Saturday 28 November 2009

Pravda and the CRU

I see (or rather hear)[4m30s in] that Pravda have all guns blazing on the propaganda front to try to stop the damaging contents of the leaked climate change emails from derailing the Ecoloonfest in Copenhagen.

In the classic 2-minute hate style, ironic 'comedy' is used as a tool by Dunt and Pennis to attempt to discredit the naysayers. Its strong stuff and of course there's no mechanism for immediate response so it goes unchallenged. Goebbels would be so proud.

Friday 27 November 2009

Gordo the Saviour comes to the rescue

Phew, thank goodness for that. I though for a moment that Dubai might just be the domino that causes the ripple effect resulting in a global collapse via the redemption of interlinked Credit Default Swaps.

But no, Gordo, Saviour of the Omniverse, assures me it will be OK....

The Prime Minister said he had spoken with senior figures in Dubai and was confident that the debt problem was containable and localised.

Well thats all right then.

Dubai surprise II

Further to my post yesterday about Dubai it would appear that Moodys downgraded 5 Dubai-Government-controlled companies on the 05 November and yet Barclays still recommended them as a good buy that very same day....

"On that basis, we recommend a long position in Dubai sovereign credit and see today’s negative price actions as an opportunity to buy."

On the basis that Moody's assessment was availale to all market participants, why the faux surprise?

UPDATE
It looks like someone has been reading my blog. Hey, I'm famous. Taxi....

Thursday 26 November 2009

Dubai surprise!

Declaration: I am not an economist, just a curious, bemused bystander.

I have to smile at this (to me) newly discovered world of finance and money. Since the current debacle started showing the early signs in mid 2007, I have taken an avid, if morbid, interest in the whole financial caper not least to try to figure out a way to preserve my own, modest, wealth whilst the powers that be are intent on destroying my currency and my country.

The one aspect that never ceases to amaze me is the regular faux surprise when grave announcements are made. The case in point, Dubai, announces that it will require to delay payment of its foreign debt until May of next year. In response, the pound falls, banks' share prices plummet, the FTSE takes a tumble and a myriad of other ripples process their way through the financial system. Now it seems logical to me that Dubai is in exactly the same position right now as it was 24 hours ago. Nothing significant has changed. It was not able to meet its obligations 24 hours ago or 24 hours before that. That is not a secret. So why, tell me, when the announcement is made, the financial system reacts as if it has only just found out? What is the psychology behind the person who decides to dump a bank share on hearing the news and yet was quite happy to hold that share 24hours earlier? Are we saying these share traders didn't know about Dubai, for example? What does that say about their financial prowess?

I accept that some news is indeed news which no-one could have known before and therefore a reaction is inevitable. But none of this is news. The debt-based, fiat currencies of the world are bust. They always were mathematically bust. You cannot have indefinite exponential growth of anything, including debt, on a finite planet. It will, with 100% probability, fail. It always has and it always will.

So why exactly is this a surprise? These are simply symptoms of a mathematically bankrupt model. They are to be expected.

Wednesday 25 November 2009

Hide the Decline

It cannot have escaped your attention that the information released from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia contains information which provides the climate skeptics with sufficient ammunition for the forseeable future.

One telling piece is this one from Prof Jones:

From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@virginia.edu, mhughes@ltrr.arizona.edu
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@uea.ac.uk,t.osborn@uea.ac.uk


Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
Once Tim's got a diagram here we'll send that either later today or
first thing tomorrow.
I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps
to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from
1961 for Keith's to hide the decline. Mike's series got the annual
land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land
N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999
for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with
data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers
Phil

Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@uea.ac.uk
NR4 7TJ
UK


Hide the decline could become the watchword of the inevitable campaign. And it has started here, with jibjab

Thursday 29 October 2009

Its YOUR BBC

The BBC are keen to know what you think of them.

Go on, have a go. You know you want to.

Have some fun on the first page...



Click to enlarge

h/t OBO

Monday 12 October 2009

Some welcome clarity

On radio 4's Today programme this morning Hilary Clinton was interviewed and asked for her view of the current course of events in Afghanistan and the outlook for the future. In respose she said:

“What the president is engaged in now is a very thorough scrubbing of the implementation plans for achieving our goals….is leading to some welcome clarity”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00n4gbp/Today_12_10_2009/
@1m 10s

Well, I for one, am glad we got that sorted. I was beginning to wonder why we were there.