The importance of options: no need to BRIC it (part deux)

Liam Halligan comments on currency games in Japan. The Japanese have been trying to reduce the overblown value of their currency to help exporters. The reason it has strengthened is because currency investors wanted to find a currency outside the Euro or Dollar in which to hedge. The upside of the strengthening might be the ability of Japanese firms to make investments abroad. It is an old game which is being played with a new intensity in the modern era. 

(click timestamp below to read more)

No need to BRIC it yet...

A year ago for some wee wee publication I wrote:

"more than a third of the world's population lives in... China, Brazil and India. Together with Russia... they have been called the „BRICs“ (Brazil, Russia, India, China) by many economists. The problem is that the world is not used to an economy which is built on the BRICs. People question whether the BRICs can continue growing without US and EU economic leadership."

(click the timestamp below for more; I haven't got this "read more" feature sorted yet. PS I've been considering matters economic in recent times, so this is something I might be adding to the content here, which sad to say I neglected)

Woolmer again back in the spotlight:

Following up my latest post, see this remarkable blog from Jamie Pandaram of the Sydney Morning Herald where says:

"There still remains deep suspicion in Pakistan - despite no proof - that former coach Bob Woolmer was murdered by mafia types because he was set to expose match-fixing within his own team. The most sinister characters are linked to illegal bookmaking in the sub-continent, most notably Dawood Ibrahim, one of the world's most wanted terrorists, who has close links to Osama bin Laden. Some have suggested Ibrahim uses profits from his various gambling operations to fund butcher operations by al-Qaeda. Bookmakers are said to organise fixes with players, then place large bets with rival bookies to collect major winnings. One Indian bookmaker who believed he had been stung by a fix refused to pay up, and, fearing for his life, fled to South Africa. He was recently found chopped into seven pieces."

Those crooked Pakistanis: the world around us

I was interested rather than shocked to learn of the fixing scam being carried out by at least a number of Pakistani cricketers, and it reminded me of a few things; not least how unusual a game cricket is. In some ways it might be considered the most popular game in the world, enthralling as it does 1.4 million asians plus a hundred million or so of other ethnicities. It could certainly be bigger than soccer when all is said and done. In addition, it's a sport of the Empire association which we know as the Commonwealth. Yet I suppose it's played internationally by only about 200 or so players, estimating generously. So, across India and in a couple of rich Western countries you have many thousands of bets on a game controlled by 22 players, or rather, by 11 players should they decide to play a certain way. In Pakistan gambling is officially banned. Playing a certain way with a certain objective is so much a part of cricket that it's regarded as a skill to get the result you want- usually considered to be a win or a draw depending on circumstances. It lends itself perfectly to corruption and no more so than when played by the 11 prima donnas elected for elevation by a teeming asian nation. With many players never having had access to such money as the game offers, but that money swamped by its gambling action, the temptations are massive.

Yet Pakistan, rather than India, is the country with the bad reputation. Why is that I wonder? It may be because the Pakistani players are paid much less than their international counterparts. I suspect it might also be to do with the fact that gambling is a non-Islamic tradition, and therefore the players can enrich themselves at the expense of dhimmis in their "ill-conceived" "favourite" activities. Apparently key players and the captain were in on the scam- and as former cricketer myself I can say that it would be difficult for ordinary players not to know about such activities.

Was the whole match fixed, or just parts of it? According to Michael Slater here, cricket holds the most money in betting outside of horseracing. He says that "spread betting" was the approach that the Pakistanis were playing to. What you can bet on in a cricket match I can't exactly say, but I know the potential is endless. However it does seem that the Pakistanis were also at times playing to the biggest gambling topic of all- the result.

In all this there is another thing this reminded me of: the death of Bob Woolmer in suspicious circumstances during Pakistan's world cup campaign of 2007. There was talk then that Woolmer had confronted players over possible corruption. This would be at about the same period as the man arrested over fixing, Mazhar Majeed, claims to have been involved with the team's fixing activities. I wonder why the Pakistanis needed a new partner after Woolmer's death, since Majeed claims that he was approached by the players rather than vice versa, and this is information we know from the confidence he shared with the investigating journalists...

to whom we owe a debt of gratitude and an acknowledgement that surely someone with Pakistani origins or connections, possibly investigating journalist Mazher Mahmood, was needed to provide the insights and the contacts which led to the uncovery of the scam. If so, then Civilization 1 - the Barbarians at the gates 0 is the real result of this contest. But the darker question of the real fate of Bob Woolmer remains.

Sense of direction

The event of a new Government in the UK reawakened my interest in politics there. It seemed only sensible to hibernate (even emigrate) during NuLabour's nuclear winter of toxic bubbles and exponential increases (in housing, immigration, debt, spending, incompetence etc). NuLabour had decided so many questions ideologically that all you heard about was the presentational detail, particularly as the State's mouthpiece, the BBC, was given lavish auhority to set the news agendas.

Now I guarantee you will bear much more detail about politics, much more about dissent, and more about failure. After all, with a Libservative approach mistakes will be bugs rather than features (ooh ahh, views rather than scenery), with the exception of a few policy areas like energy and the environment, where lights going out may well be seen as a successful implementation of a policy of making everyone's personal energy needs fail to be met. When the policy objective is reducing standards of living it may well be easy to meet that objective, especially for those in prime positions like that of MPs and Ministers, or Prime and Deputy Prime Ministers.

To look on the really positive side of the Libservatives, one has to see that, amidst all their delighted abandon in slicing unwonted chunks out of each other's manifestos, they have determined at least to reform the National Health Service (a Tory election pledge notwithstanding, natch). This is the counter-argument to the one which says that Cameron is a closet commie. There could be no greater boon for Britain, and no greater boost for Conservatism, than reforming the Stalinist NHS. Doing so would be a fulfillment not of recent Conservative policy but of Liberal Democrat Orange Book philosophy- and Clegg himself is one of the major Orange Libservatives.

One more thought- Cameron may have a few deep games afoot in his posturing, on many fronts. Not least this might include the alienation of the so-called Tory Right. It's expedient now to do so in order to lash the Liberals to the mast of the coalition. Wait and see the fiscal Conservatism this enables... and meantime ditch any conceivable baggage that no-one has claimed for a decade or two.

The New Government...

Is depressing, I have to say. The modern politician in Britain is so self-admiring that he prefers to have a beauty contest with various grades of beauty than a sense that some politics is human and other politics inhuman; thus in the post communist settlement all are shades of gray, Blair was on the right track until squished by Gordon; everything must be public/private cooperative; the EU is our density destiny etc.

I'm not sure if a Conservative Government under Cameron is worth having, except as a break from the slimeballs of NuLabour and a brake on their overweaning self-regard and confidence. I'm even less certain about a Libservative government which on the one hand preserves such institutions as the BBC and on the other extends the power of the EU to take on Foreign Office responsibilities.

Today's politicians are pleased as punch to be "in power", whatever that means. Well of course it means committees and delegations and protocol, plus influence, flattery and prestige. That's it? These guys are not worthy.

On the one hand they enjoy the trappings of a unique political position enjoyed by a class that benefits from hundreds of years of stable statehood, serene democracy and effectually expressed economic and military power; on the other hand they are the linchpins responsible for negotiating that away to the EU, lending the EU the credibility only we among European nations have, and reducing the nature of the country from effectual and dynamic to decorative and simply heritable.

As the UK election approaches, more and more the NuLabour machine rages, and sadly to effect. I look forward to the day when we pursue people like Campbell and Mandelson and put them in the dock for conspiring to subvert the democratic process. It makes me so mad when I hear of the so-called "charity" Commission investigating the anti-bullying charity whose Chief Executive spoke out after Peter Mandelson denied any stories of bullying in No 10 Downing Street.

Where to start in the sorry mess? What about the Charity Commission- an over-politicised institution no doubt? What about the anti-bullying charity- understandably engrossed with political signals about the bullying issue? What about Mandy himself, "unleashing hell" on the charity and its leadership after it crossed his media spin operation. Mandy is the nearest thing the UK has to evil, the biggest bully boy of all.

Susan Boyle disturbs home intruder

How dare she! He was probably trying to concentrate.

Klaus signs; the battle for democracy begins by respecting the rules of the game

"1. The decision of the Constitutional Court was expected by me and I respect it, even though I fundamentally disagree both with its content as well its justification.

2. I can't endorse its form i.e. its legal quality. The ruling by the Constitutional Court is not a neutral legislative analysis but a biased political advocacy of the Treaty of Lisbon by its champions. This point is obvious from the entirely inappropriate, confrontational elaboration as well as the presentation of the verdict.

3. Most importantly, I cannot agree with the content because once the treaty becomes valid, the Czech Republic will cease to be a sovereign country, despite the political opinion of the court. This change is bringing legitimacy to the efforts of a part of our public that is not indifferent to our national and state existence and that doesn't intend to come to terms with these developments - efforts that will take place today as well as in the future.

4. I can't accept the Constitutional Court's decision to proclaim the obligation of the president of the republic to ratify this (or another) international treaty "without unnecessary delays" by references to the law about the Constitutional Court. This bill only deals with the work of the Constitutional Court: the rights and responsibilities of the president are defined exclusively by the constitution.

5. I inform that I signed the Treaty of Lisbon today, November 3rd, at 3 pm."

(Trans via Lubos Motl)

Gordon Brown: what a ... words fail

The man is unbelievable. Which politician (or party) would invoke political history of 60 years ago to attempt to build political support today? Gordoom, that's who, in a letter to his supporters thanking them for their protective twittering over the future of the NHS.

"I have been profoundly moved by the enormous groundswell of support for the NHS in the last few days. A genuinely National Health Service – introduced by a Labour government in the teeth of opposition from the Conservatives and the medical establishment – is one of our nation’s finest achievements."

No political historian, me, but I do know that the NHS was based on the report commissioned by Winston Churchill produced by Sir William Beveridge. I also know that Churchill was one of the great social reformers and no opponent of the inception of the NHS. Furthermore, I know that Labour were elected with a landslide in 1945, so there is no possible way that the NHS could have been introduced in the "teeth of opposition from the Conservatives" as they had very few teeth remaining at that point.

Therefore Gordon is acting over the past as he acts concerning the present. Mendaciously.

Touching togetherness

It's great to see how nuLabour pols have kissed and made up and that "big beasts" like two Jags Prescot and Charlie the safety elephant are back on message as "outsiders" calling for an investigation into some phone hacking (not tapping) conducted a couple of years ago by NotW.

There's a time when cronyism gets comical and this is it. Who exactly is going to authorise such an investigation other than Charlie and John's chums in Cabinet? Why should they do so 2 1/2 years after the events in question? Why moreover should Andy Coulsen resign twice for the same offence of lack of oversight which he already admitted candidly to when he served as NoTW news editor? One could carry on; the scandal dwindles almost infinitely down to a soodling thread, while the real scandal becomes the sheer swollen stupidity and hapless spontaneous ineptitude of a NuLabour cabal who think that all affronts to their standing have been staged, and seek to retaliate in kind, completely bovinely unaware that their bad publicity has stemmed from their bad actions, character and management; they haven't the wit even to seek a scapegoat, preferring to launch stink bombs at their opponents. May the big stick of the electorate thwack their conspiratorial bottoms!

So Palin steps down as Alaska Governor and...

It's probably a masterstroke, but when you consider the amount of heat that will be expended by the navel gazing US media debating its cons, it will be better to keep out of it. I think it's the right move, in keeping with the anti-politics theme of the age. I think that it suggests that Palin recognises that her enemies have created her brand, whereas she had chosen her job (Governor), and that the brand was overshadowing the job. Thus this was cheating the electors who put her in place.

Now she is setting herself free to match her actions to a brand largely created by her enemies. Her enemies seemed to want an anti-abortion, small government bogeymom. Now perhaps they will have what they asked for, but without the folksiness of a small (population) state governor. It is a classic tactic to allow the weight of your opponent to create the momentum of his own fall; didn't Palin do judo some time?

The jury's out on that one.

When to get Gordon?

For as got he must be, how shall the getting be accomplished?

Sounds rather Shakespearean, no? (it isn't, it's ooonly meee) But it appears that maybe Auntie Beeb is donning her Lady Macbeth costume for the good of her ideological spouse.

There are two good reasons I can imagine why the BBC might now be higlighting Gordoom's lies. One is that, of course, they can imagine how the Labour party's annihilation at the next election would leave them thoroughly exposed without political allies. Getting shot of Gordoom may lift that curse somewhat.

The second is that after more than a decade's support of Gordoom's lies (think pensions raiding, public spending, public spending again, immigration etc) they can see a cunning way to reverse perceptions of their weddedness to the New Labour leadership under Broon-Blair.

(oh, and there is always a third- they have little choice in light of the present public mood and with Gordoom's current ineptitude)

But it is indeed incredible to find Frazer Nelson on a BBC sofa discussing Brown's lies. Has it come to this?

Perhaps Lady Macbeeb has decided to stiffen the sinews of the Parliamentary Labour Party to do what must be done. T'were best it were done before the election.

"It is a mistake to assume that the ayatollahs, cynical and corrupt as they may be, are acting rationally. They are frequently in the grip of archaic beliefs and fears that would make a stupefied medieval European peasant seem mentally sturdy and resourceful by comparison."

Quote of the day on the sophistication of Iran, by the inimitable Hitchens.

Gordon did it

Personally I think that Keith Marsden is being charitable to Gordon Brown when he observes in the Wall Street Journal that "Mr. Brown cannot honestly deny all responsibility for Britain's recession". Brown created an open goal for the unstable or the unscrupulous in the banking sector- a man who spent much of his life mind you in outright opposition to the free economy. Gordon's ability to smile when it began to collapse was indicative of a man who fed the weaknesses knowing that he couldn't lose- Gordon is the biggest chancer of all.

The Brothers Lewis

One edits the Telegraph, the other is to be Gordon Brown's chief spokesman. Just another Labourgraph link up.

It's about time Gordon Brown's operating strategies were properly articulated. I suspect that the reason he's stayed in power thus far is because he is able to point to successes behind the scenes- such as establishing communication bridgeheads into "middle Britain", such as politicising the police, granting sacred status to the NHS and nationalising the banks. When you look at it, it can be seen as nu-Labour mark II, the next stage in rejuvenating socialist principles, and that is I am sure how he can present it privately to his fellow-socialist fellow-travellers.

Ha- all very glum on the panel at Labour HQ the BBC tonight. Euro elections not to the taste of Auntie Beeb.

Nadine Dorries' blog is back again, and in the pink of health so to speak. Informative, chatty, confessional, overwrought; just a touch dizzy in the spelling department.

In defence of Nadine Dorries, MP

It's funny to be writing this, but I somehow feel I ought to because this particular MP has been both courageous and insightful. Unless I am much mistaken, she has little to be ashamed of and much to recommend herself. To catch up on matters political I listened to a large chunk of Iain Dale's Play UK talk radio show. Iain's got great radio presence, but the calls are jarringly bad audio-wise. Anyhow, one early caller was apopleptic about Ms Dorries' intervention in the MPs' expenses issue- where she accused the Telegraph of running a witchhunt against MPs because they favoured parties such as the BNP and UKIP. That's the gist of things, anyway. I merely want to comment that I think she is right, essentially, in saying that the Telegraph's campaign is politically motivated. It follows on from my thoughts expressed earlier.

I think it stems from McBride and Andrew Porter, who rumour has it have that most intense of relationships- drinking partners.

The more I hear and read about expenses, the more I see it as an effective technique for smoking out the "conservative sleaze" meme on which the Labour party founded its 1997 election victory. Watching the Mckenzie-Kirkbride scandal unfold, and Douglas Hogg's "moat" and other issues, one is reminded that for Labour "Tory sleaze" was about staining the characters of their opponents, exposing them as not "one of us". Even if Labour MPs were the most dishonest bunch in the world, they would always know how to slip inside, or into the slip stream of, the mob baying against corruption. The essence of Labour politics has always been the management of the mob- for right or wrong- and it's always been the failure of Conservatives and Liberals to analyse and absorb those techniques which has left them with two left feet when the "public" is on the march. Only Maggie had a deft two-step; a kind of Joan of Arc chic routine.

To come back to Dorries and the McBride connection, I notice that a small but notable part of the Telegraph's expenses story against Dorries was the allegation that she had claimed for hotel expenses in London when Parliament wasn't sitting, and added to those claims a mini-bar drinks cabinet. Well, I seem to recall that one of McBride's smears to Draper involved allegations of hotel hi-jinks. Could it be that the Telegraph and McBride had actually collaborated in the development of that story? Did the Telegraph know about the hotel claims and extrapolate over a jar or two the possibility of Dorries' engaging in a little nookie on taxpayers' expense?

When McBride constructed his smears he was doubtless doing so from background information which he deemed might make it convincing. Having failed miserably and spectacularly thanks to Guido Fawkes, could McBride have turned to Porter and asked for the nuclear option? To enrage the mob by blowing up the whole issue of MPs' financial behaviour, trusting in the native party-machine cunning of Labour embezzlers plus the Telegraph's cunning selectivity and timing to manage the fallout so that the Tories finally saw most of the damage. Given the building perception of Labour incompetence and sleaze, McBride and Labour, and probably even Gordon Brown, had nothing to lose.

So back to Dorries. Why did she accuse the Telegraph as she did? Well, not I think because the Telegraph are BNP supporters. I think because she was desperate to raise the issue of the Telegraph's connivance against her and colleagues. Raising it now, so that it can be examined later. Raising it now because it's the closest thing to reality and a real understanding of what's been going on in secret behind closed doors or shouted conspiratorally over the hubbub of a throbbing bar.

It might be more accurate to describe the Telegraph as doing Labour's business, but who would believe that? Didn't the Telegraph, after all, begin with Government ministers in their expose? The reality seems to be that the Barclay brothers and their Telegraph editorship want a more pliable, clubbable alternative to the prospective Cameroons embodied in the Mckenzies and the Dorries. They want nu-Labour lite, Mcbride and other pragmatists; corporate socialism which has them at its core. One cannot say exactly what they want but one can say that they want influence.

So maybe they do want the BNP, after all.

He's got a point

Richard North says that the issues run deeper than expenses.

Yes, but.

People are looking to make political change, not an ideal world.

It's surely obvious that MEP's expenses afford worse abuses than Westminster's, but the difference is we can get at our MPs and that's where concerned people have to begin.

Only when we've got tough on our MPs will any of them scrutinise MEPs- ditto for the newspapers.

Concern about Parliament equals resistance against Strasbourg.

The issue about expenses relates to the housing crisis- so many MPs becoming land owners through taxpayer's money- especially nuLabourites on the make. How could MPs scrutinise inflationary issues when they relied on the rise in house prices to maximise the value of their taxpayer afforded second homes?

But actually, Richard would have more of a point if he tried to put meat on the bones of Hannan and Carswell's Plan. I just don't think Richard likes Hannan very much...