Fun Online Polls: Politicians, sugar & "hard" brexit.

The results to last week-and-a-half's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Which of these politicians avoids sugar?

Jeremy Corbyn - 54%
Nigel Farage - 6%
Both - 16%
Neither - 24%

A bit of an anorak question, but 16% of participants got the right answer. Well done!

Top (and only) comment:

View From The Solent: Who cares?

Answer = not many. Only 50 people took part and only 16% of those chose the right answer (and one of them was me). It was multiple choice, so if people had chosen an answer at random, 25% would have chosen the correct one :-)
-------------------------------------------------
The gamble which some Brexiteers made appears to have paid off in some quarters, pint-sized former French president M. Sarkozy has said that if re-elected he would offer the UK a new treaty for a new Europe.

Clearly he could't care less about British votes, so presumably what he means is a new deal which will  favour France generally, the UK tangentially and placate some potential Le Pen voters. Former Tory leader 'Lord' Howard stretched his head out of his earth-filled coffin and "described the terms “hard” and “soft” Brexit as unnecessary and unhelpful."

In which he would be correct. So that's this week's Fun Online Poll.

"Which kind of Brexit would you like?"

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Yeah, but they're not paying him for his "economic expertise"

He doesn't have a clue about economics and he's a pretty dull speaker. JP Morgan is in fact now paying him for all the favours he did them while he was still President, Sarkonomics, bank bail outs, Euro-tinkering etc etc, all done on a nod and a wink.

It's only more junior politicians who are allowed to be "paid for their expertise" while they are still in office, by the very same companies who happen to be benefitting from his department's spending. Which is all entirely coicidental, of course.

In which I 100% agree with Nicolas Sarkozy

From the BBC:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said there are too many foreigners in France...

Any British tourist could have told you that.

Sarko-nomics

I'm glad it's not just me who's noticed the insanity of all this, as summarised in a recent Evening Standard

European sovereigns [governments] and banks need to find €1.9 trillion to refinance maturing debt in 2012. Italy alone requires €113 billion in the first quarter and around €300 billion over the full year.

Given that banks and investors have been steadily reducing their exposures to European countries and banks, the ability to finance this debt is uncertain. The bailout fund and the International Monetary Fund, with around €200 billion to €250 billion each, cannot absorb this issuance.

The only solution - "Sarko-nomics" - is for European banks to purchase the sovereign debt, which is then pledged as collateral to borrow unlimited funds from the ECB or national central banks. This perpetuates the circular flow of funds with governments supporting banks that are in turn supposed to bail out the government.

What's the point of that then?

From the BBC:

Eurozone banks have rushed to take out cheap three-year loans offered by the European Central Bank, borrowing 489bn euros ($643bn; £375bn). The central bank had hoped to lend up to 450bn euros to stop another credit crunch crippling the banking system. When the plan was announced, French President Nicholas Sarkozy said banks could use the money to invest in eurozone sovereign debt.

Right, so the ECB, which is explicitly or implicitly backed by EU member state governments, has borrowed money from sources unknown the German central bank* (it has no real money of its own) and lent this to commercial banks cheaply, in the hope that the self-same commercial banks will then lend the money back to EU member states, thereby presumably generating a profit for themselves?

Yes, I know Article 123 of the Lisbon Treaty the EU Constitution says that member states aren't supposed to lend directly or indirectly to other member states** (since when have they ever cared about their own rules?), so they can't just brazenly cut out the middleman, but isn't the transaction entirely circular anyway?

If you strip out the commercial banks as middlemen, all that is happening is that member states have clubbed together to create their own supra-national central bank, the ECB and are not only financing this but also borrowing from it.
-----------------------------
* UPDATE: Ralph Musgrave emailed me that bit.

** UPDATE, Denis Cooper has emailed me to say this:

It's Article 125 which prohibits member states from becoming liable for or assuming the commitments of other member states, while Art 123 prohibits the ECB from direct purchases of debt instruments, but there's also Art 124 preventing
"Any measure ... establishing privileged access by ... central governments ... to financial institutions ... " and if the ECB is lending money to banks specifically to lend on to governments then that seems to me to be "privileged access".

Then there are articles about "the principle of an open market economy with free competition, favouring an efficient allocation of resources" and the ECB conducting "credit operations with credit institutions and other market participants, with lending being based on adequate collateral", and it seems that all of that is being disregarded so it's hardly worth reciting all the details.

Merkozy

It probably seemed like a good idea at the time...

We've all been there, the party gets a bit out of hand and you end up daring each other to do all sorts of stupid things, sometimes it's enormously good fun, at other times, somebody ends up in hospital or seriously embarrassing himself.

But I wonder what bizarre sequence of events led up to this: From The Evening Standard:

French president Nicolas Sarkozy announced at 4am that he will call Chinese president Hu Jintao today to discuss China contributing to a huge new bailout fund... Analysts said China, which has grown rich from mass exports to the west, would be wary of handing over money without assurances. Shen Jianguang, a Hong Kong-based economist for Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd, said: "China will need time to evaluate this plan very carefully."

Presumably Angie had already flashed her bra at passers by, Berlusconi had ordered fifty pizzas for 10 Downing Street, and the Greek PM had vandalised Rumpy's office, and now Little Nicky's challenge was to ring up Hu Jintao in the middle of the night* and ask for a trillion Euros while keeping a srtaight face.

* Or mid-morning, from Hu Jintao's point of view, but you don't think about things like that when you're really merry.

I thought it was quite sweet really..

Angela Merkel is clearly madly in love with Nicolas Sarkozy, has been for years. If you look at pictures of her when she's out on her own, she really looks quite frighteningly dull and drab, but when she's out and about with little Nicky, her eyes sparkle, she smiles quite naturally etc.

Whether he's quite as keen on her, I don't know, but their whole relationship is more or less perfectly encapsulated in this short video of them having a good giggle at Berlusconi's expense. She politely suppresses her giggle until she glances across at him and then follows his lead:

No wonder Carla Bruni got jealous...

Angie & Nick

Nicholas Sarkozy

... and then they came for the farmers.

From The FT:

The plan [to subsidise French farmers], which the French president described as “unprecedented” in scale, consisted of €1bn ($1.5bn, £905m) in subsidised loans and €650m in cuts to land and energy taxes and social charges...

... the farm plan is the latest manifestation of the president’s transformation – through the financial crisis – from free-market reformer into full-throated state interventionist. He has already proposed government aid packages for car manufacturers, small companies, the newspaper industry, young people and banks...

Why stop there?

Why not subsidies, soft loans and tax breaks for small and medium-sized businesses; restaurants; tourism; property developers; 'high-tech' companies; start-ups; and for businesses that 'create' new jobs?

Why not increase salaries for public sector workers and increase State pensions? Why not add tax credits to dividend income and cut tax rates on savings accounts to 'encourage saving'? What about goodies for the film and TV industries, protectionist measures for 'national champions' like, er, Danone? how about grants to first time home-buyers to help them onto the ladder?

You could keep going for ever, by taxing everybody a bit more and subsidising a bit more and then taxing a bit more ad infinitum. Every time a privately-owned business collapses under the weight of all the extra taxes, you can say "See! Free markets and private enterprise don't work!" and then nationalise the f***ers.

It's all well and good blaming governments for their tendency to increase in size, but this is what people want!

Sarko is a short-arse, part 94

Picture here:
Story here.

Midget Franco-Hungarian Psychopath

Twat describes twat as "twat"

From The BBC:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has criticised Prime Minister Gordon Brown's economic stimulus plan. In a debate on French TV, Mr Sarkozy, whose handling of France's economy has prompted protests, said the UK's VAT cut had "absolutely not worked". "Britain is cutting taxes. That will bring them nothing. Consumption continues to decrease," he said

*sigh*

To recap briefly, VAT is not "a tax on consumption", people have just been brainwashed into thinking that because it makes the tax more palatable - "production" is seen as a A Good Thing and, rather bizarrely, "consumption" is seen as A Bad Thing. It is quite simply the case that one man's production is another man's consumption. You can't have one without t'other. So VAT is not only a tax on production, it raises (in the UK) twice as much as corporation tax from a smaller section of the economy, so VAT-able businesses pay four times as much in VAT as they do in corporation tax. So a 2.5% VAT cut not only levels the playing field slightly between VAT-able and non VAT-able businesses; but for VAT-able businesses* a 2.5% VAT cut is worth as much as halving the corporation tax rate - and there's not much point cutting corporation tax in a recession - the big worry is those businesses who aren't making a profit at all, not those that are profitable.

*/sigh

Of course, The Goblin King is so f***ing clueless that he believes a) that VAT is a tax on consumption and b) that cutting VAT will stimulate 'consumption' (even if debt fuelled). Both assumptions are complete bollocks of course, but by sheer fluke, he has done the right thing, albeit for the wrong reasons.

Furthermore, The Goblin King doesn't wear platform shoes.

* At this juncture, some smartarse will comment that "I don't pay VAT because I make supplies to another VAT registered business", this itself is bollocks as well - what is important is whether those supplies end up being subject to VAT at the point of sale to the consumer - if the end supply is VAT-able, then the economic damage from the tax flows upstream to the wholesaler, the importer and the manufacturer.

They really hate Vaclav Klaus, don't they? (2)

Via Julia M in the comments to my previous post, surprise surprise, The Graun has laid into Vaclav Klaus.

My personal highlights are this:

Next, the statement has to be retracted when it fails to chime with the message from Paris, which has reluctantly ceded the EU's presidency to Prague.

1. 'Paris' is perfectly entitled to say what it likes, as is 'Prague', why should 'Prague' be forced to retract something because 'Paris' isn't happy with it?

2. "...reluctantly ceded ..."??? WTF, rules is rules, France held the six-month rotating presidency of the Council Of The European Union for, er, six months, as laid down in the rules. There's no "ceding" involved, "reluctant" or otherwise.

... and this ...

"And then an aristocrat fond of bow ties (Czech foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg) leads a mission aimed at brokering a ceasefire ..."

FFS, has The Graun ever described Sarkozy as "The son of a Hungarian immigrant and a French mother of Greek Jewish origin who is fond of built-up platform shoes"?

... and this ...

"Prague's patent bias towards Israel is consistent with both its own foreign policy and the direction in which the union has been heading for some time."

1. Isn't the first part a tautology? You would expect Czech's foreign policy to be consistent with its patent bias and vice versa, or have I missed something?

2. If "Prague's patent bias ... is consistent with ... the direction in which the union has been heading...", then that's a good thing, isn't it?

They really hate Vaclav Klaus, don't they?

On a pedantic note, as Wiki explains:
---------------------------
Presidency of the Council of the European Union is the responsibility [sic] for the functioning of the Council of the European Union which is rotated between European Union member states every six months. There is no single president but rather the task is undertaken by an entire national government, hence that state influences the direction of European Union policy during its term. Although it rotates every six months... 

The Presidency, which is sometimes informally called the EU Presidency ...
---------------------------
Now let's compare and contrast the different descriptions of Nicolas Sarkozy and Vaclav Klaus on the official EU website:

On 21 December 2008, an article entitled Sarkozy to attend final summit as EU president continually refers to him as such: "French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrives here Monday for a Brazil-EU summit focusing on the financial crisis and climate change as he prepares to hand over the reins of the EU presidency. Monday's summit and his two-day stay in Rio de Janeiro will be his last as EU president, before handing the rotating position on to the Czech Republic... Tuesday will see Sarkozy ditch his role as EU president and hold more meetings ..."

Whereas on 1 January 2009, there is an article entitled Czechs take over EU helm, Slovaks embrace euro, which explains (somewhat more correctly) that "The two parts of what used to be Czechoslovakia took European Union centre-stage Thursday as the Czech Republic assumed the EU presidency..."

That is how slippery these bastards are. It's difficult to accuse them of downplaying Vaclav Klaus' role, because they are now being (more) accurate, and if we accuse them of overplaying the role of rabid EUphile (i.e. French imperialist) Nicolas Sarkozy they'll say "Oh, that's all in the past". The whole of the media are just as guilty of this of course, I hope that now I've pointed this out you'll start to notice it yourself.

And we're supposed to trust these people with taxpayers' money?

13 October 2008: Sarkozy hails "massive" €360bn bail-out package

17 October 2008: €600m 'lost' in French banking disaster

George W Bush makes a fool of himself (part 94)

Jonathan Pearce over at Samizdata commends GWB warmly for this parting shot:

The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter." He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

Nice try, George, but didn't you know that the USA have been overtaken by The People's Republic of China?

Y I H8 G8

Jock Coats did a fine post under this title (which is so good I had to nick it), all I can add to his post is that I am familiar with most of the 'leaders' attending (apart from Fukuda and Harper) and, at the risk of generalising, what they represent to me is Statism, Corporatism, corruption, high taxes, high subsidies, protectionism, interventionism and being in thrall to this Climate Change nonsense.

As a pragmatic libertarian, it strikes me that the best thing they could do is pretty much the opposite of whatever it is that they are doing. In other words, they ought to be scrapping trade barriers, subsidies, high taxes etc, not inventing excuses for new ones.