Category Archives: Far Right

Opinion – John Gelmini – ‘Populism: The corrupting of democracy’ via The Economist

September 2, 2019 By in Business Administration, Democracy, Extreme left, Extreme right, Far Right, Far-left politics, Fiscal Policy, Foreign Policy, Healthcare, Immigration, Neoliberal, People, Politicians, Politics, Public Services Reform, Unemployment Leave a comment

Dr Alf with his usual thoughtful precision has demolished the thrust of the arguments made by the Economist whose editors regularly attend “private meetings” as evidenced by the attendance list of the Bilderbergers(www.bilderbergmeetings.org). Populism at grass roots level is to do with massive income inequalities.

In America just 51% of the entire population earn enough to pay income tax and increasing numbers of jobs are being subjected to robot process automation, AI, offshoring and outsourcing. GE which used to have massive finance departments dedicated to Dr Alf’s former calling as a Chartered Accountant and Financial Director now have much of the work done in India at a fraction of the cost.

The UK is £5 trillion GBP in debt whilst £25 trillion sits offshore with half of it in BVI. The Economist has nothing to say about that or the juxtaposition of the two sides of the coin. We have on the one hand Chief Executives earning 100, 200 and in some cases 450 times average worker pay, when bonuses and “other emoluments” are factored into the equation, we have 1.8 million zombie companies which never make a profit and teeter on the very edge of their banking covenants and we have local and central government services costing triple those of Switzerland.
At the same time, we have 1 million people using food banks, average gross pay at £30,000 GGP and houses costing nine times average pay thus denying 80% of future adults any prospect of ever buying a home.

Within 13 or 17 years, 50% of jobs will be gone thanks to AI, machine learning, RPA, cybernetics and nanotechnology. This was predicted by Eric Schmidt of Google in 2013 and 2014 at the Grove Hotel, Watford, England and on You Tube and by the Oxford University and Chinese Government surveys all of which the Economist were privy to. People in America,Europe and the UK, unless they were in the top 16% of wage earners, have all seen their living standards drop and remain low for the past 25 years thanks to the banking crisis, “Cyprus style bail-ins”, quantitative easing (debasement of the currency,) and the loss of traditional blue-collar and lower middle class white collar jobs.

We know from Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychology professor, who wrote “12 Rules for Life”, that anyone with an IQ of 83 or less (10% of the global population) is deemed to be incapable of doing ANY job the Pentagon wants done. Extrapolating that into civilian life everywhere as he does means that 10% of the working population are economically useless. That percentage is rising as machine learning improves and AI powers ahead of human intelligence starting this year (Source:Ray Kurzeweil, Chief Futurist and CTO of Google).

People, even at the most intellectually challenged level, know that something is wrong, potholes abound in roads, they are told to buy electric cars at £30,000GBP each when they have less than £500 GBP in their bank accounts at any one time ( the same figure that prevailed in the 1990s when GE Capital conducted a survey to size the market for secured loans and impaired life annuities). Their children cannot get jobs and even if they can they are not reflective of their expensive degree courses. It is much more than being “down on your luck” but is a malaise in which hope is completely lost by those at the sharp end which is where MAGA, the Gilet Jeunes and the EDL, PEGIDA etc, all populist movements along with ANTIFA, Momentum et al spring from. These movements cover the extremes of the political spectrum and are representative of populism.
The phenomenon will not go away until there is a clear and coherent plan to reskillill people, stop the reverse Robjn Hood phenomenon which emboldens plutocrats and puts the proletariat in the”olive press”.

The Economist will never talk about these matters because it exists to create the impression that things are fine.

John Gelmini

Opinion – Battle begins – the Spectator – Fraser Nelson

September 1, 2019 By in Boris Johnson, Brexit, David Cameron, Extreme right, Far Right, Fiscal Policy, Healthcare, Immigration, People, Politics, Public Services Reform, Shared Services, Theresa May, Transformation Risk, Uncategorized Leave a comment

Here’s a highly recommended article by Fraser Nelson, the Editor of the Spectator.

Boris Johnson is praised for being a decisive leader but the article looks at the political context, focusing on botched decisions by the Home Office, which are once again blamed on the systems with EU applicants for permanent UK residency told by the Home Office that they pressed the wrong keys.

I am a UK national, living in Cyprus, having recently received permanent residency in Cyprus. Because of demand, it took me a about four months to get and interview at Immigration – I used an agent at a cost of EUR200. The requirements were well documented. It’s important to have the right documents available. The interview at the Immigration Department, with my agent, took a few minutes and my certificate of permanent residency came through as promised several months later.

The UK Home Office has a long history of complaints and poor service to the public. If you open the link you will see an article which describes how the Home Office has profited financially by outsourcing decisions whilst complaints have escalated. Whether it’s outsourcing or systems failures, the Home Office never seems to blame the Minister for interventions and reversals. Of course, many question Preti Patel’s credentials as Home Office Minister. For sure the Home Office is heading for further scandals. Fraser Nelson questions whether the omnishambles will be on the scale of the Windrush scandal.

Rather than focus on the major battle lines, strategy and tactics, precipitated Boris Johnson, Fraser Nelson deep dives into the context – for me the analogy is whether there will be shovels to dig trenches. He tries but fails to paint Boris Johnson as a ‘One Nation Tory’. I remember well both David Cameron and Theresa May coming to power with one nation credentials – they failed to deliver, impaling themselves on Brexit.

In my judgement, Fraser Nelson is one of the shrewdest political commentators of his generation. This article gives us a subjective insight into the Government’s readiness for Brexit. For me, the natural tendency is to speculate on other high risk areas. I have seen central UK government’s risk management first hand and am deeply fearful for Brexit. Meanwhile, the stakes have never been higher for MPs to be accountable.

The article is entitled ‘Battle Begins’. History reminds us that when the jingoism subsides, there is often much blood and tears before victory or defeat.

Thoughts?