October 2008

As a "Whinging Pom" Yokel is aware that he has a stereotype to live down to. But Yokel is overwhelmed by the numbers of things to whinge about. Something is clearly going on, going on in ways that we cannot control or understand. Nevertheless, just as soldiers have a vital part to play, even if they do not understand the whole of the battle plan, so we have a part to play on what has been building up under our very noses.

So for those who may not be aware of this passage, here is some of what the one true God has to say on the matter. It seems to Yokel that the time is near, and some of these things may even be upon us already.

Matthew 24 (King James Version)

3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.

10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.

11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)

16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:

17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:

18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.

19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!

20 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:

21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.

23 Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.

24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

25 Behold, I have told you before.

26 Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.

27 For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

28 For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.

29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:

33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.

34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

37 But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,

39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

42 Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.

43 But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.

44 Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.

With thanks to Biblegateway.com for making this copy available on line.

Yokel is very pleased to see that Lord Tebbit is about to break his silence on the topic of Conservative Party policy, and make a very strong recommendation that the party should pledge an EU exit referendum within 2 years of winning an election.

Alas, a bit like pigs flying, the present Tory leadership are bound to have nothing to do with it. What? Spoil their BluLabour credentials? Yokel will wait to see what is promised after the speech to the Bruges Group, but he won't be holding his breath.

So much has happened over the last couple of weeks that Yokel has lost the ability to keep up with it, let alone comment in a timely manner.

But there is something that is worrying him that doesn't seem to have many column inches elsewhere. And that is the increasing government control of banks.

It might be a trend that was started by our Dear Great Brown Leader, and his Darling assistant, in TV game show style "Watch me pull another rabbit out of that hat". His (in some cases just partial) nationalisation of Northern Crock, Bradford and Bingley, HBOS (or is it HBOS Lloyds TSB), RBS and others, including the evil use of terrorism legislation against a friendly neighbour (Iceland) to steal some of their banking industry off them, seems to have started a load of copy cat actions. In the US, Paulson has done some, and is contemplating more. The Irish government are putting their placemen into banks as well. It seems that many politicians believe politicians could run banks better than people with experience of the industry.

Yokel doesn't like the trend, not along with the seeming international rush to ID cards for everyone (just like the hated internal passports of the Soviet Union). And the abolition of civil liberties throughout the world, with Britain appearing to take the lead. Topped up with all countries building up the might of the forces they deploy to control their own citizens. Finally with some financiers saying that the recession/depression that we are about to enter will not be like the 1930s, it will be far worse! Deeper and longer, more like the depression of the 1870s.

Yokel hasn't yet found any political histories of the 1870s, but he knows only too well what happened in Weimar Germany during the 1930s depression. The people cried out for a strong leader, and they got him. But many coutries saw him for what he was, and fought against him. People are once more crying out for a strong leader, in Britain as elsewhere we are saddled with politicians who are mere pastiches of leaders. The cry is for a real leader throughout the world, at least as far as Yokel has been able to read on assorted blogs. Oh dear. For once he takes over, in Britain at least, he will have all the levers of power that lesser dictators could only drool over. This time almost the whole world will take the Great Dictator's shilling. And the times will be bloody.

This isn't a problem, its part of the solution. The final solution.

Yokel supposes that all must be well with the global financial system, because he has just had yet another 419 scam email offering him lots of millions of US Dollars for co-operating with some sort of fraud or other.

Now if they start to pitch their offer in Zimbabwe dollars, then surely even the greatest optimist will know that there is something amiss?

Is this a case of Real Life imitating art?

First Yokel came across this piece written by Raedwald on his blog "MEMO From RBS Director of Equalities". Clearly intended to be a spoof of the left wing political correctness that he expected to take hold in our newly nationalised banking system.

And now we have a Bloomberg Opinion piece by Matthew Lynn: "Bankers Find Their New Calling as Civil Servants". He takes much the same line, only seriously.

Yokel's only argument with Matthew Lynn's piece is his opinion that we are now in the final stage of the "Credit Crunch". But it is a big difference of opinion. Yokel feels pretty sure that we are just at the end of the first phase. Continuing to read City Unslicker, Market Ticker, London Banker amongst many, Yokel concludes that there is still a lot of nasty to come. We knew our rulers to be a bunch of scheming conniving bastards even before Gordon "I'm having a good credit crunch" Brown summoned Peter "Prince of Darkness" Mandelson back into his cabinet. [That particular move is going to end in tears. The only debate is whether they will be Brown's, Mandelson's, or the British People's tears.]

From evidence shown on London Banker, and on Denninger's Market Ticker, (be studious, one has to go back over the whole of the past year looking for their doubts and concerns), it is clear that this financial catastrophe has been actively wished upon the people by their rulers. The "solutions" provided by those rulers have been designed to fail, and to leave the people impoverished and unable to fend for themselves. It is clear that part of the plan is to put the government in unassailable charge. Why?

At the same time, the people are beginning to cry out for a "strong leader". Why?

What kind of person deliberately reruns the period 1927 - 47? Yokel fears that we are currently at 1929. We are in for a torrid time.

This isn't a problem, its part of the solution. The final solution.

It is often said by a certain class of yob that no-one suffers from his/her crime because they've all got insurance, and the insurance pays up. They are pretending to themselves that their crime is actually victimless. Of course those of us who can think on one topic for more than one of Ed Ball's blinks will realise that premiums generally go up, so we all pay.

So far, a lot of the UK comment on the collapse and default of the Icelandic banks has been viewing the incident only from the point of view of the "victims in the UK". True the civil libertarians have been very uncomfortable with the use of the anti terror laws on a NATO ally, but what else do you expect from a Socialist government that is bordering on morphing into a Totalitarian Police State. Its what Labour does, because ... ... its what Labour does. Like a leopard, Labour can't change its spots.

But then Haddock drew my attention to a comment by "runar" on a Daniel Hannon article on the Telegraph site. I will quote it here, verbatim. Further comment is superfluous.

Hi. I am an Icelander and currently I am studying in Denmark. I could never in my wildest nightmares imagine this situation, which is upon us. It is amazing how things can alter within few weeks. As I left Iceland one year ago everything was fine, I had been working as a fisherman for many years to be able to pay for my education, and therefore raised some capital, which I believe is almost gone today (it was stored in Landsbankinn).

The little money I got left is impossible to transfer to Denmark because no one will accept Icelandic currency today. My part in this madness was ZERO and same goes for 99, 99% of the Icelanders. It was a group of ca 30-40 persons who are to blame for these crimes, some of them even had a tight relationship with the government.

Today I have lost much of my savings, many, many people has lost everything and face bankruptcy. I am mad at my government, I am really, really mad at the owners of Landsbankinn, Glitnir, Baugur and other companies who may cause the bankruptcy of my nation. But I am furious at Gordon Brown for his use of anti-terrorist law in the UK to freeze assets belonging to Icelandic banks. I believe that he is doing that to cover up his own mistakes as a leader and uses the lowest imaginable method, finding a mutual enemy, and chooses one of the smallest nations in Europe to step on.

I and thousands of Icelanders have lost our money, maybe Iceland will loose its economic freedom, but we will never accept loosing our honor, which is way more valuable the money ever can be.

Iceland will pay their dept to the British people, no matter what. I will quit school and abandon my dreams, go back to my ship and work till my fingers bleed to do my part in paying this dept. Because the people which is to blame, has all left Iceland in their private jets and left their financial crimes, all around the world, to the Icelandic people.

I apologize for the errors I believe are in this text, but English is not my strongest language to communicate with. But I do my best.

Best regards to the English people and I hope you will not judge the Icelandic people for the errors made by so few.

October 10, 2008

10:59 AM GMT

Prompted by this headline at the Ministry of Propaganda, Yokel concludes that the population is being prepared for yet more spending of their taxes, this time on bailing out greedy council officers for their reckless decisions.

Still within living memory (1991) is the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. Here we had a number of local councils that had made unwise investment decisions landing in the mire. The civil trial eventually started in 2004. Yokel can't find the case report. Is it out there somewhere? In amongst all the official silence and reluctance to let things out into the open, the conspiracy theorists had a bit of a field day. Here and here are a couple.

Now Yokel wonders what is being secreted under various stones in the present banking crisis, that will be rediscovered in 10 - 15 years time?

And then he wonders if there will be the opportunity to discover it, or will we really be living in a Police State that brooks no such impertinent intrusions into its own private corruptions?

But at least Bloomberg is telling us that the FTSE100 is only down 5% or so as Yokel types this. And RBS is up 0.78%, and HBOS up 24%. So all must be right with the world, mustn't it? Try asking the Council Tax payers in the 20 or so authorities who must now pay up all over again, in order to make good the reckless decision of the authority's leaders!

Update: Oh Shit!

Yokel has just read this article on the FT. He had been in blissful ignorance. Now we get to see terrorism in a new light? Or do we get to see this government playing free and easy with its promises to Parliament about its intentions? More like the latter!

It is appalling, but expected, that this government will abuse every power it has awarded itself in its 10+ years of "modernisation". That they even think of using these powers in this way surely indicates that the ruling clique are very comfortable with the idea of a Police State. Their Police State.

This isn't a problem, its part of the solution. The final solution.

If you ain't got it, don't spend it!

Fairly early in his life Yokel lost count of the number of times that he heard his parents and grandparents saying things like that. The acceptable behaviour was to live within one's means, even if poor. One could still be proud even if poor.

But over the last few decades, there has been a conspiracy to push the idea that poor means shame. That spending power is the only measure of a man's worth. Fortunately that is not the way that God sees us. And we are going to be able to see it for ourselves shortly, aren't we lucky (not)!

But first have a look at this cover for the Economist magazine, but surely it is a spoof. Match it with a headline from the otherwise very studious EU Referendum blog, followed by this as Richard North's following post. If you want to avoid all this gloom and doom, then this site can help you continue to avoid uncomfortable reality. That dear reader is as light as it gets.

Trace back in these blogs for the past six to nine months if you have the stamina.

Capitalists@Work; London Banker; Karl Denninger (blog); Karl Denninger (videos); Burning our Money; EU Referendum (recently);

In these writings you will find the opinion of some very sound bloggers, with real practical experience of the financial system in action. At best they are saying that the system is run by incompetents. At worst some are saying that various governments and their favoured institutions are actively promoting the failure of the existing global financial system. That is right. Read it again slowly. Your government and mine may well be engaged in sabotaging the financial system! Why? You tell Yokel! He's stumped.

If, reader, you have any moral compass at all, you will have noticed that the UK government along with many others, has been taking some remarkably amoral decisions over recent decades. And it shows. Soaring knife crime, soaring teenage pregnancies, soaring unemployment rates did not come about by accident. They are all part of the plan (try the Fabian Society) to destabilise the orders of society that had been developed over the centuries, to replace them with something "modern". At best the high immigration rates have been based on the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" principle, but as both the Left and the Muslims act as though they have each been using the other to achieve their own ends, that divorce is likely to be a rather bloody affair.

The only "modern" forms of society have been International Socialism (aka Communism and the Hard Left), or National Socialism (aka the Racist Right). Left and right are nomenclature invented by the Soviets in the course of the 1939 - 45 war to try to put some clear red water between themselves and the Nazis, in the (fairly successful) hope that few would notice that they were just different brands of the same "final solution". Just how many of his own citizens did compassionate "Uncle Joe" Stalin order to death? Notice that almost all the changes to British Society over the recent decades have been leftward.

But we know from the collapse of the Soviet Union that the centralist planning essential to the implementation of the Socialist Workers' dream just doesn't work. So the EU is busy building a nation state called Europe that will do just the same. Even Gorbachev is said to have made disparaging remarks that imply the EU deserves the epithet EUSSR. Funnily enough, nations all over the EU are making it legal to deploy their troops on their home territory for crowd and riot control; read population control. Add that to the ever expanding official snooping and measuring that is filling all these new databases with every minute detail that would have given the Stasi and the KGB wet dreams. The US is doing it too. What do they know about what is coming next?

It seems pretty clear to Yokel that another Great Depression is what is coming immediately next. Denninger in particluar points to a financial market re-run of the 1929 - 32 period. only a bit quicker. The reason that the good side won then and in the following war was that the basic fabric of society had not been corrupted in the way that it has now. People were then prepared to accept they had been dealt a rough hand, but got on with what they could. These days of instant gratification seem to hint that the deprived will now help themselves to whatever they want. Now achieving that corruption has needed an unholy alliance between the marketing crowd and the hard left socialists with a light seasoning of human rights officers to taste.

In the midst of all this, with the people still being encouraged from some quarters to feel bitter about "what they had taken off them through no fault of their own" (except the way that they voted over recent generations (but that doesn't count!)), they will be eagerly looking for someone to sort it all out for them. Now we know why the Left has been steadily encouraging a culture of complete and utter dependence on the State, instead of permitting the people to stand on their own two feet and manage for themselves. Because the Left will hope to provide that Great Leader who will "rescue" us from all these woes.

At this point the END is well and truly NIGH. Go read the second half of Daniel, the later parts of the Gospels, and Revelation.