Daily Archives: February 24, 2015

UK will need to import over half of its food within a generation, farmers warn | EurActiv

February 24, 2015 By in Austerity, Business Administration, Defense Policy, Democracy, Economics, Fiscal Policy, Growth, Immigration, People, Politics 2 Comments

This is an outstanding, must-read, article from EuroActiv, highlighting the UK’s serious risk of food shortages in coming years.

via UK will need to import over half of its food within a generation, farmers warn | EurActiv.

All the major political parties seem to be playing with policies to appease voters. Nobody is prepared to make a strategic assessment – it’s deeply worrying. Why isn’t food availability being addressed in the election?

Personally, I’m pro-Europe and fortunately countries like France still produce a great deal of food. Have the anti-EU politicians thought about food shortages? If the UK can’t turn to the EU, surely it’s too late to renew imports from the former colonial countries?

Unfortunately, with defense cuts, the UK does not have a navy to protect food imports.

Most importantly, recent governments have been hard on UK farmers. And don’t forgot that UK farms are dependent upon immigrant labor because the indigenous population don’t want to work on farms.

What a mess!

Thoughts?

Obama picks a fight with Wall Street banks | TheHill

February 24, 2015 By in Austerity, Business Administration, Central banks, Fiscal Policy, Growth, People, Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

This is great headline but Obama has been weak on bank regulation to date, so it’s hard to see him asking for a bloody nose in his remaining ‘lame duck’ period of office. This is an important read published by The Hill. Check it out!

via Obama picks a fight with Wall Street banks | TheHill.

My take is simple. Obama knows that many Democrats have been badly burned by the financial services sector, so it looks good to play at grabbing some low hanging fruit for increased regulation. Perhaps, somebody should tell Obama that the banks are ratcheting up their sub-prime loans once again. Yes, that’s where 2008 financial crisis started but the US failed to introduce increased regulation recommended by countries like Germany and France.

Thoughts?