Dishonesty and Incompetence in the Greenery

I don't usually cut and paste other people's work but this piece is so good I had toshare it with you.

 

The writer is a friend of 52 years, a former newspaper editor, top financial journalist and author.

 

The US administration’s multi-billion plan to create “green” jobs – President Obama offered the rosy prospect of five million new jobs -- “has failed to produce any of the benefits initially claimed,” says energy expert Allen Brooks.

Although some of the failures are obvious, such as the bankruptcy of solar energy companies after they hoovered up massive government subsidies, others are harder to pin down because of “lack of a consistent and accurate measurement” of claimed benefits.

Conveniently, the administration has avoided releasing estimates of job creation due to “inconsistencies” in the self-reported statistics.

However we do know that a half-billion-dollar Labor Department programme to train people for 79,854 green jobs has been condemned as a “dismal failure” by its Inspector General as it created only 8,035 jobs.

A clear defect of depending on self-reporting by public authorities is that they conveniently classify as “green,” many jobs that average folk wouldn’t think to be such. For example, when independent consultants investigated the reported increase in “green” jobs in Michigan, they found the largest number of positions created was for garbage collectors. Next most numerous came water and sewage treatment workers, then office clerks.

In New York and Washington DC, 56 per cent of all jobs classified as “green” are in fact researchers, lawyers, consultants and similar who constitute the bloated bureaucratic infrastructure for promoting greenery rather than people actually doing green jobs.

According to a report in the New York Times, 19 factories in the developing world are making huge profits from “an unlikely business” – producing coolant gases said to worsen global warming, so they can earn carbon credits from destroying their waste product.

They realized that under the United Nations scheme to combat generation of greenhouse gases they could earn one carbon credit from eliminating one ton of carbon dioxide – but more than 11,000 credits for destroying a ton of an obscure waste gas normally released in the manufacture of a widely-used coolant gas, HFC-22.

Carbon credits earned can be sold on the international market for anything from $9 to nearly $40 apiece, probably earning each plant an average of $20-40 million a year. This incentive has driven plants in countries such as India and China to keep high, production of the coolant gas blamed for worsening global warming… even boost output.

The UN and the European Union have known about this unintended consequence for several years, but struggles to end it because of the vested interest of companies that have come to depend on earnings from carbon credits that they are essentially “printing.”

Some Chinese producers have warned that if they stop getting paid for such credits, they will vent waste gas into the sky – which is not illegal in China or India.

Another Sharpeville?

What are we to make of the shootings at the Lonmin mine? And what does it tell us about South Africa in these times? As far as I can recall, it is the worst single incident of this kind since Sharpeville 52 years ago.

But what sparked the shooting seems not to have been so much of an industrial dispute as inter-union rivalry. Violence and killing had been going on for some time.

The main difference was that the Sharpeville protesters were unarmed. The miners were armed to the teeth with guns, spears and pangas. They also used muti – a spell that would make them immune to bullets, or so they believed. The police fired 300 rounds in a minute. The result was 44 dead and 120 wounded.

In the 1960’s African mineworkers were the aristocrats of labour. They were well-paid in comparative terms. Johannesburg was Egoli – the city of gold. Immigrants flocked there from all over the region. The mining industry even had its own air-service, Wenela,  to take workers home at the end of their contracts and pick up the new recruits. I used to watch the passengers coming off the plane in Malawi, dressed to the nines, all carrying huge suitcases full of the luxury goods unaffordable or unobtainable at home. Many started their own businesses on the proceeds of half-a dozen contracts.

The new batch had what they stood up in and little more.

They were housed in dormitories at the mine, with good nourishment and medical facilities. .

In Zambia rising copper prices meant high pay especially when the annual copper bonus was paid out. That was a good time for car dealers but not quite so good for we road users. Housing was provided, along with medical and social facilities.

So I was taken aback to see that no such facilities appeared to be provided at Lonmin. The workers live in insanitary hovels. There did not appear to be either drainage or piped water supplies. Conditions came across as appalling.

In Zambia the Chinese-owned mines are notorious for their flouting of the most basic safety requirements, even the provision of hard hats. Miners are sent back to work immediately after blasting before the fumes and dust have cleared. There have been reports of miners being forced to work 365 days with no time off. Unions are not recognised. There are constant strikes and violence.

Wages are the lowest in the country and certainly far lower, inflation-adjusted, than they were 50 years ago.

Perhaps we old colonials weren’t so wicked after all.

Watch out: GREXIT's about!

The essence of Greek tragedy is that to a great extent the chief protagonist has been a party to his own downfall; Nemesis follows Hubris.

We are told that Monday 20^th August is crunch-time for the Greeks when they will have to step up to the plate and show that they are fully deserving of yet more German cash or get out of the Club. The more likely scenario is that we shall see more duck-shoving, muddle and mess, prevarication, indecision, and, of course, meetings! ‘Resolved to be irresolute, solid for fluidity, adamant for drift’.

But Greece is but  a symptom of a Eurozone-wide crisis. So first, the big issue.

The problem is financial and economic.

The financial part is that a number of Eurozone countries have piled up public debt that is unmanageable. There is also huge private debt. Ireland and Spain got into deep poo off the back of an insane real estate bubble. The developers were able to overbuild with cheap money which the governments were powerless to control because they could not increase the bank rate. The arbiter of the Eurozone, Germany, had a vested interest in cheap money, so others could go hang. This toxic combination means that interest payments alone are an unsustainable burden, and the prospects of repayment are gloomy to say the least. Since a huge part of this debt is owned by banks the stability of the whole banking system comes under threat.

The economic dimension is based on a fundamental fallacy. We were led to believe that monetary union would bring about an EU-wide convergence in costs and prices, although it was not clear how this would be achieved.

The reality was that in Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain costs and prices rose relative to the northern economies, leading to increasing uncompetitiveness vis a-vis the north, especially Germany, of between 20% and 40%. This in turn caused an excess of imports over exports, current account deficits, and thus an accumulation of international debt.

Is there a solution?

Salvation might lie in establishing a real exchange rate – the comparative level of costs and prices as reflected in the exchange rate between currencies.

The snag is that this is impossible in a monetary union because the central banks thereby gave up their control over rates.

So it is blindingly obvious that the solution is to quit the monetary  union.

Of course, the €fanatics would have it that this would lead to chaos and ruin throughout the world, with the collapse of the international financial system, debt defaults, bank failures and the end of civilisation as we know it!

Really? It seems to me that once national currencies are re-established with effective devaluation against the euro, economic recovery would be stimulated by an increase in exports – and therefore jobs, higher inflation would reduce the real interest rate and boost consumer and capital spending. It would also enable QE which would encourage domestic demand.

A possible scenario then would be a Eurozone of the north and perhaps a common market within the EU for the Club Med, perhaps led by France, which has a certain logic since France has some similarities to the troubled south, with a current account deficit, a decades-long budget deficit and strong links to Greece in finance and banking. The snag here is that it would entail France junking the Europe policy – containment of Germany – that was one of the justifications for the EU in the first place, and therefore very unlikely to happen.

So how would it be done?

In the first instance, it would be essential to introduce capital controls. There has already been massive ‘capital flight’ from Greece and Ireland, much of it to London, to the delight of high-end estate agents. Banks would have to close during the transition. Exchange rates would need to decline sharply so that e.g. a new Italian lira would have to devalue against the euro by about 30%.

The suits in Brussels go on about ‘contagion’ if Greece leaves. There is some prospect of this but not quite in the way they see it. If exit restores Greek fortunes, there would perhaps be an overwhelming temptation for others in Club Med to follow suit. The Eurozone would then have better prospects of survival, being  composed of countries that at least had a resemblance of a community of interest.

Who would be the winners and losers? Well, the losers would be savers at every level, as capital values fall, and people on fixed incomes i.e. pensions as the real value would be diminished by inflation. The winners would be the Greek workforce – or rather the unemployed workforce – as recovery stimulates jobs. Otherwise, Greece is well on the road to becoming a third-world country, and a very unstable one, with nationalist, protectionist and extremist political parties getting ever more support.

At the beginning of this crisis I was poo-pooed for suggesting that a main cause besides Club Med improvidence was that Germany had massive trade surpluses with Club Med, and that it should boost consumer demand to offset the imbalance. Without the euro, market forces would have placed a proper value of the DM.

Markets will get us out of this mess once they are allowed to operate properly. As the Blessed Margaret said ‘You can’t buck a market!’

Assange: asylum, bunkum and some hard facts

The amount of crap, abuse and just plain ignorance published  about the Assange extradition case is exceptional.

So here’s the facts, not, of course, that the protagonists are interested in something so mundane.

Assange’s case is that by extraditing him to Sweden he could then be extradited to the US where he could face the death penalty. This is garbage and his brief knows it. Nobody can be extradited from Europe to a country where he could face the death penalty (apart from which he can’t be charged with espionage, which does carry the death penalty for reasons that I have explained previously).

His claim for asylum is bogus. He must have a well-founded fear of persecution in his home country. As he is Australian this is clearly palpable nonsense. The International Convention on refugees says that you can’t claim asylum if there are reasons to believe that you have committed serious non-political crime outside the country of refuge.

Assange has not been accused of a crime committed in England and it is nonsense to aver that he has been under ‘house arrest’ for 2 years. He was granted bail and has been living comfortably with a friend in the Suffolk countryside.

As I predicted, he has jumped bail leaving his friends short of the £200,000 bail money. That indicates the stripe of the man.

He is therefore liable to be arrested, but not as long as he is in diplomatic territory where  he is beyond the reach of the Old Bill. One suggestion was using the SAS to extract him a la Yvonne Fletcher. In that case the Libyan Embassy had been occupied by terrorists. It can’t be done legally in the present case.

Assange’s problem is that he will get his collar felt the moment he steps outside. Of course, he could be taken to the airport in an Embassy car, but then he has to get on a plane!

It looks as if his stay with the Ecuadoreans will be a long one. Enjoy!

Banks and railways.......Virgin on the ridiculous.

Two big stories have hit the financial pages - Virgin's failure with its rail franchise bid, and the hoo-ha over Standard Chartered Bank.

First, Virgin.

I take little interest in public transport in England, not having been a user for years, but I do take an interest in cock-ups by Government, and this one appears to be a corker.

It seems to make no sense whatever. First Rail have paid £700 million more than Branson’s offer and yet have promised more services, improvements to rolling stock, catering and Lord knows what else. The figures just don’t stack up. But they are allowed to increase fares by up to 11% a year, more than 3 times the rate of inflation. The upshot would seem to be either promises that won’t be kept or the passenger pays through the nose or both.

First Rail already has 4 franchises and has not distinguished itself with any of them. It is also beginning to look a tad monopolistic. It all smells of a Government Department that is interested only in grabbing the money without a thought for the economic effect of increased rail fares. It will end in tears.

I know that Branson is self-publicist – in – chief, but he runs a good operation and understands the meaning of service. That is why Virgin Atlantic is one of the world’s best.

We will hear more, much more.

Now for Standard Chartered.

I have been devilling on this since the story first broke.

And it stinks!

Because SC has paid a fine (much less than demanded) this does not necessarily add up to an admission of guilt.

What have we got? A new, young, ambitious lawyer with political yearnings out to make his mark. His bailiwick is Wall Street. It is common knowledge that Wall Street is seriously pissed-off about being overtaken by the City. His handling of the affair shrieks ‘grandstanding’ and taking the easy and fashionable road of banker-bashing to grab the headlines.

SC was already engaged with the Fed about this. Bernanke is reported to be livid with this young man’s side-lining him and going rogue without any consultation. It is said also that the A-G is not a happy bunny. George Osborne has been yelling down the phone at the Fed. Most informed opinion here is asking ‘Wall Street stitch-up? Dirty tricks department working overtime?

It is notable that although a bank investigation usually results in immediate contrition because a bank is in a very disadvantageous position vis-à-vis the Regulator, on this occasion SC hit back extremely aggressively, and m’ learned friends are anticipating a big pay-day.

It is admitted that SC has made errors in an extremely complex situation but not necessarily wilfully. The accusations are not an offence under SC’s law of domicile and it seems apparent that the US requirements are confusing and opaque. But SC can’t risk its New York licence so it has paid its protection money.

I may have got this hopelessly wrong, but of one thing I am certain. This will run and run even if it quickly goes off the front pages.

Back to reality..

The US is still coasting on the news of Paul Ryan's selection as Mitt's running mate. Indeed, it has taken a large chunk out of Olympic coverage. Odd, but placards bearing the names of Romney and Ryan had not even been prepared when the announcement was made while the Democrats almost immediately came up with a negative advertisement against Ryan. My guess is that the Dems had prepared negative adds against all the leading contenders while Ryan's announcement was prematurely leaked.

Paul and Mitt are very much enjoying their honeymoon as they cannot say enough good about one another while incessantly patting on each other's backs. I doubt the relationship will end in tears, but the dynamics of the President/Vice President relationship have seldom favored good relations. Besides, it is too early to speculate on this relationship as this dynamic duo need to first of all win the election. That prospect continues to remain doubtful give O's standings in the polls.

The Olympic Games certainly provided a pleasant diversion from dark thoughts and speculation over the state of the world. The respite was refreshing, but gloom and doom have resurfaced. I do not like the rumblings in Israel over their felt need to wipe out Iran's nuclear capabilities. Nor do I like rumblings in the US about somehow or another aiding the rebels in Syria. I found Mohamed Morsi's move on the generals incredible. My feeling is that he only made this move with approval from the military or, if not, he will pay the consequences.

I understand that Italy's Monti is totally out of sorts with Germany's Merkel and has found a new ally in Spain's Zapatero. Misery seeks company? It is taking forever to officially and formally acknowledge that Margaret Thatcher was right after all.

'You never had it so good........!

Well, the party’s over.

‘The shouting and the tumult dies,

The captains and the kings depart….’

So that’s it. London and the rest of us can get back to normal, whatever that may be.

It must be said that the Olympiad was  a success way beyond our wildest dreams; even the weather smiled upon us (mostly). The most important result is that it has made the British feel good about themselves after low morale all round because of the economy and our awful politics etc.

Times are really bad, aren’t they?

Er……..no!

We’ve never had it so good.

We are richer, healthier and freer than we have ever been. And I mean the world, not just we Western fat-cats.

The globalisation of trade has raised mega-millions out of poverty in the last 20 years. We get cheap clothing and electronics from Asia and China. They get to eat meat for the first time (good news for American farmers who sell vast quantities of foodstuffs to China; think about that, you Tea Partiers, when you next bang on about a trade war with China for fixing their exchange-rate). They live in houses instead of huts. They have access to clean water and power. They are getting many of the things that we take for granted.

The Millennium Goal on poverty reduction (don’t hear too much about those nowadays) was met in 2008, 7 years ahead of schedule.

That proves the benefits of our huge foreign aid programmes, does it not? Don’t make me laugh. It was economics and trade, not hand-outs!

The doomsayers have been telling us for years that we are running out of energy supplies. Years ago one such predicted 1977 as the crunch year. The truth is that proven reserves of carbon fuels are huge, greater than they  have ever been.

And that we are ruining the environment and concreting-over England’s green and pleasant land. Actually we have more woodland than in 1914.

But what about ‘climate change’? Funny how ‘global warming’ got lost along the way. It’s a myth; but also a racket that pays grants to scientists for fudging the figures, subsidies to ‘clean energy’ cowboys for producing wind-power at unaffordable cost, and easements to farmers of £50,000 a year for each wind-turbine.

The reality is that a modest rise in the UK temperature would bring us back to where we were in AD1000, and help lengthen the lives of many oldies. We might even start producing wine in Yorkshire as we did in the 11^th Century.

What’s not to like?

But the economy is in a mess, surely.

It all depends on which statistics today’s spreader of alarm and despondency  is using. As has been well-said, they use statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post – for support rather than illumination.

A survey using a basket of figures shows that the three strongest economies are Germany, the US and GB in that order.

On that uplifting note, have a good week, y’all!

POTUS winner? Big corporations as ever!

I understand that UK bookmakers favor Obama in the presidential race. This is not surprising as Mitt is losing it. His biggest problem is that of being perceived as icy, out of touch and lacking in empathy. He needed a running mate that would balance this aspect of his personality; Someone like Senator Marco Rubio from Florida. Instead, he selected Congressman Paul Ryan from Wisconsin.

Paul, like Rubio, would make a better president than VP. They are both very bright, but the similarities end there. Ryan, like Romney, comes across as ice cold. His major accomplishments in the House were to make some remarkably sound budget proposals and to make mince meat out of Obamacare. These types of activity endowed Ryan with the respect of his peers, but the public could not embrace his intellectual skills. Nor is he much of an orator. Newt Gingrich, by comparison, is also very bright, but also very articulate and capable of capturing people's imaginations. On that score, Ryan is not. It is as if we have a Romney double in the race. All in all, a risky choice. Mitt surely selected someone he could work with and respected. One large factor in the Romney/Ryan ticket is religion. Mitt comes in with a liability as a Mormon. Ryan joins as an asset; a Catholic. This choice will help Mitt cement the Catholic vote with  the possible exception of Latin Catholic votes. Latinos don't like Mitt's hard stand on immigration.

Most people agree that the final determination between O and M will be made during the debates. It is also the consensus that O is the better debater. Your bookmakers are correct as are the latest polls from both sides of the political fence. They favor O by up to 9 percentage points.

It is clear that if M hopes to win the election, he will have to come up with a new persona along with a frontal attack on O's poor track record and political philosophy. This is exactly the advice given by Charles Krauthammer who is a powerful bastion of conservative thought. He specifically stated that O's stewardship as President and his ideology define the political battleground for the upcoming election. His record is poor and rife with unkept promises. His ideology is populist at best and socialist at worst. Krauthammer noted that O's statement to the effect that entrepreneurs did not build their businesses, but their workers did encapsulates his political thinking which is anti-business and anti-rich.

Given the manner in which political life is practiced in the USA today, I am not sure whether it matters who sits in the Oval Office. The power is with the big corporations who generally have their way with both the Senate and the House. Their influence is key to understanding the manner in which we govern and it is highly unlikely that their influence will be diluted by a president as far left as O.

Can the US make it?

My main worry is about this country and its outrageously defunct politicians. After Mitt's UK, Israel and Poland tour, I became convinced the guy is a walking disaster. And Mitt claims he can clean up the mess in Washington.

No way.

 Frankly, I have given up hope for any clean-up in Washington. So have most of the people I meet on a regular basis. The US is currently possessed by a sense of hopelessness and helplessness. It is during times like this that great leaders emerge by capturing and articulating contemporary ills and by moving people to assist in resolving them. We are waiting. Problem is, sometimes these great leaders turn out to be dictators. Perhaps that is what America needs, a benevolent dictator to cut the red tape and reintroduce logic and common sense into the American system of government.

We find little solace in watching the Olympic Games.  Full marks to the UK so far, but that is not the issue. I find the lust for gold by competing governments infantile. I also find the extent to which countries like China, and East Germany and the USSR before it, go to train, propagandize and mold their citizens into performing circus animals appalling. I find the competition among nations for acquiring medals grossly chauvinistic. A high medal count in the Olympics is reminiscent of body counts during the Vietnam War.

I also view as useless and unfair the participation of professional American basketball players representing the USA. We have become more of a bully than a role model. There is no competition in a sport dominated by America and their only world class basketball league in the world. We should take no joy in winning games from other teams under such conditions. Indeed, we should select our team from non-professionals.

From my perspective, it appears as if the USA has an overweening need to be number one in every endeavor. We actually become depressed when China's medal count is higher than ours and then we begin scolding the country for the manner in which it trains its youth. We are like spoiled adolescent children in our behavior about winning.

There was once a famous professional American football coach named Vince Lombardy. Vince had a winning team, the Green Bay Packers. The Packers were on top of their league for several successive seasons and they won the Super Bowl at various times as well. Vince's strategy was a total dedication to the art of winning at any cost. His success gave heart to many a lesser coach throughout the sports world. Kids in secondary schools and colleges were taught to win and to do so despite the pain and sacrifice.

Winning as an end in itself justified the means of achieving it. Some players died from injuries they failed to complain about and others died from exhaustion. These deaths were written off as sport-related misfortunes.

Vince's ethic translates into the American world of business and politics. It is all about winning; at any cost. And to the winners go the spoils whether they be a taken-over company or the prizes attendant to winning public office. Mitt was a winner with Banes Capital. Obama was a winner when he became President. Now, in the struggle for the Presidency, any imaginable means will be used to win including spending vast sums of money, lying, cheating, character assassination, belittling and the like. I should think that murder would also apply except for the unlikelyhood of getting away with it.

The post, post-war generation of Americans are characterized by the Vince Lombardy ethic. The world is their oyster and they can do or say whatever they want in the process of climbing the greasy pole. Film after Hollywood film depicts this ethic and deifies the hero or heroin for achieving their goals. Humility, politeness, kindness, and humanity rank second to success. Winners get their way and are entitled to crow, dance, spike the ball, or do whatever moves them to put their achievements in the face of their competitors.

I am afraid that the US is now numerically dominated by its losers. As such, they believe themselves to be powerless in bringing about positive change.

Gold for Boris; early bath for Cameron?

The real winner at the London Olympics was not an athlete. It was Boris Johnson.

The Games was an exercise in political campaigning for leadership of the Tory Party.

He is a brilliant self-publicist and people love him. 60,000 were chanting ‘Boris, Boris’ in Hyde Park at the start of the games. He replied with a jest about bankrupt Europeans and then had a dig at Mitt Romney, who was busy making gaffe after gaffe on his first foreign tour.

One such was to cast doubt on whether London was ready. Boris lambasted him. ‘I hear there’s a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know whether we are ready’. Then, echoing Obama, he yelled ‘Yes we are!’ to roars of approval.

So who is the real Bojo?

Well, he sure has an exotic background. His great-grandfather was the last Minister of the Interior to the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. He is descended through his German aristo father from King George II. His wife, daughter of the great journalist and TV reporter Sir Charles Wheeler, is half-Sikh. He has Turkish, German, Moslem, Jewish , English antecedents. He is Mr Multicultural personified.

He was educated at the same state primary school as Ed Miliband before getting a scholarship to Eton. At Oxford he won just about every Classics prize going. This guy is no fool!

Unlike Cameron and others in the political hierarchy, he has worked for a living, as a journalist on the Times and DT and as Editor of the Spectator, and has published several books. He is also a very familiar face on popular TV programmes, such as ‘Have I got news for you’.

He is an expert on Europe. Part of his education was in Brussels, he reported on EU affairs for the Times, his grand-father was Chairman of the ECHR, and his father was a Brussels bureaucrat.

As a politician, he was a shadow Minister for Howard and Cameron before winning the Mayoralty of London, formerly a Labour fief, with the biggest personal mandate in history.

His eccentric persona is carefully calculated. His so-called buffoonery only endears him to people, as does his prolific sex-life. ‘Conservative Home’ puts him far in the lead to replace Cameron. The bookies have him level-pegging with Osborne, but little George’s star is rapidly waning after the most shambolic budget in recent memory, a classic case of sending a boy to do a man’s job.

Already, the right-wing of the Tory Party is briefing against Cameron. The Tory press is being consistently critical. When you have columnists of the calibre and influence of the likes of Janet Daley carving you up, you are in trouble.

The acid test will be the by-election to replace the feisty Louise Mensch. Corby is a bellwether constituency. When it was a rather nasty steel-town, you could put up a rusty bicycle, paint it red and it would be elected. It has since become more marginal. If Cameron loses but not badly, it may be shrugged off as mid-term blues.

But if Labour gets a landslide then I predict that Bojo’s moment will have arrived.

'Made in Britain.......'

As is well-known, you can torture statistics to tell you anything you want to hear. So I always take the ONS economic surveys with a barrow-load of salt.

According to them the UK has suffered a double dip recession.

But a trawl of the financial commentators hardly confirms this.

The general picture is of steady growth during the first six months. The Purchasing Managers’ Survey (always a sound bellwether) is one source that indicates this.

The aerospace industry is busy. The car industry is doing just fine. Unemployment is down, and 166,000 new jobs were created in the first quarter. Growth exceeds losses despite hefty redundancies in the public sector. This trend is continuing and most jobs are full-time. And whilst I am at it, let me dispel the widely-held notion that ‘we don’t make anything anymore’, despite the fact that manufacturing accounts for over 80% of our exports and output is double that of 1958.

The car industry first.

The UK, US and Germany are all making good profits.

Spain, France and Italy are, as Fiat boss described it, ‘Standing in the doo-doo’. Peugeot/Citroen made a first half loss of $1 bn. At the time JLR was announcing another 4-figure jobs increase, Peugeot wants to cut 6,500 jobs and close its Paris plant (but Hollande won’t let them!). Ford expects to lose $1 bn+ from its Europe operations. GM expects to lose $1 bn also in addition to the $14 bn lost since 1999. Renault is struggling with sinking sales. As many as 12 plants will need to close to remove surplus capacity.

By contrast, JLR has had a record year. The UK has become a net exporter of cars for the first time since the 1970’s.

The UK is home to no less than 8 global car firms, as well as Dennis, Leyland, LDV, and JCB with the heavy stuff. Half of all Ford diesel engines are made at Dagenham.

Other industrial behemoths are BAE Systems, the second largest aerospace company in the world, the amazing GKN which was founded in 1767 to make nuts and bolts and things and is now an international company right at the cutting-edge of technology, Vosper Thorneycroft, one of the world’s largest builders of warships, and at the luxury end, Princess, Sealine, and Sunseeker build motor yachts on an international scale.

And we are  home to the second and third largest pharma companies in the world, Astra-Zeneca and GSM.

If you would like to drink to our success, we are also home to 3 of the world’s biggest brewers.

Cheers!

A kicking for Mitt and a gold for Hague

"Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half." Gore Vidal.

Well, Mitt Zombie has had his first lesson in Foreign Affairs; he has just discovered that unlike the deferential pussy cats of the US press, the British media is a pack of snarling rottweilers, renowned for their total disrespect for anyone and anything. Which, of course, is as it should be.

He got off to a bad start by publicly expressing his doubts about the ability of London to manage successful Olympics. The press immediately jumped on this juicy bone, and chewed it up. Then Dave gave him a very public kick in the groin with his comment that organising the London Olympics was a rather different matter than winter Olympics in the back of beyond.

When he met Ed Miliband, he had obviously forgotten his name and constantly referred to him as ‘Mr Leader’. Pity he didn’t say ‘Dear Leader’; it would have got an even bigger laugh. And now we know that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, because he told us so!

There is no record of his having met our Foreign Secretary.

Pity. I believe that Willie Hague will prove to be one of the greatest Foreign Secretaries in history.

He has secured his place in history. How so? you might ask.

Well, under the Blair reign of terror, Straw and Miliband just about destroyed the F&CO.

In an act of unparalleled cultural vandalism, the library was chucked out of Charles Street, and rehoused in a squalid basement in a satellite office. Just imagine. This must be just about the most valuable archive anywhere. It contains all the memoranda and state papers going back hundreds of years. It is a matchless record of British history. Want to know what went on at Yalta? Or at the Congress of Vienna in 1814? Or Afghanistan in the19th Century? How would Gladstone have handled this problem? Or Anthony Eden?

It’s all there.

At least Miliband, described as the worst Foreign Secretary since Lord North, who lost the American colonies, didn’t break up the collection, maybe selling it on e-bay.

Now William has restored it to its proper place and former glory.

Another piece of lunacy was to abolish the in-house languages school.

When I was working in Pakistan, I was mightily impressed by the language skills of the senior diplomats at the British High Commission. Indeed, my counterpart, who dressed in the shalwar kameez when out in the rural areas, spoke such fluent street-Urdu that he was often taken to be a Pakistani, and the High Commissioner himself had been in post for 6 years instead of the usual 3 because he was also Professor of Persian Poetry at the University and they wouldn’t let him go!

William has brought it back.

In days before it was debauched along with everything else that Blair touched, the F&CO was the crème de la crème. Its entry requirements were daunting.

It is now being restored to the status quo ante.

Things can only get better.

US gas.......natural and political!

I was asked for a view on the demand by a Tea Party politician to ban the export of gas from the US. Here is the response by Hay Texas.

As for selling American gas, I have no objection and believe my fellow countrymen would largely agree. Prior to such action, however, it would be prudent and sensible for us to embark upon a gasification of America project whereby we construct the infrastructure needed to convert oil and coal-fired power plants to natural gas, lay more pipelines, construct new gas-fired power plants and accelerate the conversion to liquefied gas powered engines for cars, buses and trucks along with the facilities needed to refuel. This effort would also include  processing plants to extract gas from sand and shale.

One major impact of this move would be to dramatically lower the demand for gasoline and, in principle, the price as well. It would also act as a model for other nations to follow and thereby reduce their dependence on gasoline to say nothing of the positive environmental impacts. I imagine we would also begin the large-scale extraction of huge amounts of higher end carbon products from raw gasoline such as ethane, propane and butane. There is no question in my mind that gasification programs for the USA are well advanced from technical, environmental and financial perspectives.

There is also no question that legislators will take their cut in taxes and whatever other perquisites they might engineer including those channeled through oil and gas industry lobbyists. If orchestrated correctly, the gas boom in the USA will be a major win for everyone. We will go from famine to feast in jobs and consumer spending. Nobody will listen to those who preach prudence and saving for a rainy day. They never do.

Meanwhile, we will suffer through the present economic doldrums with the larger and larger prospect of our experiencing a slow motion train wreck. The Euro has to tumble eventually so we may as well plan on it and anticipate what I expect to be a reduced Eurozone consisting of Northern European countries. Southern Europe will survive and will return to its Club Med persona along with its regional linguistic, cultural and culinary charm. A sigh of relief from out indigent friends will be audible when they collectively realize they are no longer compelled to become German.

Once a new free market equilibrium is reached, the world will stop having convulsions over its economic fate and the scourges of globalization. This will happen fairly quickly in the US, especially with our new found soft landing in the form of natural gas all over the place. We will return to our excesses and the fact that fat cats spend $10,000 on a new toilette seat for their trophy wives will no longer matter.