Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7-jUxadAFQ

I know there are a few candidates recently, but is this the biggest tool in the box? Sarkozy called Israeli PM Netanyahu 'liar'




French President Nicolas Sarkozy called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "liar" in remarks to US President Barack Obama overheard by journalists.

"I can't stand him any more, he's a liar," Mr Sarkozy said in French.

"You may be sick of him, but me, I have to deal with him every day," Mr Obama replied.

Calling Netanyahu a liar comes as no surprise. He has been called a liar many times over recent years by European and US politicians. By now we must conclude that he is indeed a liar.

Why "must" we.

I consider him to be just another politician.

My Dog

Went down this morning to the DHSS to sign my Dog on.

The woman said, "Dogs are not eligible to draw benefit."

I explained to her that my Dog is black, unemployed, idle, can't speak English, and has no clue who his dad is.

She looked in her policy book to see what it takes to qualify.

He gets his first cheque on Friday.

Damn, this is a great country.

Yes, it tolerates individuals of your ilk.

This is me,

VERY funny, will forward on to others for a laugh.

As said.

Or, as sad.

his taken from an e-mail from FutureMoneyTrends received today.

"Jin Liqun, the Chairman of China's 400 billion dollar sovereign wealth fund, tells Al Jazzera that European countries have created a welfare society that encourages sloth and indolence.

So just to be clear, Wall Street and Europe are banking (no pun intended) on China investing more money in the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) in order to postpone the break up of the Euro zone for a few more months, right?
"If you look at the troubles which happened in European countries, this is purely because of the accumulated troubles of the worn out welfare society. I think the labor laws are outdated. The labor laws induce sloth, indolence, rather than hardworking. The incentive system, is totally out of whack.

"Why should, for instance, within [the] Euro zone some member's people have to work to 65, even longer, whereas in some other countries they are happily retiring at 55, languishing on the beach? This is unfair. The welfare system is good for any society to reduce the gap, to help those who happen to have disadvantages, to enjoy a good life, but a welfare society should not induce people not to work hard."

This was followed by this amazing piece in the e-mail written by Michael Pettis at China Financial Markets. Must read for all members in our opinion.

Will Greece unravel by Christmas?

President Hu left the G20 meeting in Cannes Saturday without committing China to very much, merely saying:　 We believe Europe has the wisdom and ability to solve the debt problem. At this point, however, regardless of the amount of wisdom floating around Brussels I think it is pretty unrealistic to expect a happy solution.

Were well past that stage. By now, it seems to me, neither wisdom nor cooperation among world leaders is going to get us out of the debt and currency problems we face.　 Rather than try to prevent a major disruption the policy goal now should be to engineer as quickly as possible the least disorderly and disruptive unraveling of financial markets in the peripheral countries.　 And while it may help relieve frustration to excoriate European leaders for having made poor decisions, we shouldnt assume that there really is a set of right decisions that will lead us out of this mess. I think there isnt.

In Athens, the refusal by New Democracy yesterday to join Pasoc in a coalition government indicates just how difficult political cooperation is likely to become, and how drastically political horizons have shortened.　Whats more, by forcing Papandreou to cancel the referendum just days after he announced it in the face of white-knuckled threats from an enraged France and Germany Athens has pretty much made clear just how desperate things are and how little room the leadership has to maneuver.

Indeed the whole issue of sovereignty has become fuzzy. Since France and Germany have basically exercised direct power over Greeks electoral politics without assuming responsibility for solving Greeces domestic problems, I cant imagine that this wont stoke even more resentment in Greece.

But its worse than just an issue of fuzzy sovereignty. Last week something new happened which cannot help but affect the near-term outlook. By openly speculating for the first time on Greeces leaving the euro, Europes leaders have ensured that there is almost no chance now of preventing it from happening, and sooner even than most pessimists expected.

A country CAN leave the euro?

Not that there ever really was much of a chance, in my opinion, to keep Greece in the euro, but I assumed that European leaders would do whatever they could to postpone the day of reckoning until after the major elections this and next year. They would find ways, I thought, even if that meant putting more unemployment pressure on the middle and lower classes in Greece for another year or two.　

But now I dont think Europe can postpone Greeces exit much longer. Statements by France and Germany may have transformed the dynamics of the crisis affecting Greece.　

By openly acknowledging that Greece could abandon the euro, Europes leaders may have set in motion events that will automatically force Greece to leave. Here is the logic. If Greece is ever forced to leave the euro, it will first have to redenominate domestic corporate and household liabilities into the new currency lets call it the drachma or else domestic borrowers will be wiped out by the fall in the value of revenues relative to debt as the drachma immediately depreciates against the euro.

But it doesnt end there. If a banks assets its outstanding loans are to be redenominated into drachma, then its liabilities, i.e. deposits, must be redenominated too, or else the balance sheet mismatch will bankrupt the bank.

And there is where the problem lies. As soon as any depositor realizes that bank deposits are likely to be redenominated into drachma, he will pull his deposits out of the banks so as to protect the value of his savings. But obviously only a few depositors will be able to do this before forcing the bank into closing. In order to prevent the resulting collapse in the banking system, the only thing Athens can do is to freeze bank deposits long before most depositors have had a chance to cash out.

But depositors know this. As the probability of Greeces leaving the euro rises and clearly it rose dramatically this past week anxious depositors eager to prevent their deposits from being frozen and redenominated in a weaker currency know that they will have to speed up their withdrawal of deposits from banks. And of course as anxious depositors withdraw their deposits, the likelihood of a banking crisis rises, and with it the likelihood of Greeces being forced to freeze deposits and leave the euro.　

A Bagehot intervention?

We are caught, it seems, in one of those self-reinforcing loops that almost always presage a collapse. Rational behavior by individual agents leads towards a catastrophic event the threat of which reinforces the behavior.

I dont see any way to get out of this loop except with a Bagehot-style intervention a very unlikely but immediately credible announcement by Germany and France that they are prepared to guarantee all deposits in the Greek banking system. I call it a Bagehot intervention, but of course Walter Bagehot would never have recommended bailing out an insolvent borrower.

Without a credible intervention this process almost always ends the same way. There is in my opinion a very high probability that within weeks, or months at most, Greece will be forced to freeze bank deposits as a prelude to leaving the euro. Mexico in 1994 and Argentina in 2001 chose the Christmas/New Year holiday season to announce their devaluations. Will Greece follow suit? "If history repeats itself, footballer Andrew Demetriou once pointed out, I should think we can expect the same thing again.

And it probably wont end there. In my opinion the real risk for Europe in that case becomes a contagion of deposit withdrawal, not immediately, but at the first sign of trouble in their home countries. As households from Italy, Spain, Ireland, Portuguese, and other vulnerable countries read every day about hardships faced by Greek families (and those, it will be noted, who trusted the authorities were the worst hit), what will they do?

I know what many of my wealthy Spanish friends are already doing. They are moving their deposits to safer havens. I suspect that in other countries too anyone who can afford to withdraw money from the domestic financial system is at least thinking of doing so. If this process accelerates it may be very hard to maintain domestic confidence in the local banking systems anywhere.

If Greece gets worse in the next few weeks, Europe had already better have a plan about what steps it will take to defend banks in peripheral Europe. Once Greece goes, even the least sophisticated households in other countries will know what the consequences for depositors will be. Deposit withdrawals, after all, are one of the kinds of actions that different sectors of the economy will take to protect their interests in the face of a crisis, even though this behavior increases the likelihood of the crisis.

This is simply part of the logic of sovereign financial distress declining credibility causes stakeholders to act in ways that reduce credibility further. Whats more, deterioration in the political process is part of financial distress at the sovereign level. Remember, as Keynes pointed out back in 1922, that resolving these kinds of crises is always political it is about which sector of the economy (or class) ends up paying for the adjustment.　

Workers can pay in the form of high unemployment and declining wages, the middle class can pay by having its savings inflated away, private businesses can pay in the form of confiscatory taxes and expropriation, creditors can pay through forced debt forgiveness, and so on, but ultimately someone must pay. Politics becomes about deciding which groups will be forced to foot the bill. Historical precedents suggest that political fault lines are likely to develop as different groups organizes politically to protect themselves.

We will probably see this happen, for example, in Spain. On November 20 Spain will hold elections. For now it looks like the conservative PP will sweep out the Socialists and take nearly 200 of the 350 seats in Parliament.　 This will give them a clear mandate and the power to enact any legislation they want.　

Unfortunately, as I suggested earlier in this newsletter, this doesnt mean that they can resolve the crisis if only they figure out the right decisions. Although it is unlikely they will mismanage the crisis to the same extent as the Socialists under Zapatero, who seemed to place a little too much importance on charm and cleverness over leadership, I am not sure there is a whole lot the PP will be able to do better than the Socialists.　

Both parties after all face the same problem. They must drive the economy back into competitiveness, but aside from tinkering at the margins with tax and structural changes, really the only two ways Madrid can make Spain competitive is to drive wages down or devalue the currency. The options for the PP, in other words, are the same as for the Socialists: either abandon the euro or accept extremely high levels of unemployment for the rest of the decade. It is unlikely that any government facing those two options can maintain popularity for very long."

Niceonecyril,

Many will call the above 'scaremongering', but scared is what people especially those in the Euruzone with savings in Euros should be.

When the money withdrawals from Euro denomination banks really gets going, some of that panic will spread into the none Euro countries, IE us, with yet another Northern Rock style run on our banks.
Perhaps the 'under the mattress deposit account' ain't so stupid after all.
Doomed, were all doomed!

Russian Mars probe loses its way minutes after launch

A new definition of a failure - "It looks like the engine system has not worked," said Vladimir Popovkin, the head of the Russian Space Agency.

"It means that it did not determine orientation on the stars."

"I would not say it's a failure, it's a non-standard situation, but it is a working situation."

.

Sounds a bit like " We have known unknowns which we know, and unknowns which we don't know "

If "Teresa" goes down, No 10 is going to resemble a "Tenpin Bowling Club" , losing its image of the "Bullingdon Old Boys Club".

Perhaps, "10 green bottles hanging lounging on a wall" is a closer resemblance.

Say's Fred the champagne socialist , when his at home its fine wines and chicken al'orange and when his out drinking with his small circle of friends its a pie and a pint.

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While on a road trip, an elderly couple stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch. After finishing their meal, they left the restaurant, and resumed their trip.


When leaving, the elderly woman unknowingly left her glasses on the table, and she didn't miss them until they had been driving for about forty minutes.


By then, to add to the aggravation, they had to travel quite a distance before they could find a place to turn around, in order to return to the restaurant to retrieve her glasses.


All the way back, the elderly husband became the classic grouchy old man. He fussed and complained, and scolded his wife relentlessly during the entire return drive. The more he chided her, the more agitated he became. He just wouldn't let up for a single minute.


To her relief, they finally arrived at the restaurant. As the woman got out of the car, and hurried inside to retrieve her glasses, the old geezer yelled to her,


While you're in there, you might as well get my hat and the credit card.


This coming week is National Senior Mental Health Week. You can do YOUR part by remembering to contact at least one unstable Senior to show you care.


I have now done MY part!

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A.

I like a good pie and sometimes the beer.

But your tory this government seems to prefer to duck under the table when it gets too hot.


Perhaps, the orange sauce is too strong for the tory members.

When I think of this bunch organising a party in a brewery comes to mind.

Perhaps, they prefer coco-cola.


-------------------

N.

I must admit the "mark up", or corkage on wine, in restaurants generally infuriates me.


Over the years I have tended to eat out less and less, as I now enjoy attempting to "cook myself".

Edited for N (cook for others, or cook myself for others.)

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