massive surge in enthusiasm for right-wing extremism. Quite the contrary: This all happened because the Democrats are perceived — with good reason — to be out of touch, artificial, talking points-spouting automatons who serve Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and the agenda of endless war, led by millionaires and funded by oligarchs to do the least amount possible for ordinary, powerless citizens while still keeping their votes.
European troika
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Troika.
2013 protests agains troika in Slovenia
The European troika is the designation of the triumvirate representing the European Union in its foreign relations, in particular concerning its common foreign and security policy (CFSP).
Currently, while talking about the troika (especially in the media) one refers to a decision group formed by the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Common Foreign and Security Policy[edit]
This term was used in the European Union when referring to a group composed of the Foreign Affairs Minister of the Member State holding the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, the Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union, who also held the post of High Representative of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), and the European Commissioner for External Relations. The “Troïka” represented the European Union in external relations that fall within the scope of the common foreign and security policy (CFSP).
With the 2009 ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, the post of Secretary-General of the Council was separated from the post of High Representative of the CFSP, which then assumed the responsibilities of the European Commissioner for External Relations. Since only two of the original posts making up the troika still exist, it is unclear what the future of the troika arrangement in the EU is.
Financial crisis bailout creditors[edit]
The term troika has been widely used in Greece and Cyprus (Greek: τρόικα),[1][2] Ireland,[3] Portugal[4] and Spain[5] to refer to the presence of the European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund in these countries since 2010 and the financial measures that these institutions have taken. Slovenia barely avoided the intervention by the troika in 2013, thanks to the loan of EUR 1.5 billion acquired at the PIMCO.[6]´´The realities Rove predicted have infantilized parliamentary debates, current affairs discussion and lecture events, and anything of a supposedly serious nature on TV. These now conform to comic book simplicities of evil, heroes and baddies. They have produced a multitude of editorials with facts upside-down. They force even those who advise against provoking Moscow to include a remark or two about Putin being a murderer or tyrant, lest they could be mistaken for traitors to Enlightenment values or even as Russian puppets, as I have been. Layers of unreality have incapacitated learned and serious people to think clearly about the world and how it came to be that way.´´
http://www.globalresearch.ca/karl-roves-prophecy-we…/5572533 #KarlRove#RealitiesofEmpire #FakeNews #Duchamp #StaringatGoats
The battle over CETA will continue: Next, national parliaments and citizens must decide
15/02/2017
While the European Parliament will vote on CETA today, the deal must still be voted on by the national parliaments of EU member states where it continues to face strong opposition.
A referendum is expected in the Netherlands and the German constitutional court may decide that Germany will abandon the agreement. In addition, over 2,000 European cities, regions and organisations have declared themselves to be ‘CETA- and TTIP-free zones’.
GUE/NGL Shadow Rapporteur on CETA, Anne-Marie Mineur, explains: “While part of the agreement will provisionally apply almost immediately, the national parliaments fortunately still get to ratify the greater part of the agreement.
“Given the huge pressure that is mounting in so many countries, there is a very reasonable chance that at least one parliament will block ratification.
“In my own country, the Netherlands, preparations are being made for a referendum, but also in countries like Germany and Austria, the public protest is enormous.
“The Belgian government has also announced that it will ask the European Court of Justice for an opinion on whether the Investment Court System is compatible with the European legal system.”
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/20170209IPR61728/ceta-meps-back-eu-canada-trade-agreement
The deal was approved by 408 votes to 254, with 33 abstentions.
What’s next?
CETA will start to be provisionally applied from 1 March (they’re not hanging about!). Provisional application means the parts of CETA which impact on European law will be introduced, while those parts which affect national law of the members states will have to wait for each and every state to ratify.
States will have different processes to ratify. In the UK, unsurprisingly perhaps, will have one of the less democratic ways of ratification. Like secondary legislation, CETA will be ‘laid before parliament’ and if no objection raised, will go through automatically. It is doubtful the Labour party will want to risk another split by calling for a vote on CETA – a vote they are bound to lose.
Attention, therefore will turn elsewhere. Belgium looks interesting. Remember the furore caused by Wallonia refusing to let Belgium sign CETA at the Council stage back in November? Well, those concerns and objections have yet to be fully addressed, allowing for another set-to near the seat of European democracy.In The Netherlands, activists are pushing for a referendum to be held on the issue. They need to collect 300,000 signatures to request one (it’s only advisory, but the pressure will be on). Other countries might not want to force a decision before elections which are coming up – with elements that might be against CETA in good ways or bad in the running for election.This fight is far from over. In the UK it appears like well be turning our attention to TISA and the Brexit-era trade agenda. Let us know if you have other issues to feed it. But one thing’s for sure, we want to be able to shout about what we are for in the trade debate, not simply what were against, so were working up alternatives to corporate friendly trade policies and deals. Watch this space.
Guy Verhofstadt’s federalist vision of his beloved EU will undermine its very future
Guy VERHOFSTADT, President of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, drafted the strategic report on the evolution and adaptations of the current institutional structure of the EU. He stated:
“Brexit, Trump, Putin: these are more than enough reasons to reform the European Union. To do it now, and to do it profoundly. That is what our three reports propose:
• a more efficient union: by slimming down the commission, ending Europe à la carte, which is in fact has created bureaucratic chaos and a single seat of the European Parliament,
• a more democratic union: by reforming European elections, expanding the Spitzencandidate process and turning the Council into a Council of States
• a stronger union: enhancing the protection of civil liberties in the union, and an enhanced capability against external threats, by building a defence union, but also a government for the Eurozone, with a fiscal capacity, an EU finance minister, own resources, and a convergence code with conditionality “.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2017/571404/IPOL_STU(2017)571404_EN.pdf
Mr Verhofstadt’s vision for the future of the EU is flawed and not representative of the citizens of Europe. It is a shame that the only hint of understanding of what is needed is the call for this Parliament to have a single seat. The 110 million euros saved every year by not travelling from Brussels to Strasbourg each month would be a step in the right direction and the kind of reform people want to see. The Strasbourg circus has become a symbol of everything that is wrong with the EU; it is matters such as this that the report should have addressed.
Britain did not vote to leave the EU because there was not enough Europe. We voted to leave because the EU does too much. It has already taken too much power from the member states. It must not take any more.
http://brexitcentral.com/guy-verhofstadts-federalist-vision-beloved-eu-will-undermine-future/
There was very little serious public debate about political integration, about sharing
sovereignty or democratic accountability of supranational institutions. The debate mostly
revolved around the economic benefits of the membership versus the freedom of movement
and immigration troubles. Post-electoral analysis showed that the government’s
recommendation or “remainers” positions was rejected despite the leave campaign having
failed to present a clear alternative. Messages such as “Take back control” and “Britain first”
had strong impact in important sectors of the electorate. The electorate, or at least a
substantial part of it, “were more focused on immigration, the UK financial contribution to
the EU budget, and the democratic deficit in EU governance”. At the end of the day the two
decisive issues for those voting for “Leave” seemed to be national sovereignty and
immigration13
.
In conclusion, post-electoral analysis shows a mixture of causes for the outcome of the
referendum, many enshrined in the particular relation of UK with the European integration
process, others common to many other Member States. Since the Danish electorate rejected
the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, referendums on European integration have often had elitedefying
consequences. The Brexit is the most significant expression of this so far in Europe’s
history (except perhaps the rejection of the Constitutional Treaty). The United Kingdom has
always been a reluctant European partner, with a national media that is particularly
aggressive towards the notion of European integration, but it would seem that this
referendum cannot be dismissed “as just a sign of English insularity”. Concerns about
immigration and the loss of distinct national identity are relevant also to many other Member
States.
18
Ambitious reform of treaties
The second resolution, by Guy Verhofstadt (ALDE, BE), looks at ways to move further than the current toolbox allows and suggests various reforms of the Lisbon Treaty, in the areas of economic governance, foreign policy, fundamental rights and transparency. In it, MEPs:
suggest creating an EU finance minister and giving the EU Commission the power to formulate and give effect to a common EU economic policy, backed up by a euro-area budget,
reiterate that the European Parliament should have a single seat,
propose reducing the size of the College of EU Commissioners substantially, including by cutting the number of Vice-Presidents to two, and
state their belief in allowing EU citizens in each member state to vote directly on the European political parties’ lead candidates for Commission President.
“These reports give the blueprint of what a more perfect Union should look like. They do not propose European integration for the sake of it. Once these reports are adopted, the question is: what is the way forward? I know we can have a strong, powerful, respected European union and at the same time have flourishing local and national democracies. In fact, I believe the one is not possible without the other”, said Mr Verhofstadt.
The resolution was approved by 283 votes to 269 with 83 abstentions.
http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/blind-men-and-the-elephant.htm
The Elephant Of EuroStan..
Blind Men and the Elephant
Blind Men and the Elephant A Picture of Relativism and Tolerance
The Blind Men and the Elephant is a famous Indian fable that tells the story of six blind sojourners that come across different parts of an elephant in their life journeys. In turn, each blind man creates his own version of reality from that limited experience and perspective. In philosophy departments throughout the world, the Blind Men and the Elephant has become the poster child for moral relativism and religious tolerance.
Blind Men and the Elephant A Poem by John Godfrey Saxe
Here is John Godfrey Saxes (1816-1887) version of Blind Men and the Elephant:
It was six men of Indostan,
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.
The First approach’d the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, -“Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis mighty clear,
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”
The Third approach’d the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” -quoth he- “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”
The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee:
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” -quoth he,-
“‘Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said- “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” -quoth he,- “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
MORAL,
So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean;
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
Blind Men and the Elephant Philosophical Parable
The Blind Men and the Elephant is an ancient parable used today as a warning for people that promote absolute truth or exclusive religious claims. The simple reason is that our sensory perceptions and life experiences can lead to limited access and overreaching misinterpretations. How can a person with a limited touch of truth turn that into the one and only version of all reality?
Blind Men and the Elephant Theological Truth
When it comes to the moral of the Blind Men and the Elephant, it seems that todays philosophers end their agenda too quickly. Doesnt the picture of the blind men and the elephant also point to something bigger — The elephant? Indeed, each blind man has a limited perspective on the objective truth, but that doesnt mean objective truth isnt there. In fact, truth isnt relative at all
Its there to discover in all its totality. In theology, just because we have limited access to Truth, that doesnt mean any and all versions of Truth are equally valid. Actually, if we know the Whole Elephant is out there, shouldnt this drive us to open our eyes wider and seek every opportunity to experience more of Him?
—
April 23, 2019
#NovarraMedia #AaronBastani Strawmanning , shadow boxing and otherwise talking to himself. Cultural Marxism and the Art of appearing right.
Ian Hislops let himself go, or is it Ben Elton? Aaron is a very clever guy steeped in academic knowledge, he hasn’t exactly gone to the sharpest knives in the drawer, has he? Regarding Cultural Marxism, it is a Thing or Several things to several groups, of course for Aaron it does not exist and Jordan Peterson means it even though he doesn’t say it ( much at least.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism
Novarra and Aaron are obviously Gatekeepers part of the NGO Sockpuppet Complex, probably watch Zizeck and Peterson if you want to see two people really talk these things through. This is as Cringeworthy as Sam Harris and Montbiot trying to have a dialogue with Noam Chomsky or In Defense of usury, Bentham’s attempted dialogue with Adam Smith. If nothing else this is an entertaining innovation on the Strawman approach to arguing with one’s self, The Monty Python Argument Sketch is the closest thing to it I can think of.
Harris same as Monbiot All about him Ego.( that’s only my opinion. I personally find Harris deeply annoying in the same degree that I find Niall Ferguson deeply annoying.)YMMV. Your Mileage may vary.
https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-limits-of-discourse
April 26, 2015
From: Sam Harris
To: Noam Chomsky
Noam — I reached out to you indirectly through Lawrence Krauss and Johann Hari and was planning to leave it at that, but a reader has now sent me a copy of an email exchange in which you were quite dismissive of the prospect of having a “debate” with me. ZIzeck Peterson.
And here’s a Real Treat, Proudhon and Bastiat Go at it.
Last word for Bakunin who didn’t exactly get on with Marx as Aaron will know.
Emilio, Bakunin predicted that ;
”They [the Marxists] maintain that only a dictatorship—their dictatorship, of course—can create the will of the people, while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by freedom, that is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the people and free organization of the toiling masses from the bottom up.´´
—Mikhail Bakunin, Statism and Anarchism[36)
Aaron, I believe you Know Ranjan Balakumaran, if you would like to chat through your arguments with a real live critical thinking human being with a brain just tell Ranjan to set it up.
Finally Aaron Left RIght is so last century, it’s Rich and Poor and the Independent and the Patronised, Left Right Binary class war politics a construct of the media narratives which you manufacture as you are patronised you patronise. It’s a bad look mate, you do Smug well and that ain’t cool!
May 14, 2018
LEFT / RIGHT AND OTHER FALSE CATEGORIES. MAX IGAN EXPLAINS THE HEGELIAN DIALECTIC AND KIERKEGAARD SELLS YOU A T-SHIRT
Sören Kierkegaard famously said, “once you Label me, you negate me “This is what Kierkegaard actually said or wrote, a closer paraphrase in any event.
Kierkegaard said: “I am no part of a whole, I am not integrated, not included. To put me in this whole you imagine is to negate me. Who am I? I am an intensity of feeling in relation with beings, and particularly with the Divine Being, who excites my desire, my knowledge. I want to be in a kind of self-destroying contact with God, the Absolute Other.”
SUPPORT THE BLOG BUY THE TEESHIRT!
https://examplenotlipservice.teemill.co.uk/product/philosotees-kierkegard/
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July 10, 2025
“the chartered rights of men.”. Burke, and The East India Company Charter. Thomas Paine the trial of common sense! SOme Pamphleteer memorabilia.
Wake Up to Abundance: Your Invitation to Real Democracy. BREAKING THE CIRCLE: Understanding How They Keep Us Trapped
This pamphlet is freely available through Wiki Ballot. Copy, share, adapt as needed. The ideas belong to everyone because abundance belongs to everyone. wikitacticalvoting.miraheze.org
Jul 10, 2025
wikitacticalvoting.miraheze.org
Wake Up to Abundance: Your Invitation to Real Democracy
The money system is a lie. Housing scarcity is artificial. Your debt is someone else’s profit.
Stop accepting poverty in the midst of plenty. The Wiki Ballot platform offers free access to revolutionary economic education that banks don’t want you to see.
What You’ll Discover:
Money is created from nothing by private banks
Land value belongs to communities, not speculators
Taxation for revenue is obsolete (proven since 1946)
Abundance economics can end artificial scarcity
Take Action Now:
Visit WikiTacticalVoting.miraheze.org
Find your constituency page
Access free Circle of Blame & Going Direct series
Join abundance primaries in your area
Share this knowledge with neighbors
This isn’t left vs right—it’s up vs down. It’s people vs parasites.
The solutions exist. The research is done. The only question is whether you’ll stay asleep or help build the abundance economy your community deserves.
Your children’s future depends on what you do next.
If you cant afford it Go to Wiki Ballot and there is a flip book that is downloadabe off that platfom.
Tags: #MonetaryReform #AbundanceEconomics #DirectDemocracy #WikiBallot #SocialCredit #Distributism #HousingJustice #DebtJubilee #MonetarySovereignty #EconomicJustice #CitizenAction #CommunityWealth #SystemChange #FinancialLiteracy #PoliticalRevolution
A Corrected Inquiry in the Voice of G.K. Chesterton
[First, I must humbly acknowledge my oversight in not properly recognizing the profound tradition of Distributism and Social Credit that you reference. G.K. Chesterton, along with Hilaire Belloc and others, developed a comprehensive alternative to both capitalism and socialism that emphasized the wide distribution of property and productive assets. Social Credit, as developed by C.H. Douglas, proposed that the financial system should serve the real economy rather than dominate it. I apologize for not immediately connecting these vital traditions to your work, which clearly builds upon these foundations while extending them into our digital age.]
An Invitation to Reasonable Discourse on the Great Economic Question of Our Time
My dear fellow citizens, there comes a moment in the affairs of any nation when the comfortable assumptions of the counting-house must yield to the uncomfortable questions of the common room. We find ourselves in such a moment now, though few seem willing to acknowledge it.
The question before us is not whether our present economic arrangements are perfect—no reasonable person claims they are—but whether they are even rational. When we discover that money itself is not what we thought it was, when we learn that scarcity itself may be largely artificial, when we realize that the very foundations of our economic thinking rest upon assumptions that would make a medieval schoolman blush with embarrassment, then surely the time has come for conversation rather than dogma.
This is not a call to revolution, but to revelation—the simple revelation of what is already true but systematically obscured. Dr. Adrian Wrigley’s work on abundance economics, Beardsley Ruml’s demonstration that taxation for revenue is obsolete in a sovereign currency system, Stephen Zarlenga’s monetary research, and the historical insights of Alexander Del Mar all point to the same startling conclusion: we have been living in an economic fairy tale, and not a particularly pleasant one.
The Wiki Ballot platform offers something unprecedented in our democratic tradition—a space where citizens can engage directly with these questions without the mediation of those who profit from our continued confusion. Here, in the digital equivalent of the village green, we might discover that the solutions to our housing crisis, our debt burden, and our environmental challenges are not as complex as we have been told.
This is not about left or right, but about up or down—lifting the veil of artificial complexity that has been drawn over the simple business of organizing human cooperation. The Distributist tradition understood this: that economic arrangements should serve human flourishing, not abstract mathematical models.
The Circle of Blame and Going Direct series, freely available through this platform, offer not final answers but better questions. They suggest that our current difficulties stem not from the inevitable laws of economics, but from the very avoidable laws of those who benefit from artificial scarcity.
I invite you, therefore, to join this conversation—not as disciples of any particular doctrine, but as citizens curious about whether another way might be possible. Visit the Wiki Ballot platform, explore your constituency’s page, and consider whether the time has come to move beyond the tired debates of the past century toward something genuinely new.
After all, as any good detective knows, the most important clues are often hidden in plain sight. And the greatest mystery of our time may be why we continue to accept as natural what is merely conventional, as inevitable what is merely profitable, and as complex what is merely obscured.
The conversation begins with a simple question: what if abundance, rather than scarcity, is the natural state of human affairs? Everything else follows from how we answer that question.
July 10, 2025
“the chartered rights of men.”. Burke, and The East India Company Charter. Thomas Paine the trial of common sense! SOme Pamphleteer memorabilia.
Wake Up to Abundance: Your Invitation to Real Democracy. BREAKING THE CIRCLE: Understanding How They Keep Us Trapped
This pamphlet is freely available through Wiki Ballot. Copy, share, adapt as needed. The ideas belong to everyone because abundance belongs to everyone. wikitacticalvoting.miraheze.org
Jul 10, 2025
wikitacticalvoting.miraheze.org
Wake Up to Abundance: Your Invitation to Real Democracy
The money system is a lie. Housing scarcity is artificial. Your debt is someone else’s profit.
Stop accepting poverty in the midst of plenty. The Wiki Ballot platform offers free access to revolutionary economic education that banks don’t want you to see.
What You’ll Discover:
Money is created from nothing by private banks
Land value belongs to communities, not speculators
Taxation for revenue is obsolete (proven since 1946)
Abundance economics can end artificial scarcity
Take Action Now:
Visit WikiTacticalVoting.miraheze.org
Find your constituency page
Access free Circle of Blame & Going Direct series
Join abundance primaries in your area
Share this knowledge with neighbors
This isn’t left vs right—it’s up vs down. It’s people vs parasites.
The solutions exist. The research is done. The only question is whether you’ll stay asleep or help build the abundance economy your community deserves.
Your children’s future depends on what you do next.
If you cant afford it Go to Wiki Ballot and there is a flip book that is downloadabe off that platfom.
Tags: #MonetaryReform #AbundanceEconomics #DirectDemocracy #WikiBallot #SocialCredit #Distributism #HousingJustice #DebtJubilee #MonetarySovereignty #EconomicJustice #CitizenAction #CommunityWealth #SystemChange #FinancialLiteracy #PoliticalRevolution
A Corrected Inquiry in the Voice of G.K. Chesterton
[First, I must humbly acknowledge my oversight in not properly recognizing the profound tradition of Distributism and Social Credit that you reference. G.K. Chesterton, along with Hilaire Belloc and others, developed a comprehensive alternative to both capitalism and socialism that emphasized the wide distribution of property and productive assets. Social Credit, as developed by C.H. Douglas, proposed that the financial system should serve the real economy rather than dominate it. I apologize for not immediately connecting these vital traditions to your work, which clearly builds upon these foundations while extending them into our digital age.]
An Invitation to Reasonable Discourse on the Great Economic Question of Our Time
My dear fellow citizens, there comes a moment in the affairs of any nation when the comfortable assumptions of the counting-house must yield to the uncomfortable questions of the common room. We find ourselves in such a moment now, though few seem willing to acknowledge it.
The question before us is not whether our present economic arrangements are perfect—no reasonable person claims they are—but whether they are even rational. When we discover that money itself is not what we thought it was, when we learn that scarcity itself may be largely artificial, when we realize that the very foundations of our economic thinking rest upon assumptions that would make a medieval schoolman blush with embarrassment, then surely the time has come for conversation rather than dogma.
This is not a call to revolution, but to revelation—the simple revelation of what is already true but systematically obscured. Dr. Adrian Wrigley’s work on abundance economics, Beardsley Ruml’s demonstration that taxation for revenue is obsolete in a sovereign currency system, Stephen Zarlenga’s monetary research, and the historical insights of Alexander Del Mar all point to the same startling conclusion: we have been living in an economic fairy tale, and not a particularly pleasant one.
The Wiki Ballot platform offers something unprecedented in our democratic tradition—a space where citizens can engage directly with these questions without the mediation of those who profit from our continued confusion. Here, in the digital equivalent of the village green, we might discover that the solutions to our housing crisis, our debt burden, and our environmental challenges are not as complex as we have been told.
This is not about left or right, but about up or down—lifting the veil of artificial complexity that has been drawn over the simple business of organizing human cooperation. The Distributist tradition understood this: that economic arrangements should serve human flourishing, not abstract mathematical models.
The Circle of Blame and Going Direct series, freely available through this platform, offer not final answers but better questions. They suggest that our current difficulties stem not from the inevitable laws of economics, but from the very avoidable laws of those who benefit from artificial scarcity.
I invite you, therefore, to join this conversation—not as disciples of any particular doctrine, but as citizens curious about whether another way might be possible. Visit the Wiki Ballot platform, explore your constituency’s page, and consider whether the time has come to move beyond the tired debates of the past century toward something genuinely new.
After all, as any good detective knows, the most important clues are often hidden in plain sight. And the greatest mystery of our time may be why we continue to accept as natural what is merely conventional, as inevitable what is merely profitable, and as complex what is merely obscured.
The conversation begins with a simple question: what if abundance, rather than scarcity, is the natural state of human affairs? Everything else follows from how we answer that question.
September 13, 2014
Obama Briefs his partners in the washington Consensus.
I have lived here for 4 and a half years now and love it here
I will be applying for Swedish Citizenship in due course I have renounced my British citizenship. My Sone is 4, 5 later this month he attends a Dagis ( playschool) 3 mmornings a week, it is free of charge and the facilities excellent. All schools and Child care places here in Sweden have fully equipped Kitchens and subsidised and in the case of Nurseries Free hot meals and Snacks ( Ficka ) are served. My partner is a teacher and this provison is very important for many Children where for instance an alcoholic single parent is not providing regular meals at home. AT the Dagis the Children are also having an election next week, they are voting for what is on the menu next week at one lunch time there are 3 choices. 1. A health Bean dish with Coca Cola, 2. Pizza with Water 3. Chocalate cake with milk. It isn’t pplitical but the idea is that in all things where one makes choices there are rough and smoothe aspects. To me that kind of sums up the Scandanavian pragmatism and practicality which I really respect. The question of NATO is a big one here and again both in Finland and here in Sweden the idea of the Alliance is not welcomed by the broad mass of the population, standards of education and debate are high and the Kunskapkanalen is very good. I was actually first introduced to the Spirit Level as Kunskapkanalen ( Swedish Public Broadcasting) carried a full lecture of the original book tour. Its a curious mix here and of course right up to the mid 70´s there was some pretty serious eugenics programmes here , I jokingly call it the 4th Reich here but there is a serious side to that joke in that The partnership of State and Capital is very explicit and not hidden here, Our band actuually does a popular Swedish Folk and Punk Tune Stadt och Kapitalet which sums it up. There is a balance to that though in that organised Labour, even the Anarchist Trade union are fully involved with the Establishment here and were and are active in the shaping of Swedish Society, ( Has been under attack but it still endures and communication between a highly educated and socially engaged population takes a lot to break down ( more than 8 years)
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2012/07/platos-cave-tales-from-libetarian-drive.html
http://www.lilagatubandet.se/
Capital raising rents
and state housing benefits
you can wangle a tad
the iron law of wages
and even pay less in salary
than the price of food and for rent
the government contributes so much to the
if the cost of living has become
too expensive.
Side by side, they help each
state and capital, they are in the same boat
though it is not them that rowing Rowing so sweaty
and whip that tickle, tickle, nor
their fat necks.
The school’s mission is as it should be
the school workforce
the brooms to sweep good
we must not be careless with the handles
barriers and quotas and testing program
is a system to screen
wheat from the chaff, and was one o
to his right fold.
Side by side, together they emphasize the
state and capital, two wolves pious as lamb
though it is not them that rowing Rowing so sweaty
and whip that tickle, tickle, nor
their fat necks.
Side by side, they help each
state and capital, they are in the same boat
though it is not them that rowing Rowing so sweaty
and whip that tickle, tickle, nor
their fat necks.
The tempo is raised at the machines,
This trills male elite
production can not accommodate the
that has become badly worn
but lest anyone should think that there is something wrong
with the heavy chords
he is regarded as a disease and treated
the compassionate care work.
Side by side, together they emphasize the
state and capital, two wolves pious as lamb
but it is not them that rowing Rowing so sweaty
and whip that tickle, tickle, nor
their fat necks.
Side by side …. Aah aah aaaah aaaaah!
We have an election in Sweden this coming week Pete, I hope and think that the electorate will give the neo libs who have ran the show this past 8 years the boot, the free market stuff has gone to far and the Swedes are not happy about it. It does get remarked upon and discussed as only Scandanavians can. There is something about the Swedish Language that gets them all on the same page automatically even when they have different ideas about which way to go they seem always to know where they are at presently. It is not perfect here , my Partner is Swedish and we decided to move here with our Young Family as we did not wish to send our Children to School in the UK.
I think thie spiece set out the case for a yes vote quite well Tom,http://www.yesscotland.net/…/ruth-wishart-why-im-coming… ´´´As we all know, the 1979 one was rigged in such a way that all non-voters were effectively deeme…See More
Ruth Wishart: ‘Why I’m coming out for Scottish independence’ | Yes Scotland
It is a short walk from Edinburgh’s Meadows to Princes Street Gardens but for some of us it represents a rather long journey.
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Roger Glyndwr Lewis This is a very technical read Tom , it repays the time in reading. I support a Yes Vote but the Election following the yes vote if it comes is where Anarchists such as myself will be especially active in tackling the problems of Capitalism , Neo Libera…See More
Crises Capitalism and Independence Doctrines
groundleft.wordpress.com
Crises Capitalism and Independence Doctrines Gordon Asher and Leigh French “The interest of the oppressors lie in changing the consciousness of the oppressed not the situation which oppresses them….
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Stephen Ainsworth The more I read the more I am convinced that disaster and doom awaits Scotland should fellow anarchists such as RGL vote Yes. They don’t have the money, all the firms are going to move, as will the people, and for what? To escape the English, no other reason. Silly silly people.
1 hr · “}” data-reactid=”.1b.1:3:1:$comment892522804108995_893345814026694:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.3.$likeToggle:0:$action:0″ href=”https://www.facebook.com/#” role=”button” style=”color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, ‘lucida grande’, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; text-decoration: none;” title=”Like this comment”>Like
Roger Glyndwr Lewis Stephen I think your analysis is drawing a silly conclusion. That a country would wish to govern itself and that self government makes more sense and should be motivated more purely for the good of its own citizens is basic logic. Bentham had it right …See More
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Roger Glyndwr Lewis Benthamns Defense of usury is flawed in that it misunderstands the Debt aspects of Money creation, which was not as bad then as it is now but was still a system being pedalled by the infamous John Law in France.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Law_(economist)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine
http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/bentham/usury
Where is the Debate about reforming money for England Wales and Ireland freeing people from the yoke of Debt!
John Law (economist) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org
John Law (baptised 21 April 1671 – 21 March 1729) was a Scottish economist who b…See More
Obama maintains the Washington Consensus
—
Money Debt and Usury
Published on Jun 25, 2012
Comedian Louis C.K., Activist Peter Joseph, and Euro Co-Architect Bernard Lietaer break down and expose the big bad joke that is The Federal Reserve, with help from the self-incriminating former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn.
"Our potential as humans is infinite-- let us not limit ourselves through the medium of exchange. It's time to wake up." - Bernard Lietaer
For more information about Mutual Credit Systems, we recommend strongly the book "The End of Money and The Future of Civilization" by Thomas H. Greco Jr. Also, there is some good information at his website: http://www.reinventingmoney.com/
FAIR USE NOTICE: This video may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes only. This constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 106A-117 of the US Copyright Law.
"We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive." ~ Albert Einstein
Changing the way we think is the most difficult and necessary challenge for our species right now. It's like the old adage that says that "fish don't know they're in water." They're so surrounded by it that it's impossible for them to see. The water is like our ways of thinking. The assumptions we make about life have been so reinforced throughout our lives that we have difficulty seeing them. Yet our survival as a species depends us making the choice to understand, develop, and live from a new manner of thinking.
This channel is dedicated to exploring and sharing these new ways of thinking.
Support us on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/sustainablehuman
https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/2017/08/06/the-paper-aristocracy-from-william-111-to-the-present-day-william-cobbett-against-gold/
193 Mapped Links
↑ Articial Scarcity
↑ 25 Most Cited Think Tanks
→ Brendon O'Connell 111
→ World Government Summit 2022: Dr. Pippa Malmgren Talks About Blockchain & Digital Currencies
↑ Agenda 2021/2030
→ 125. The Ukrainian Future - Smart Cities - The 4th Industrial Revolution With Julianne Romanello
→ AI connects the dots | Dr Pippa Malmgren | Huxley Summit
→ ESG (Environmental & Social Governence
→
https://thetechnocratictyranny.com/
→ https://web.archive.org/web/20191215133404/https://cyberjournal.org/cj333-doublespeak-and-the-new-world-order/
→ Ian Davis
→ Seizing The Global Commons
→ Technocratic Tyranny
↑ Dr Pippa Malmgren
→ "The True Horrors of China's Social Credit System" - From the Archives
→ #Assange #BeforetheLaw #Kafka âThe Processâ , a descent into fascist dystopia. Show Trial at Belmarsh.â
→ #Covidstroika
→ #SerfingTheWeb. World Government Forum Dubai. #Aadhaar #RishiSunack #Infosys #Omidyar #Zuckerberg #InThisTogether #DigitalSerfFramework
→ 125. The Ukrainian Future - Smart Cities - The 4th Industrial Revolution With Julianne Romanello
→ AI connects the dots | Dr Pippa Malmgren | Huxley Summit
→ Are We Facing a Great Depression? James Rickards and Pippa Malmgren
→ Dr Pippa Malmgren on Trump, Social Credit, AI & Virtual Reality
→ ESG (Environmental & Social Governence
→ full spectrum surveillance apparatus through digital passports, #Thiel, #Schmidt #Assange , When Google Met Wikileaks #Bilderberg #Palantir
→ Hillary Clinton Begs Forgiveness From Rothschilds In Leaked Email
→ James Rickards: "Globalization is Dead"
→ johnnyvedmore.com
→ Jokes about White Sugar are rare, Brown Sugar? Demerara. AIâs and Media Monopolies. Antisocial Media. #ConquestofDough
→ Llyods Bank
→ Matt Hancock
→ naomiclature, Nomiclature. Trinomilclature
→ The Dark Side of Technology
→ THE OBSOLETE MAN TWILIGHT ZONE
→ World Government Summit 2022: Dr. Pippa Malmgren Talks About Blockchain & Digital Currencies
↑ Globalisation and Urbanisation.
→ #Covidstroika
→ 125. The Ukrainian Future - Smart Cities - The 4th Industrial Revolution With Julianne Romanello
→ AI connects the dots | Dr Pippa Malmgren | Huxley Summit
→ Elitism, Starfucking worship of âThe Elites**
→ ESG (Environmental & Social Governence
→ Man Made Global Warming
→ Overshoot Over population
→ PART 1 OF 4 - Exit From Brexit, The Jo Cox Departure
→ Population
→ Seizing The Global Commons
→ Sustainable development Goals.
→ The Military Industrial Complex and Brexit. A hypothesis. #EUMilitaryUnification #Brexit #Brino #JoCox #AnnaLindh #OlofPalme #TINA
↑ Going Direct Paradigm (94 siblings)
↑ Love is the Answer
→ #Covidstroika
→ #QED
→ âthe gates of the technocratic prison will open automatically, despite their rusty ancient hinges, as soon as we choose to walk out.â
→ Brian Haw & Barbara Tucker on Edge Media TV
→ March for Science Reloaded Christian Kreiss, July 2018
→ Peace
→ Planned obsolescence of products Prevalence â Manifestations â Causes â Remedies
→ Real Love Reality Is
→ Render Unto Ceaser
→ Sitrep for the 99%
→ The Iron Law of Oligarchy
→ WikiTacticalVoting
↑ NSA SHA-256 SHA-2 Mrkel Trees and Magic Money Trees Bitcoin and the CIA
→ #Covidstroika
→ Ron Paul and Alex Jones (Gold Bugs?)
→ World Government Summit 2022: Dr. Pippa Malmgren Talks About Blockchain & Digital Currencies
↑ Petro Dollar Hegenomy . Addiction to Oil.
→ âThe issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.â â Lord Acton
→ Climate Change, Land Use and Monetary Policy: The New Trifecta
→ Defacto Bi-oilism. Petro/CarbonDollar Standard. The Burning Platform, Seeking Alpha and British Interests in Ukraine? A failure to deal with Abundance. Watching the Wheels.
→ Dr Tim Morgan (Mild) SEEDS
→ FRamework of Players in Finance Regulation Game
→ Gail Trevberg
→ How Big Oil Conquered the World
→ https://www.globalresearch.ca/why-do-nato-states-commit-energy-hara-kiri/5767063
→ ITS ALL DONE WITH SWAPS. TTIP , AADHAAR , THE DEHLI FARMER PROTESTS #ID2022
→ L. Fletcher Prouty on the Peak Oil myth
→ RECORDED IN EARLY AUTUMN 2007 Ian R Crane PEAK OIL : MYTH OR REALITY
→ Regulating in the Shadow of Big Banking. Paul Carliers Talk at the Transparency Task Force and the failings of the FCA under Andrew Bailey.
→ Ron Paul and Alex Jones (Gold Bugs?)
→ Solari Report Catherine Ausin Fitts
→ Timeline Banking and Financial Services
→ Webster Tarpley 9/11-Synthetic Terror- Made in USA
→ William Engdahl
↑ The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom
→ Good Will Hunting | 'My Boy's Wicked Smart' (HD) - Matt Damon, Ben Affleck | MIRAMAX
↑ transnational corporations (TNCs).2011
→ BlackRock Is Bailing Out Its ETFs with Fed Money
→ Campaign For Accountability
→ Dealing with the next downturn
→ the capitalist network
→ Time for policy to go direct
↓ 16:1 “QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRANDUM”, DOUBLING BACK TO MAKE SENSE OF THE DOUBLING DOWN, DOUBLE SPEAK AND DOUBLE PLUS GOOD, BEWARE THOUGHT CRIME AHEAD! Sixteen to One , 16:1. Gold Silver Ratio , Good Carbon and Bad Carbon
↓ Aadhaar
↓ Banking Cartels
↓ BlackRock Authored the Bailout Plan Before There Was a Crisis
↓ Carbon Taxation. GE2019 the #CO2 #COP outs, Our Democracy is on Fire!
↓ Conquest of Dough , Buy the Novel
↓ David Malones New Improved Magic Money Tree Quiz
↓ Desperate Central Bankers Grab for More Power
↓ Dr Adrian Adrian Wrigley
↓ Dr Adrian Wriggley, Tax , Banking , Paper
↓ EX-RUSSIAN INTEL OFFICER EXPOSES THE CORONAVIRUS SCAMDEMIC
↓ Going direct isn't working?
↓ Government
↓
https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/?s=Money+debt+usury
↓ Interactive mind maps in economics
↓ Interview with Jonathan Sugarman
↓ MICHAEL HUDSON: ECONOMIC WARFARE, FINANCE CAPITALISM, INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISM OR SOCIALISM
↓ Military Industrial Complex
↓ never touch the money System
↓ Original post Authentic Decisions To Act
↓ Rationing Carbon, Carbon Currency end game. Why the Overshootist Elitist like Attenborough want fuel poverty.
↓ Real Currencies (anti-Usury)
↓ Steve Baker FRSA
↓ the Positive Money quiz Written and developed by David Faraday
↓ The Financial System Is Broken (w/ Jeff Snider)
↓ THE CONQUEST OF DOUGH ( NOVEL) MULTIMEDIA WEB SITE
↓ tragedy_hope_banking_money_history
↓ why-we-are-fighting-for-a-free-future?r=l1oox&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false