(High) Trump stakes

The Brexit parallels with Trump in the US are painfully apparent making this article describing how he’s moved politics there from conservative vs liberal to normal vs abnormal so relevant. However, the point, commentators aren’t getting or acknowledging is simple; we‘ve done normal (and rational), it worked and works plenty fine for “them”, but hasn’t done any good for "us" for a good long while now, in fact it’s done an increasing amount of bad, 

Which is weird, and gawd knows where's next.

A lil insight ... just a lil

“Two HSBC executives have been charged in the US for allegedly conspiring to rig international currency markets.

Mark Johnson, HSBC'sglobal head of foreign exchange cash trading in London, and Stuart Scott,former head of HSBC's forex trading for Europe, the Middle East and Africa,will appear in a New York court.”

When is an executive not an executive? When he’s a “head of”. A more accurate description of a “head of” would be senior manager or even baby executive, but one thing they are not is especially senior, “global” or otherwise, which prompts a few questions:

1)  So (US) regulators are going after currency traders now, not just libor bods, interesting…. (it fits the still subterranean narrative of every market that could be gamed appears to have gamed i.e. fraud was committed, and slowly but surely folks are gonna pay)

2)  thought traders got the big bucks because they superstar moneymakers, not crooks?

3) The folks that’re gonna pay aren’t that senior, meaning the real senior guys are going to keep getting away with it

4) Why are people who aren’t that senior being misrepresented as being senior?

5) And Jezuz, Shitting Christ and his 12 disciples, why has been going on for years? (compare/contrast re: how long it takes to prosecute "plebs")

As an aside, given these guys look like they’re getting hauled up in the US, I’d be shitting myself if I was them (see here for instance).

Flying high, but then an unfriendly sky

Nice short documentary here about Concorde, a moment when Britain and France united to take on the US and the Russians in a technology race and won, producing one of the most sublime pieces of engineering in the process. And then there’s Airbus, that pan-European marvel, arguably built to help reb-alance the trade deficit of however many European countries because they were importing too many Boeings.

Anyhoo,  here’s a link to a scientist explaining how Brexit is already fucking science in Britain, a thing that creates jobs, companies and money at the same times as enriching and advancing us all as a society and as a civilisation. Compare/contrast/and cry.

Bitches in high placces

Reflecting on how the debate about Barclays and HSBC leaving the UK fizzled out when they all got caught at it by US regulators I noted; "Or was it the reality of not having UK regulators to back them up when the Americans got a hold of their nads that prompted second thoughts?"

I was close I guess, it was actually the Chancellor who successfully backed them up against the Americans with a congressional report in the US stating that when HSBC was getting done for money laundering, " the UK "hampered" the probe and "influenced" the outcome."

Self-congratulation aside, HSBC subsequenrly started the whole debate all over again in a gob smacking display of ingratitude. Gits.

The devaluation of devaluation

One of the reasons Greece is so fucked is because it's in the Euro it doesn't have a currency to devalue to make itself more competitive, draw in foreign investors etc., etc., So arguably, the post Brexit vote devaluation of Sterling is a good thing for the British economy ... ish.

British manufacturing has spent decades being restructured into a sector at a remove from immediate price senstitivties; you don't buy a Rolls Royce jet engine because it's the cheapest, you buy it because it's the best. Similarly, you don't buy Scottish whiskey because it's 37p cheaper than a Bulgarian equivalent.

Britain simply doesn't make much in the way of price sensitive goods anymore, but is reliant on imported materials to make things (and to eat) and imported things are now more expensive.

Similarly, devaluation might have attracted more foriegn investors, except their access to EU markets is now up for debate. So again, no win there.

True, it should boost tourism a bit, except will the tourists be asked when they're going to leave because we (by we, I mean Brexit voting fucktards not me) won the vote?

How Facebook won the referendum

Sitting beside a colleague from the North of England opining on the Brexit vote, I thought “pffff”. Her view was that much of it was to do with the failure on the part of the Remain campaign to put across its message effectively. Neither they did, but so what?

Brexit was probably more about Facebook than the Arab Spring ever was. It, and twitter I guess, let Brexit voting fucktards stew in their own ignorance to an unprecedented degree. Reading what a friend of a friend of a friend on Facebook just posted let them live in a bubble of bollocks whilst claiming they were getting the real facts from real people, not those big business, politician ivory towered elite bastards; that it was typically bullshit free from facts, analysis or understanding was by the by.

As a result it arguably didn’t matter what Remain said, they’d already been either dismissed out of hand or were simply ignored regardless of whether they spelled out the practical consequences of leaving. And is funny the BBC ain’t reporting on this aspect of the vote, the bit that implies they’re a banjaxxed irrelevance (for a direct parallel see how they also completely ignored the internet leaking aspect of the we are the 99% thing, rendering it another implicit example of swarthy types being seen to be more susceptible to what's online, whereas us white folk are assumed to know better and have better public broadcasters). And yet here’s the thing, all but the dumbest of Brexit voters is now slowly waking up to the fact they’ve shafted themselves and most other folks in Britain too; racist and xenophobic assaults have spiked, Britain has been downgraded, companies are holding off taking on new staff and the pound has fallen meaning it’s worth less in your pocket because all imported goods and service are more expensive (and this is just the fucking beginning).

Anyhoo, as we head into a probable recession, I reckon it’s worth gathering up the collective wisdom of the Brexit voters so they can get their noses rubbed in their own, tangy ignorance; My favourite was originally a moron who explained she was voting out because of the Turks, Turks being "dirty bastards"  (Turkey ain’t joining the EU any time soon for those who don’t know). However, this has been overtaken by "cos it means the EU can’t stop us bringing back hanging”. Yep, those are two actual reasons why some folks voted for Brexit, the fucking, ignorant nuggets.