The Road to Weimar UK

So the Bank of England is falling over itself to  do some more Printing Money Quantitative Easing. ( Guardian Here )

Oh Joy!

More Funny Money. The new Opium of the Masses. The delicious fix from a set of new credit cards and payback on the never never.

Who cares if it is our kids who will pick up the tab.

Like a country of stoned addicts, we can (for a while) all run away from the harsh economic truths caused by undiluted Globalisation and irresponsible government. We can all have a nice time pretending there is nothing much wrong with the world economy.

Dear old Ed Balls (that well known Economic superstar) even thinks we should go further. Lets cut VAT!

Dear old Ed just begs the question: Why not just cut up the credit cards, forget about the debt and start it all again.

So when do we pay it all back? Ah Manana, Manana.

Who cares? Tomorrow never comes. Just ask the Greeks.

And if its good enough for the Greeks then its good enough for us. Let the Germans pay! Serve then right for clocking up so much overtime. I'm sure they don't mind (much).

Never mind that we are mortgaging our kids future. Just as long as we can selfishly indulge in more predatory priced Chinese imports, then we can forget about the reality.

Meanwhile we can all celebrate as those villainous bandits who have actually saved some cash get further stuffed by the inevitable inflation.

All those greedy old folk who paid their way throughout their lives and never touched the welfare state.

The fools.

Fancy putting away cash for a rainy day when you could spend! Spend! SPEND!

Why not just let someone else pick up the tab?

Lets face it, these contemptibly independent old folk deserve to suffer don't they?

How dare they have money - just because they saved.

How dare they even think their money should be safe-guarded - just because they didn't squander it.

At least UK industry won't complain. It is so broken by unfair predatory foreign competition it just bows its head and accepts its fate. If UK businesses are lucky they may pick up the odd scrap from the funny money. As long as they don't expect anything more than a straw to clutch at then that's OK.

While savers get robbed and UK industry continues to be demolished by unfair competition, our great leaders all yearn for a nice boom. Something that they can grandstand over, strut about a bit, show us all how important they all are.

Meanwhile the economy can go to the dogs.

If this dangerous addiction to QE continues it will just lead to the next fix, and the next, and the next. Then one day soon, you may well find that you are taking you wages home in a wheel barrow.

Just like they did in the Weimar Republic.

(For those who don't know what the Weimar Republic was Read Here)

Good News from Redcar Steelworks

After the catastophe of of TATA, and the disgusting "hands off" betrayal of British steel workers by the last government, at  least there is a little good news for my friends and fellow grubby Little Englanders in Redcar.

Sold off to TATA, Redcar steelworks was then closed down.  Mothballed was the term - but mothballs don't feed the kids.

Finally earlier this year, TATA sold Redcar to Thai steelmaker Sahaviriya Steel Industries (trading as SSI UK).

Billothewisp has to admit that at the time I thought that the future looked bleak - Yet another foreign owner of a strategic industry. I has dark thoughts as to the purpose of this purchase.

Possibly SSI was there only to extract as much in goverment grants, secure extortionate trade deals, run the plant into the ground and then dissapear. Or worse, simply keep the place closed so removing a competitor from the market (which was, I suspect TATA's original motive).

But so far, SSI look like a significant improvement over TATA.

SSI are planning to reopen Redcar and have now started hiring, so we should perhaps give them the benefit of the doubt. (See their Website Here)

The need for jobs, and the eagerness of the people the North East to gain  honest work in a hard and gruelling industry is shown by the fact that each of the 1000 jobs had at least ten applicants. (See BBC Report Here)

On many occasions, the people of the North East have been sold down the river by government. This betrayal has been variously aided and abetted by the sharp suits in London and a putrid adherence to the false doctine of Globalisation.

This betrayal has gone on for far too long.

It is about time the good people of the North East had a few (dozen) good breaks.

I still have my fears and reservations. But at this time, I wish SSI Ltd all the best.

Kiva: A Hand Up Not A Hand Out

OK you grubby little Englanders.  Today I want to explain how as individuals, we can give a hand up to the decent hard-working poor in the Third World. Not a hand out to the idle gangsters who rule them.

I expect you may have noticed that Billothewisp has a very low opinion of the way UK foreign aid is allocated and spent.

To me it looks more like a never-ending pleasure excursion to fame and riches than a method of alleviating suffering. The fame and riches are, of course, shared out among the Fats Cats at home and the Fat Cats ruling the Third World poor.

Meanwhile the poor sods at the bottom of the pile  get the table scrapings.

Overhanging the whole enormous DFID budget is the ugly stench of graft and greed. Fat cat salaries and cynical exploitation of both the giver and receiver. Read this article in The Telegraph for a quick whiff.

Via our government and it's incredible addiction to Globalisation, we are soon going to be  each "giving" another £500 a year each whether we want to or not.

How charitable.

But people in the third world deserve a hand up not a hand out. Charity should be only for the truly incapacitated, not for the decent people of the Third world. They deserve better.

So Billothewisp doesn't do charity any more. Charity is for the work-house and pompous Victorian oligarchs.

Now there is a better way for a personal involvement in helping the poor of the third world.

It is called Micro-finance.

Small loans to real people in need of a hand up. The crucial thing here is that the money is a loan not a hand out. It gets repaid, and then (of course) can be lent out again.

It appears to work. The main organisation involved in this at the moment is Kiva. I have a couple of issues with Kiva, but nothing that (as yet) would stop me using them.

It is run a bit like the UK peer to peer lending organisations, Zopa and Funding Circle, but Kiva is a not for profit organisation. Kiva allows individuals to loan small amounts of cash to real people. $25 via Paypal deals you in.

The people are  requesting loans to run a business or generally improve their life. Just like in the UK.

The default rate is evidently 1.8%. Which is pretty good. Of course if they default then they don't get another loan. But almost to a man (or woman) they don't default. Which must give us all a bit more faith in humanity.

For Billothewisp there is to be no more "charity" to poor Africans, but there will be loans. I am going to give a hand up not a hand out.

It is a pity that my pay is going to be drained of another £500 so the fats cats in the DFID can go and squander it at home or in foreign parts.

Believe me, with Kiva I think even my 2 year grand-daughter could do a better job with my £500 than the DFID.

Redcar Teeside - Positive News?

It looks like the Indian owned Corus Steel is selling Redcar (Teeside Cast Products) to a Thai steelmaking company (SSI)

See this link BBC Report

This is some really good news for the people of Teeside.

It is a shame that this is simply one foreign corporation exchanging ownership with another
but at least it looks like it will mean that Redcar will re-open and re-start production.

I still have my worries about why we allow our people and stategic industries to be ping-ponged to and fro by the the likes of TATA, Kraft and others.
But SSI do at least plan to re-open the plant, which is more that the TATA owned Corus could manage.

We will see the people of the North-East will get back to doing what they are superbly good at.

Heavy engineering and steel making.

I really, really, really hope this works out well.

Good luck to my friends in the North-East.

Globalisation: The Stealer of Skills

OK my snarly gnarly little English illiterati. Here the next dose of why Globalisation is bad for you, me, and the rest of the world-wide Hoi Polloi** (see note below).

Put that bottle of cider down and pay attention.

The easy way to illustrate this is to give you a couple of recent examples regarding the theft of skilled workers from the third world and the corresponding theft of jobs from England

---

One of the great obscenities perpetrated by the last Labour government was the bribery and theft of trained medical professionals from the third world.

What! I hear you exclaim. The Labour party indulging in a spot of slavery? Well, Almost.

Starting in the late 90's teams of recruiters from local health authorities were flown to places like India, South Africa and the Philippines with the sole aim of stealing the medical staff away to the UK.

Nobody would dispute that these individuals were a great gain for the UK.

I would also hope that nobody would dispute that stealing them away from their own nations was not only immoral but also a catastrophe for those Hoi Polloi** left doctor-less and nurse-less back home.

Why did the ruling elite do this?

Because it was cheaper than training our own medics.

It got them out of a short term hole of their own making regarding impractical promises they made about the NHS.

Simple.

Now of course, it is a long term problem. But they don't care anymore. Another ruling elite has to pick up the pieces.

It also gave them leverage in keeping down wages. It enhanced their control over the NHS at the expense of the medics.

I am sure that in the future the Labour party's addiction to globalisation and its immoral theft of these medics will be regarded much in the same way as we regard slavery today.

To be fair there were rumblings of discontent from the odd senior (though soon to be junior) member of the Labour Party (like Clarles Clarke)

The other skilled worker obscenity we will be looking at today is the abuse of skills within the third world.

An engineer or technician is a precious resource in any country. But today many multi-lingual highly educated individuals in the third world will be found answering the phone and dealing with Mr Angry from Cheam and his missing direct debit.

Meanwhile the people in this country that used to do this job sit at home watching the afternoon telly waiting to sign on again. Their prosperity and self reliance ruined.

The foreign engineer, temporarily gets paid more than he would doing his proper job. Meanwhile his skills rot and the country that trained him goes without.

Long term nobody gains.

Except the fat cats.

OK?

Sermon over. Back to the cider.

**NOTE
I know you lot are, like me, a bit dim. (John Prescott told me this. So it must be true.)

So I need to explain the term Hoi Polloi.

Hoi Polloi is a Greek expression meaning the many, the masses, etc. It is usually used in private by the Great Good and Extremely Well Fed. They use it as a sneeringly derogatory term when describing people like you and me, my plebian proletariate mates.

Occasionally they get carried away and use it in public, so if you hear it, now you know what it means.

So theres a little lesson for you.

Of course Dioclese should know this already. It is not because he is brighter than the rest of us its just that as a short term past resident of Greece he must have heard the remark delivered about himself as he queued up every night to buy his industrial strength Metaxa.

Globalisation: The Real Enemy.

Dear fellow disowned and derided little Englanders

Billothewisp is going to have a rant (or occasional series of rants) about Globalisation. This is the first.

Today I am just setting the stage with an outline of this wrecking ball of an idealogy.

I promise to interperse this stuff with some more digestable (or at least drinkable) posting or I, like you, will probably have a haemorrhage.

Globalisation

On a personal level, we all hold self reliance and self sufficiency in high esteem. But on a national level, these same attributes are villified and undermined.

Globalisation dictates that a national self reliance is regarded as something to be aborred and Free Trade (which is anything but) should fill the gap.

Nationally all our political parties are beholden to the great god of Globalisation. They appear oblivious to the damage and distress it causes to many societies, not just our own.

There is opposition to globalisation but most of the anti-globalisation movement is firmly entrenched on the more lunatic fringes of the left.

Billothewisp does not think firebombing MacDonald's is going to solve anything. Neither does he think that the average member of the Global Justice Movement has so much as a clue as to what is really going on.

Globalisation is a semi-random methodology that entrenches vested interest. The Great Good and Extremely Well Fed get ever richer, while the rest of us become ever more serf like in our position.

Globalisation encourages many of the woes we see in the world today.

Examples include:

Skilled Worker Theft
Predatory pricing
Unemploymnet
Sweat shop labour
mass migration
poverty
false competition
and many others.

To keep these posts to sensible lengths I will keep to one issue/example per post.

The next post will be Skilled Worker Theft.

There. I have said it. Now I feel better. Pass the cider.

No More the World Role

I have never figured out why the Labour party is so enslaved to the Victorian concept of a “World Role” for our Island. Take this article by Ed Milliband FT Article Here.

You have ask:

Why?
Whats the point?
Does this make our countries safer, fairer or more worthwhile?
Do we need to be the worlds policeman?
Was it absolutely necessary to fight 5 wars in the last 13 years?

True, in the past we were the driving force for World Order. We controlled the Worlds economy and progress. But that was then.

Do we really want that now?

Or is this just another piece of control freakery from our Labour political elite?

According the noted historian, Simon Schama, during the 150 years the British Empire dominated the world, the whole of the empire always ran at a financial loss. Not one single year did the colonies and dominions ever produce a net profit. The flow of funds and resources was one way. Out of Britain.

In reality, the 19th /early 20th century British empire was funded and built by Welsh miners, English engineers and Scottish ship builders. In other words, by the the working class of these islands. Not by the mythical plundering of foreign lands and their populations.

The 19th century working class was really working and genuinely down-trodden. They were the true victims of empire. Their hard labour and wealth has been used, (and so often squandered) funding the development of far away lands. Places like Zimbabwe, Yemen, Uganda, Burma. A small sample of many countries now laid low by the corruption and greed of their rulers.

Milliband is wrong.

We can and should (if necessary) turn our backs on this futile grandstanding. In our current financial circumstances, we should certainly do no more than countries like Germany and France.

Particularly, we should not use our soldiers as a blood sacrifice to give Brown, Milliband and others a shabby meaning to their Global ambitions.

We need to close our doors. We must reduce the haemorrhage of money flowing from the country. We need to look inwards and solve our own desperate problems, rather than torturing ourselves with the problems of others.

In essence, we do need to put the people of this land first for a change.

Obama, NASA and the Slippery Slope.

Normally this blog is English centric, but Obama's cuts to the US space programme have prompted me to worry about where they, and we, are all heading.

America (like us) is broke and needs to cut back. As a result, large sections of the space program have been axed. It must be remembered that NASA is one of the main driving forces behind American technical innovation.

Obama and the Americans need to tread very carefully. They are on the edge of a very slippery slope that eventually leads to the purgatory of technical dependency.

Going down the slope is easy. Getting back up it again is murderously hard. Even just stopping the descent is awesomely difficult. Just look at us in the UK.

We have all got in this position because of the overblown banking sector. The banks should be a support player to industry. Today they have become the tail that wags the dog.

It was encouraging to see Obama recently lay down the law to the US banks. But he needs to make sure that Wall Street stops selling out American industry. The traders and the various ruling elites around the world all worship at the feet of Globalisation and would sell their mothers (let alone their country) to turn a profit or maintain their position.

A bit of good old protectionism against unfair competition for some strategic American industries would really set the cat among the pigeons. Maybe then we could also protect some of ours. That is after we get rid of the arch globalisation fetishist, Gordon "The Abyss" Brown.

Export/Import should be there to fill in the gaps and add the extras. It should never be allowed to destroy native industries wholesale.

Unfettered and dogmatic Globalisation has wreaked havoc across the world and led to untold misery and suffering, both in the West and in developing countries.

Now is the time to reign it in.

The Death Of Redcar Steelworks

Redcar Steelworks is due to shutdown this month. So ends another chapter of British (dare I say English) Industry.

Redcar is (was) a fine productive plant with an excellent and proud workforce. But their industry and their livelihoods have been sacrificed to the great God of Globalisation.

To say this is a brutal culling would be the understatement of the century. The truth is that Redcar Steelworks is worth more dead than alive to its new masters .

Read these pages and weep.

Steel Strip A trade website. Describes the tragedy

Climate Realists More on the despicable closure with particular reference as to who makes LOTS of money from it.
(Warning. This will make you angry).

Labour Home Particulary read the comments here.
I am left bereft of understanding how the people making these deeply felt comments can still get up and support the likes of Gordon Brown.

While this country continues to get screwed like this there is little hope that we will ever turn things around.

Why has this been allowed to happen?

Neighbours Entrails Intact

My thanks to Steve Green for including me in his blog-roll and especially for creating a rather good new icon for BilloTheWisp. I feel torn between Steves new icon and the original old Neanderthal BilloTheWisp. Consequently, from now on I have decided that BilloTheWisp is going to have a split personality and veer from fundamental Neanderthalism through to an etherial Englishness. The exact choice will be highly dependant on the amount of cider I have had to opportunity to consume that evening.

In Neanderthal BilloTheWisp mode I should report that I have had some complaints about using a neighbours entails for forcasting the events of the new year (BilloTheWisps Crystal Ball for 2010)

There are those who feel that sacrificing one of my neighbours for the rather dubious data retrieved was somewhat over the top. However I can reassure everyone that nobody actually lost their life.

I can further relay the happy news that the neighbour concerned will be out of intensive care before the end of the week with his entrails fully restored to their proper location.

Finally as a precursor to a set of posts on Globalisation and Foreign Aid, I will post a statement I heard many years ago from a bitter retired career diplomat. I also saw this repeated almost word for word in a Spectator article Here.

The old guy said:

Foreign aid is really just an excellent way to get the poor in rich countries to subsidise the lifestyles and excesses of the rich in poor countries.

It may be an extremely cynical and pessimistic viewpoint but, unfortunately it has some echoes of truth about it. I'm going to beat this about a bit as is my want in future posts.

Particularly I want to examine how the average Joe usually gets screwed irrespective of whether he lives in Dorchester or Mumbai. But more on that on another day.

Globalisation, rotten nails and rubbish tools

BillotheWisp can hardly be called a fan of globalisation.

Basically he finds the concept of keeping the worldwide contigent of rich, powerful and extremely well fed in the manner they have become accustomed to, rather distasteful.

This all leads to Bad Doors.

For his sins (which are many) Billothewisp builds latch and brace doors. A nice simple design made from good quality French Pine floorboard. Glued using a fine English PVA glue. Hammer and saws are by Stanley. Made in England.

So why, on occasion, do we get a bad door?

The answer?
Bad Nails
and a Bad Router.

The nails are made from very poor steel. (one recently literally shattered when hit by the hammer), but now it is difficult to get anything else.

Then the is (was) the cheap router. This was great to start with, then it fell apart. It became unpredictable and dangerous.

Even Old Neanderthals do not want to accidently lop off assorted body parts with lethal tools so, with much regret ( and cost) it was binned.

Both nails and Router were made in foreign fields (China). They were made down to a minimum quality to maximise the profit for the posh, powerful and exceptionally well fed. No doubt the actual makers earned next to nothing.

The router lasted barely one year. The nails will be binned immediately I find a good quality replacement (price immaterial).

In the end only the social layer consisting of the very well fed would consider this a good deal. I won't even consider the environmental friendliness or economic practicality of it all.

The router has now been replaced by a German router. ( Deutschland uber alles Englander!! )

I have yet to find a decent nail.

The evil of Globalisation is that it chases down the price irrespective of the damage done to native industries or peoples. If there was a cheaper place to make crap nails or routers then thats where the manufacturing would migrate to, irrespective of the consequences for the original manufacturer. Product quality will always come a poor second.

Luckily there are still a few places left in Europe ( even in England)that treat their workforce reasonably well and still make good tools, but they are diminishing.

However BillotheWisp has learnt a very important though expensive lesson.

You only get what you pay for.

One day, I hope we see that Chinese workers need to make stuff for China (currently they end up exporting it all) and English workers return to make stuff for England rather than working in banks and insurance companies. This may well end up with the Great, Good and exceptionally well fed getting slightly smaller portions, but hey, they have a great deal of fat to spare.