This does very much remind me of Special Constables (fancy speak for “unpaid Nazis Police”) – generally speaking; whilst there are of course lovely people who volunteer their time to be Special Constables, there are additionally little Nazi fuckers who apply for the job because they don’t cut it as a paid copper but they desperately want the powers of arrest and other such maniacal abilities that they were previously unable to obtain (and so ended up getting a job as a parking attendant or traffic warden – or both)

The Commons is an entirely different breed of course; the entire aim of the game is to maximise the degree to which they can take the utter piss out of the entire electorate – helped mainly by the fact they get to set the rules.

Now, I must admit that paying a shit wage to MPs is not something I’m in favour of – not at all; if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys… Yet, if one looks at the NHS then we see that people are expected to pay a flat fee for their medication, regardless of whether it’s cough syrup or a cocktail of AIDS pills and so similarly, the fuckers should get a flat yearly salary and a rail warrant booklet (which they can only use if they’re travelling to or from Parliament) – a yearly wage of £60-70k should do the job… to be perfectly frank, suitability as an MP is a balancing act, you should be doing it because you want to, not because you can make a mint… though you shouldn’t make minimum wage from it either, it’s certainly a fair balancing act to offer around £70k a year… it’s enough to attract people who will sign on for the right reasons rather than for the wrong reasons (i.e. if you liken this to the police nazis doing it for power, similarly we have MPs doing it for the cash)

Either way, Labour’s fucked, so it’s only a matter of waiting for the election.

The budget Darling came out with very effectively manages to achieve fuck all, the amusing 50% tax rate for earners over £150,000 will be particularly effective… in encouraging as much tax avoidance and evasion as possible, meanwhile the “cash for scrap” scheme will provide a minor and mainly pointless stimulus to the car industry – most of which is dominated by foreign manufacturers anyway, not that I’m protectionist, but nonetheless, it’s a good way to dissuade any trade for the time being as expectations will now align themselves towards waiting for the scrap money.

It could well be possible that they’re lubing us up for an IMF package, but I don’t think we’ll qualify for it being as we have an unstable financial sector and no real regulation, which are two things the IMF are of course insistent on.

Further to that of course, the greatest fear is of a run on sterling… one might say we were overvalued at $2 to £1 but in any case, the massive fall against the Euro and the Dollar both don’t bode well and a questioning of the creditworthiness of the sovereign… something which I have already said is very likely to occur… but not to the point of questioning it enough to start refusing to finance the sovereign.

Nonetheless, the costs of financing will inevitably rise as a result and create a feedback effect which will again shit on the value of sterling, and in hindsight, the insolvent banks should simply have been allowed to collapse in an orderly manner – namely to seal all the depositors and users of retail services in a vault (i.e. a brand new bank company) – prospects for sterling are dubious at best – primarily because the Sovereign is completely and utterly failing to instill any confidence whatsoever.

Hopes? The only possibly hope that’ll save us is the replacement of the government by a new party, beyond that… don’t hold your breath and meanwhile, keep a close eye on the Quantitative Easing programme which they’ve already announced they’ll be expanding; sorry lads, trickle down ec0nomics doesn’t work all that well.

As a Brit, I do very much love the designs of our banknotes, I think the title image along the top proves that point… the designs are very nice, and by and large, that’s all anyone else in Britain really gives a toss about, since we can safely say that the opportunity cost for the UK to join the euro right fucking now would essentially be negative (that’s means we should join)

As things are going, we’re edging ever closer to the possibility of a sovereign debt crisis, not that we’ll actually have one, but it would certainly raise financing costs to an uncomfortable level, which is generally bad for us all, especially when the economy of the UK is so finely in tune with the rest of the EU that we might as well be Frankfurt, so in this sense, Sterling is not helping us at all, and its painful devaluation is certainly putting the pressure on.

That said of course, the recent appreciation of the US Dollar will be shortlived; with the immense and expansive expansion programs planned by the Obama administration, financing for that debt will become increasingly difficult, and in a time when they’re on the offensive against China; one of the biggest purchasers of Treasury securities – Biting the hand that feeds you one might say.

In any case, the Keynesian expansion planned for the US is certain to make investors realise that US assets and economic growth are essentially crap, and capital outflows from USD to foreign assets should almost certainly resume, just as soon as they hurry up and realise this, that is if China don’t give them the push first and start a strategic shift from T-bills to European assets – as it is they’re already offloading their long-term Bonds into short-term ones which almost certainly signals China is positioning itself to be able to make a very hasty retreat from the Dollar as and when they want to, and naturally Asian banks will follow the money and join the bloodbath.

Not that I’d like to suggest that the UK is without its inherent risks either, though the comparisions between us and Iceland are rather over the top… assuming the rules on the Maastricht criteria can be bent a little (and in the current climate, it would be in the interests of both the UK and all in the Eurozone for us to become a member) then the UK should certainly pile in and shore up some of its financing risk this way, not to mention provide currency stability to its citizens.

So, if you’re British, please, write to your MP, tell them you want the issue of the Euro back at the forefront of politics and for reasoned, open debate to be held on weighing up the benefits of a hasty membership.

A few years ago, I was against the Euro in light of the expanding economy of the UK and lack of massive bank insolvency, but that was then.

In the words of Keynes; When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, Sir?

So, where exactly do we start, the UK is in recession, as is the Eurozone and US for that matter. Sterling has fallen to some of the lowest levels going against the dollar and Euro and to top it all off, we’ve also got some of the lowest bank rates going as well.

So, what’s the Labour strategy to help the ailing economy? SPEND SPEND SPEND!

Sadly this mantra is backed up by heavy borrowing, so they’re essentially injecting borrowed cash now to fund a spending spree that will have to be paid back later, the current example is the VAT cut to 15%… whoop de fucking doo, as if a cut of 2.5% is going to encourage me to rush out to the shops suddenly (well, the shops actually bothering to pass the cut on anyway). Personally I think labour have given up and decided to just fuck the country over as much as possible to give Conservatives a hard time when they win the next election, note that I say “when” rather than “if”.

The fact that our currency has been essentially scuppered is a large piss-off too, I do realise this is great for exporters, but if you pause to examine how much crap we import, and how much crap we export, logic would dictate that we’re pretty import oriented, so now we’re getting it up the arse even more than previous, so it’s simply a matter of time waiting for the damned rates to hit equilibrium.

German ministers have taken the opportunity to give Brown a proper slagging off, much like I’m doing here to be perfectly frank, sadly that’s unlikely to move their policy plans, short of booting them out of governement, so I await the next election with baited breath at the opportunity to get rid of them.

One thing that has been getting on my tits though is this drivel media outlets produce that ask such questions “how are you coping with the credit crunch” and other ridiculous bollocks, unless all their readers are the heads of retail enterprises, I sincerely doubt they’re affected at all, or if most of the country just got laid off because of their employer needing to downsize to cope with reduced revenue, so by and large, it’s just daft bullshit, especially when we’re experiencing deflating prices on oil and even food, so assuming you haven’t had a pay cut or been laid off, it’s irrelevant.

Not to mention the whole thing is a state of mind anyway, once the wider economy believes the recession is over, it becomes true, the whole economy is based on individual psychologies added together to produce a majority attitude.

This is a bad joke right? please tell me this is a bad joke? no? shit?

Ironically, The actual short selling business got blamed last time around when the great depression was on, I think even Keynes took the opportunity to have a bitch about it – though of course, it’s utter fucking bullshit, you might as well just ban selling too, then we can make sure all stock prices only go up… fucks sake.

The silver lining (I guess) is that they haven’t banned short-selling across the board, and limited it to select stocks. Unfortunately, one of them is CME, which pisses me off no end as that just so happens to be one of my favourites to trade; only being able to go long on the fucking thing is a bit of a piss off to say the least.

I think the thing that disgusts me most is the belief and will of the government to try and basically manipulate their way out of a recession, I suppose you can only reduce things to a puppet economy so far before you totally lose control, so let’s see what happens next…

Speaking of puppets, I think that basically sums up the FSA to me now – a mere puppet organisation serving government interests, and the SEC is almost as bad. I’m partially thankful I don’t bother with the UK markets, but then, statements like this just annoy me:

“The Commission is committed to using every weapon in its arsenal to combat market manipulation that threatens investors and capital markets,” – SEC chairman Christopher Cox.

Is that not just the most ironic statement ever? – Yeah… fighting manipulation with manipulation, fucking brilliant. Sadly Mr. Cox, the only thing threatening investors and capital markets is you – the ban on short-selling is fucking stupid.

The one useful thing he did do was to ban Naked Short Selling – I fully support this; It’s not fair game for hedge funds to place sell orders continuously without bothering to back their short sales on borrowed certificates, it’s like buying goods on fake money so you can sell the goods back to the seller for a higher price, take back your fake money, destroy it, and keep his real money. (the inverse here is that it creates fake stock certificates rather than fake money). But beyond this, the whole thing is a fucking joke.

In any case, this bullshit better prove to be short lived or I will not be a happy fucking bunny.

And that’s not all, someone should tell the stupid bitch she’s about to cost herself £2.

Of course I’m talking about the new PayPal Top-Up card; the card that you pay £4.95 for and then pay for the pleasure of loading money onto (except from your PayPal account of course)… now, why anyone would get this is beyond me, because no matter how bollocks you happen to be with money, for the same form filling, you can get a free bank account with a shiny Visa card with no credit facilities, and a number allowing you to drag whatever boodle you’ve managed to accumulate straight out of PayPal.

Of course, one can see this is quite evidently a ploy for PayPal to use to not only try and make a bit of dosh out of hapless shitcakes who think getting a card that purports to help them control their spending is a smart thing to do, meanwhile good old PayPal hang onto yet more funds, collecting the lovely interest on a daily basis… christ, and I thought Bacs was shit.

I have the general feeling uptake for this crap is probably rather modest anyway, but what do they expect if they’re going to try and woo us with shoddily rendered pointy tits on a silhouette with lordosis?

Anyway, I wouldn’t want to ruin the mood too much by being overly upbeat; the bank decided to leave rates on hold, the minutes showed that apart from 2 of the MPC members, they all agreed it should remain on hold, that Blanchflower bastard wanted it notched down, probably bums Gordon Brown in his spare time.

But I digress; personally, I was in favour of a rise; inflation’s gone a bit silly, and if we just stop for a second, one should note that oil is in dollars, not to mention good old Blighty tends to import a lot of food and goods… if we were to rise rates, the increase in international strength of the pound would reduce prices on essentials… Trichet clearly appreciates this fact.

Retail is buggered in both directions anyway, either find something new to sell, or face Hobson’s choice of closing now or dying on your arse.

Naturally that doesn’t apply to everyone, larger chains will no doubt fare the ill weather.

On a related note… what in the name of Black Jesus is going on with our banknotes? the inconsistency is ridiculous, I’m sure it must be confusing the hell out of foreign bureau de changes. For a start, the £50 note is the oldest one going, the 5, 10 and 20 from that series are defunct. there’s a new 20 which I’m very fond of, but there’s nothing at all like it, so it’s like some weird modernistic mutant.

All I can say is, I wish them the best of luck cycling new ones in once her majesty dies and we get a new monarch… actually, maybe that explains it all, they’re trying to save design expenses now because they’re all betting on the Queen dying soon.

As you read this, tell me if you can get a whole roasted seasoned chicken for £3.50 (or say about €4.20) actually, you probably don’t care, and in real-terms, the chicken here in Hungary is only cheap because people here earn piss-all on average.

The gas is subsidised too; the government foot about 40% of the bill of the gas from the open-market price… a less scrupulous individual might be tempted to rig a gas liquefier up to their mains supply and arbitrage themself some boodle.

I think this kind of sums up the state of play though really; if you find your cost of living is going up, just move somewhere else or bite the bullet.

In the big wide world of the global economy… how many of us are truly global particpants to the point of being free to roam around?

At the same time, everyones suffering as a direct result, which then turns into cries for upping wages, so the retailers cotton on and bump up prices a bit more… ad nauseum.

Now, when this happens, it sort of puts the Bank up shit creek; you want to curb inflation but at the same time, you don’t want to start shitting on the Economy from a great height either… so now you’re essentially performing the task of getting a screw into a wall and the only thing you have in your toolbox is a mallet.

“well if you know so much about the problem, why don’t you bloody go fix it”

Naturally that’s easier said than done; the problem is that the squeeze is concentrated into the things you can’t go without – food, and fuel are for the most part a non-optional item, so you just bend over and take it up the jacksie; sadly, history demonstrates that the only way in dealing with this is to cripple people to the point that they can no longer physically afford the stuff they want any more.

Now, short of the government firing up its own oil enterprises to start flooding oil into the market at a subsidised rate, there’s not a lot that can be done about it, save for the rank outsider possibility that someone creates a cheaper mode of transport that relies on completely alternative power.