Diana Watch

Hello to you all. Sorry it’s late again this week but I’ve spent the weekend in a very muddy field in north Dorset. I was at the End of the Road festival and a good time was had. It rained so much on Friday that I was on the edge of suggesting we came home, I know, wuss but it was very wet and I didn’t like it, that and the certain knowledge that I wouldn’t sleep. I get this strange festival paranoia which manifests it self with the certainty that I am going to die in my tent so I didn’t sleep well. As you might have noticed this didn’t happen so I am able to return to you my cyber chums to comment, mumble and moan about this week’s news. First up this week a Diana story, actually I can’t be bothered to talk about it but sufficed to say it was on the front of the Daily Express.
I have decided that I want to buy a bank and luckily there seems to be many of them for sale but I have my eye on the fourth-largest investment bank in the US, Lehman Brothers, or at least it was until it filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday. This, of course, means that it going to be cheap. Significant other may be buying a new car but I’m going to buy a bank and as an early cost cutting measure I’m going to fire all the senior management, that is going to save a lot of money and save the jobs of those whose fault the failure of this bank wasn’t. Of course this won’t happen. The lower workers will now be jobless, the managers will get paid off with massive pay outs and will go on to other highly paid manager type jobs, despite being, quite clearly, really bad at it. Merrill Lynch is in trouble as well but that was sold to the Bank of America before I got to make an offer. Is this the slow ebbing away of the power of capitalism? Surely most people have noticed that the cause of most of the worlds financial problems right now are caused by capitalists and their greed, surely they have noticed that most western governments are beholden to the money men, and a very few women, and not the voters? Probably not if I’m honest. If the bailing out of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the US companies that underwrite 80% of the American mortgage market which is about $12 trillion or twice the entire GDP of the UK, hasn’t offended or upset people then nothing will. My point being that these are private companies whose profits are taken by only a few people but now that they are failing the Government, the lover of private business, has taken all the risk. It could cost the US taxpayer up to $25bn, according to the Congressional Budget Office, but no one seems to care that much.

On a different but related topic we have this week’s first award,

The Award for Missing the Bloody Point Whether By Not Understanding of Deliberately For Your Own Agenda,

A long award title but this goes to CBI director general Richard Lambert. The CBI has released a statement today that states “The UK may have entered a mild recession that will hopefully prove short lived”, fair enough you might think but wait until you hear who they blame. The reasons for this economic downturn are an upturn in world food prices and, wait for it, you! Yes, the Confederation of British Industry is blaming a reduction in consumer spending for the upcoming recession, not the banks that have lost trillions of dollars and now won’t lend to each other or us, oh no, it is our fault for not wanting to spend what little money we have left after our 120% mortgage from Northern Rock on important things like Glade plug-ins and Duck Fresh Disks, you selfish bastards.

The Award for Longest and Most Vague Criminal Charge,

To be honest I should have done this last week but I forgot and this means I’ve lost the link and therefore can’t remember the circumstances, sorry, but a man was arrested under terrorism legislation in the UK and was charged with “possession of an article in circumstances which give rise to the reasonable suspicion that possession is for a purpose connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism”.