Hearts have confirmed their players have not received their wages on time for the second time this season.
If the players don't get paid they aren't going to win, are they?
Hearts extended their winning run to five matches with victory over Rangers at Tynecastle.
Do we actually need to pay them?
Seriously though, and writing as a former finance director, the one thing you avoid at all costs is not meeting the payroll on time.
If you accept the Austrian view of economics - as I do - then this whole financial mess won't resolve itself until all of the world's malinvestments have been liquidated. By malinvestments I mean everything that's been spent on business ventures as a direct result of all that monetary expansion that wouldn't have occurred in a free market.
Bailouts by Bush, Brown and the rest may delay the day of reckoning for a while but can't change the ultimate end game. The world watches. Gold was up 7.66% on Friday despite the manipulation.
(UPDATE: there's going to be a lot of anger before things are resolved. I bet McCain's glad to be out of it.)
Train passengers in Scotland face a 6% rise in the price of most tickets from January - almost 2% above the current rate of inflation.Hang on a moment; this implies that inflation is around 4%.
No, it's not. Inflation is actually running at 15.1%. The price increases will follow.
And we ain't seen nothing yet...
"The fact is the judges don't know what this programme is all about.What Mr Murphy has realised is that most people like to make their own judgment as to what they like. Yes, experts have their place, but when it comes down to it we like to have the final say and if the "experts" don't like it, then tough."I watch the programme with my family."
Mr Murphy said it was "family entertainment and good fun and John is emblematic of that, rather than taking himself so seriously".
"I think we need to get rid of the judges rather than John."
So why on earth is Mr Murphy in the Labour party? The whole purpose of that organisation seems to be to pick the most useless experts it can find and ram their opinions down our throats.
Now we know why...
The first thing I noticed was the compete absence of posters on lampposts. Here in Edinburgh elections mean party posters on virtually every lamppost to be seen. I noticed the same phenomenon in Glasgow during the recent by-election over there. Turning off the main road I drove through the village of Cardenden, home place of Ian Rankin and, inevitably, Inspector Rebus. I saw one window poster - for the Labour candidate Lindsay Roy. That was your lot.
When I got to Glenrothes proper I had a wee drive round the town and then parked by the main shopping centre. I paid my £1 for all day parking and went into the overheated mall. You could have been anywhere in the UK judging by the shops. At the far end I did see a TV cameraman talking to a couple of press photographers but there was no sign of any action. Back nearer the car I spotted some yellow balloons outside. I was handed a leaflet, which contained an attack on "greedy bankers who bet everything on black and want bailed out when it comes up red." Aha! Some libertarians? Sadly no: they were from the Scottish Socialist Party, and also called for "free" school meals, "free" public transport and "free" prescriptions. "Free" at the point of consumption I presume. Where's Adam Smith when you need him?
Then I spoke to a lady at the SNP stand.
"How's it going," I asked.It turned out that I was speaking with Tricia Marwick, the local MSP."Fine, and you are?"
"David Farrer, I blog at Freedom and Whisky."
"And I'm one of your readers, she replied"!
I was told that the lamppost laws are different in Fife. We chatted about the campaign and also about the American election. Obama reminded Tricia of Tony Blair. That wasn't a compliment. I defended Sarah Palin on the gun question and was reminded that politicians here haven't yet realised that crime goes down when law-abiding folk are armed...
Ms Marwick pointed me in the direction of Markinch, which is a pleasant little village on the edge of Glenrothes itself. There I found the SNP headquarters. I parked the car and just walked right in. It occurred to me that I'd have been shot by now had I been at the Obama or McCain campaign offices without an appointment. After explaining that I was a blogger, a media lady was called to speak to me. We had a nice chat and I heard that there was no sign of any "Brown Bounce" in Glenrothes following his recent career move to become saviour of the world's finances. Quite the opposite, if anything.
I was told that there was to be a "photo opportunity" in the nearby Carlton Cafe and that I was free to go along. I sat down and ordered a coffee. A few minutes later in walked Peter Grant, the SNP candidate, together with the First Minister himself. They sat down at the next table where they had a televised and photographed chat with two "switching" voters. A small group of protesters were also in the Carlton and they were objecting to the SNP's lack of funding for their group. Salmond offered to talk to them later. After taking a few photos, I left.
Afterwards it occurred to me how lucky we are that an unknown member of the public can walk right into an election campaign office, without producing any ID, and then sit in a public cafe at the table next to the country's First Minister with no vetting whatsoever.
Of course, the young mother and father with the two children at the table to my right were probably from the SAS...
I recently dug out my copy of the 1967 Annual Report of the Annan Bank. Let's have a look at an extract from the Auditors' Report:
We have examined the Depositors' Accounts in the Books of the Savings Bank and have checked the same with the List of Depositors' Balances, which amount with interest to £1,678,456. A copy of this List certified by us is open to inspection at the Savings Bank by Depositors for the purpose of comparing the amounts in their Pass Books with their balance shown on the list.In all 6,216 accounts were open, so over one third of customers' Pass Books were actually verified individually by the Auditors. Not quite like today, I think.During the year we have visited the Savings Bank in business hours and have compared 2,321 Pass Books with the relative Depositors' Accounts in their Ledger and found them to agree.
And what about the Bank's investments, which totalled £1,828,753?
Certificates or other evidence representing the whole of the Investments held by the Savings Bank as at 31st January, 1967, have been produced to us and found to be in order.The Bank's investments were extremely conservative. There's no mention of derivatives or the like, although one does wonder whether it was wise to have as much as £1,000 tied up in "Office premises, furniture and equipment."
Isn't it time for prudent and cautious local bankers to make a comeback?
The two star speakers:
Now, I fully understand that President Obama will want to appoint some fellow persons of colour to key positions. Who we need in Grosvenor Square is Thomas Sowell. Not only is Sowell one of America's greatest economists, he is considerably blacker than Obama. And he's a keen photographer.
It's a no-brainer. And Tom can moonlight by teaching economics to Mr Brown and Mr Darling.
Should Sowell be unavailable, Alvin Hall is the obvious second choice.
As Cameron moved on Messrs Farrer and Purdie said simultaneously "St Quivox Road?" And yes, we had both lived a few doors apart in that street in Prestwick around forty years earlier.
I knew from my mother that David Purdie had become a doctor but not that he was now a prominent public speaker. Anyway, he's now on the blogroll and having heard David speak at the Adam Smith dinner I can confirm that Dr Purdie is indeed a successful practitioner of his new calling.
The only other thing I would add is that I am in the advertising industry and most of the ads for sub-prime loans had dried up before the recent bail-out bill. As soon as that went through the volume for these ads went up 10 times. Whatever the government did to “fix” the problem ain’t working because all they did was just give everyone who didn’t make money the first time around another shot at the craps table.So the sub-prime lenders haven't learnt and the spending goes on. But why not if the taxpayer will bail you out? I see that the American small business community opposes the US bailout but I get the impression that bank bailouts are more popular here in the UK. So why the difference?The small business community that I am a denizen of is absolutely livid at the bailout because they see very clearly what has happened. They have good noses for how to make money and can see how the government system could be exploited by people less wise or scrupulous than they are. It seems funny this should be the case when all of the Harvard MBA’s in Washington and on Wall Street drove right into it.
I'd guess that it's because there are far more banks per-capita in the US than in this country. Effectively we have only five banks that cater for almost all business customers. If even one goes down the contagion could destroy any or all of the other four. In the US there's a greater likelihood that your bank is sound. So what is the British government proposing? A merger between Lloyds and HBOS reducing the total to four! Or even fewer if nationalisation continues. This is the opposite of what we should be doing. It would be far healthier if we had more banks that competed vigorously and under such a regime the failure of one bank would be less likely to be systematic.
I saw that Guido (another long-term libertarian) is showing a picture of The Theory of Money and Credit by Ludwig von Mises. Mises was the most prominent of the Austrian School of Economics that was briefly mentioned in Brian's podcast. I looked out my copy last night and was rather shocked to note that I'd bought it in 1973! Such a pity that none of our politicians today would spend time reading Mises. How different things could be.
Meanwhile I read that Iceland has arranged for a 4 billion Euro loan from Russia.
But read this:
The government of Iceland is using the threat of a €4 bn loan from Russia in exchange for a 99-year lease on the airport at Keflavik - a former American air base - as leverage to obtain financial support from the West.So perhaps it's not yet a done deal. I suppose one advantage of a Russian takeover of Keflavik would be a cut in the outrageous price of beer in the terminal. That's a joke by the way. More seriously, I recall reading a thriller in which WW3 starts with a Soviet "container ship" running aground on Iceland and out of it emerges troops and tanks who promptly defeat the Americans and take over the US anti-submarine base. Needless to say the good guys won in that case. Now? I haven't a clue, except to say that von Mises must be laughing in his grave.
Democrats Want The Bill, Republicans Don't, I'm confused.A few of the contributors sort of get it but not properly. What "Jimothy" seems to think is that the Democrats are the party of the downtrodden working class while the Republicans are plutocratic, top-hatted bankers who flick cigar ash at the masses from the windows of their Cadillacs as they speed by on the way to Wall Street. Ah, the perils of trying to understand America through the prism of the BBC...I would have thought that the Republican Party would be the ones crying out for the Bill to go through, but it seems to be the Democrats.
Can anyone explain why?
Maybe fifty years ago the Democrats were the party of the industrialised and unionised white working class. But there aren't too many of them left these days: those jobs are now in Shanghai. Nowadays the Democrats represent a coalition of rather disparate groups:
1. The minorities, especially blacks. And this isn't really anything to do with Obama: blacks vote overwhelmingly for the Dems at every election.What all of these groups have in common is the desire to use the state for their own class interests. Minorities want abominations like the Community Reinvestment Act that seems to be directly implicated in the current mess. Most of the intelligentsia hates the West and wants to bring it down by brainwashing future generations. Government workers have everything to gain from government expansion. And the Wall Streeters operate in an industry with extremely close links to the state. They all understood that their dodgy CRA loans would be bailed out by Fannie and Freddie and, if necessary, Ms Mae and Mr Mac would themselves be "saved" by the taxpayer, exactly as we've just witnessed. And I've not even mentioned the whole rotten system of GOVERNMENTAL central banking that empowers the Wall Street crowd who wouldn't know a free market if it hit them on the head.2. The intelligentsia. This is where most of the Democratic activist base is to be found. I'm thinking of teachers, professors, lawyers (especially lawyers), journalists, television folk and almost everyone in the entertainment industry - one of America's biggest. Subsets of this group are the gay and feminist lobbies.
3. Other government workers of all types, although not including too many members of the military.
4. Wall Street. Yes, and why not? Top bankers generally live in the same cities and neighbourhoods as the leading members of the liberal intelligentsia - in New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. They socialise with the entertainment elite. I note that even the Republican Paulson seems to have actively donated to typically leftist causes. People like to fit in.
And what of the Republicans?
The Christian fundamentalist element isn't that important, despite what the BBC might tell you. Essentially the Republicans are the millions and millions of normal middle class Americans who live in the suburbs and small towns and who work predominantly in the private sector. They do include professionals and business owners who are often wealthy but, unlike all too many rich Democrats, they've made their own way in the free market without any "help" from the government. It's hardly surprising that these cautious, taxpaying Republican voters bitterly resent being asked to hand over their lifetime savings to bail out the profligate. And that's the message that's been given to members of Congress today. Good and hard.
Is money really made out of thin air? This article makes a good case that it is not, and that fractional reserve banking is not against libertarian principles. Click here. I agree with you about the state meddling, though. knirirr | 09.15.08 - 12:55 pm | #The article's concludes:
In brief, I do not find any of the libertarian arguments against fractional-reserve banking compelling. The charge of fraud can be handled by clear deposit contracts and proper labeling of notes, while the other two charges I address are either empty or irrelevant. It may be that bank customers would reject fractional-reserve banks if fully informed about their operation—although, again, I doubt that is true—but that is only an argument for full disclosure, not for banning the practice.In general I agree with Callahan's analysis. If I go out to my local shop and hand over a "Farrer Note" that's been crafted and signed by myself there is no fraud so long as I don't claim that the note is something other than what it is. If I sign the note with the word "Rembrandt" it seems clear that I have committed a fraud. The problem is that today's fractional reserve banking system is rather more complicated than a marketplace containing rival Farrer Notes, Bush Notes and Brown Notes all of which people take their chances with when accepting them. We have to consider the role of the central bank.
As always, Rothbard hits the nail on the head:
Indeed, Rothbard does no less than portray the Fed as a cartelizing device that limits entry into and regulates competition within the lucrative fractional-reserve banking industry and stands ready to bail it out, thus guaranteeing its profits and socializing its losses. Rothbard further demonstrates that not only bankers, but also incumbent politicians and their favored constituencies and special interest groups benefit from the Fed's power to create money at will. This power is routinely used in the service of vote-seeking politicians to surreptitiously tax money holders to promote the interests of groups that gain from artificially cheap interest rates and direct government subsidies. These beneficiaries include, among others, Wall Street financial institutions, manufacturing firms that produce capital goods, the military-industrial complex, the construction and auto industries, and labor unionsThe Bank of England is unlikely to bail out any unlucky holders of "Farrer Notes" should it become apparent that are only worth the paper they are printed on. As we are seeing right now the Bush and Brown notes are being bailed out. So expect lots and lots of inflation, at least in terms of Bushes and Browns. Banks advance loans on a base of government issued money that gives them an unwarranted degree of credibility. Without a central bank I have little doubt that a fractional reserve bank wouldn't last very long in an unsubsidised marketplace.
Adopted Domain lays bare the economic ignorance at Holyrood:
Why did HBOS go down? If you listen to the Holyrood debating chamber led by the SNP, the recent blamestorm pointed almost unanimously toward the short-sellers - the spivs and the speculators - who took a one way bet against the public purse. Andy Cochrane and Holyrood Chronicles are surprised to see politicians from all the main parties lining up to have a populist dig at the short sellers, with the exception of the Greens, Patrick Harvie, who seemed to be the only one with any financial literacy whatsoever. This, despite the fact that many of the same short sellers who allegedly brought down HBOS, will have lost a great deal of cash when the market rebounded at the end of last week, largely led by financial stocks.I wonder whether MSPs really are as financially uninformed as they appear to be. Perhaps they just hope that spouting off about "spivs" will appeal to the electorate, no matter how nonsensical that theory may be. I have the horrible feeling that they really are ignorant and that doesn't make me too optimistic about what the political class will get up to in the future. Needless-to-say there's no evidence of any greater sophistication at Westminster.The act of shorting stock does not bring banks down, a lack of trust in the business model does. It seems much more likely to me that the fact the growing perception in the city that HBOS had become too dependent on the wholesale money markets, just like Northern Rock, and the fact that it had the biggest exposure to the bust balloon UK property market, may well have been much bigger factors in their demise. Yet no criticism from Labour, the SNP, the Tories or the LibDems on the management of HBOS. And Gordon Browns solution to the crisis? Make a yet bigger bank.
As for HBOS itself, here's a marvellous quote from today's Mail on Sunday. It's about HBOS chairman Lord Stevenson:
Awarded the CBE in 1981 and made a life peer in 1999, he likes to describe himself as "an unreconstructed 1960s Guardian-reading liberal."If Stevenson had been an unreconstructed 1860s (Manchester) Guardian-reading liberal none of this would have happened.
