First off, its seems that Italy is now firmly in the sights of the financial speculators, with rumours that Italian Banks are seriously exposed to risk and will fail a new stress test when it is implemented. This is more extremely bad news for the UK, as we've made the financial sector the powerhouse of our economy.
As I blogged 3 years ago or more, whilst we continue to have financial uncertainty, the economy will continue to be in the toilet. You cannot have serious economic growth without a serious amount of confidence in the financial sector. Whilst banks remain over exposed to toxic debt and the financials in the City of London remain exposed directly and through derivatives, growth will continue to flatline.
I said all those years ago that it will take more than a decade to recover from the crash of 2007/8 and here we are almost half a decade later, still in the doldrums. We are to all intents and purposes in a great depression and its about time we started acting like we were. We need to start making solid financial foundations by changing the economic mix back from high-risk virtual financials and services over to real-life, low-risk buyable economic generators like manufacturing.
Unfortunately instead. our government insists on giving away money it doesn't have to finance "bail-outs" and "rescue packages"; all of which are just throwing money away. Our finance sector is heavily exposed thanks to credit default swaps and other forms of loan insurance.
We really are in a pickle, especially as the government continues to put its head in the sand and ignore the root of the problem and the real size of it.
Before the election I said the government had to come clean about the size of the crisis in order to get the country to follow it. Unfortunately they continue to fob the public off with illusions, half-truths and lies. Instead we get diversion tactics and smokescreens such as the phone hacking affair.
Yes, the "phone hacking" affair, which has been blown out of proportion by the government, eager to kill a number of birds with one stone. First is the aforementioned diversion, second is a chance to scare and muzzle a serious political threat, third is the chance to stop Rupert Murdoch from gaining too much influence via the media and finally it provides an opportunity to legislate the press.
If this was a low-ranking issue, all of the evidence would have been released, but there's the fingerprint of media management all over this affair. The constant drip-drip of anti Murdoch evidence, designed to keep the affair in the media spotlight is a sure sign of news manipulation/management.
The outcome of it all will be interesting to observe, but I fear the worst.
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8 hours ago
The people I work with are really getting very bored with the whole NOTW scandal. I would like though to see Murdoch produce evidence that Gordon Brown lied about his phone being hacked and it was just a plant by somebody close to Brown. There is a lot of wheeling and dealing to come on this. Also of course there is the angle of the BBC/Guardian wanting to stop Murdoch getting hold of BskyB because they want to dominate the media with their lefty views.
ReplyDeleteAutonomous Mind has covered the Guardianista/BBC left wing mediaocracy excellently, but the issue is being pushed far too far to be "just" a bid for the hearts and minds of the nation. I think the left sense an opportunity to damage Murdoch, link him to criminal activity and by association smear David Cameron because he's now the News International political darling.
ReplyDeleteLabour should tread very carefully because all of this happened while they were in government and cosied up to NewsCorp. Wheeling Gordon Brown out this morning I fear was a media disaster as no-one has any sympathy for him and the thought of him in tears... well, its ludicrous, unless they were of the crocodile variety. The man doesn't have an ounce of compassion in him. If he was so incensed at the intrusion, why didn't he do something about it while he was PM? It has a very hollow ring to it.
There's definitely more mileage in all of this, especially in the bid for BSkyB. Calling in the monopolies commission at the eleventh hour will certainly start the lawsuits flying.
I just wonder what dirt Rebekah has on Rupert, given he's defended her when her position seems indefensible. All he had to do was give her the elbow with a generous wadge of cash, then bring her back into the fold when things had died down. Maybe he uncharacteristically misread the situation?