Archive for the ‘Socialism’ Category

Jeremy Corbyn’s hard-line socialism and Bolivarian aspirations … – FinanceFeeds (blog)

The thought of Tier 1 FX desks being run by teams of entitled, unaccountable gray cardigan-wearing Caravan Club members with civil service pension plans should be enough to send the entire industry striking up prime brokerage relationships in Hong Kong, New York and Singapore.

Just one month remains before Britains electorate goes to the polls to elect the prime minister that will lead the country for the next four years after incumbent premier Theresa May called a snap General Election two weeks ago.

Never since the dark days of the late 1970s has there been such a polarization between potential candidates, Theresa Mays evident attempts to emulate the late and great Baroness Margaret Thatcher a far cry from opposition leader Jeremy Corbyns old-fashioned extreme left aspirations.

It is entirely possible to listen to a speech by Mr Corbyn, or read his party manifesto, whilst reminiscing over the several meter high piles of refuse adorning the streets of every town and city, the three day working week and the nationwide industrial disobedience that brought Britains proud industrial empire to its knees forty years ago.

There are far more considerations this time than socio-economic preferences, however, as todays world is an electronic one, and Londons financial markets economy, which leads the world and is responsible for 176 billion in revenues and is so efficient that it employs only 0.0009% of the European Unions workforce yet produces 16% of all tax receipts for the entire 28 member states and has a 76 billion trade surplus.

It is patently evident that Londons financial sector especially the non-bank electronic trading sector with its prime of prime brokerages, connectivity and integration suppliers, and their relationship with the eFX divisions of Canary Wharfs Tier 1 banks is a pinnacle of commercial excellence and leads the world.

Not very much scratching beneath the surface of Jeremy Corbyns hammer-and-sickle toting shadow cabinet is required to note something quite sinister, that being the socialist Labor Partys disdain for Britains largest and most revenue driving business, Londons financial markets industry.

Just three years ago, there was a substantial amount of discourse mounting in London with regard to the European Unions predilection for the intrinsically socialist Tobin Tax on transactions that are placed in trading financial instruments.

That has now gone completely quiet, as Britain opposed it on principle and has managed to fend it off, however in 2013, eleven European Union member states, all of which were led by left-wing governments, announced their wish to move ahead with introducing a financial transactions tax.

At that time, the nations which include France and Germany intended to use the tax to help raise funds to tackle the debt crisis, and the tax had the backing of the European Commission which was reinforced after the 2014 election the highly unpopular Jean-Claude Juncker as President.

The other countries that wished to introduce it were Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Greece, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Estonia, all nations with absolutely no place in the worlds highly advanced financial markets economy. Greeces government accountants, when not asleep for half of the day, cannot tell the top from the bottom of their balance sheets, Italy is rife with corruption, Portugal is agrarian, Belgium has invoked outright bans of retail electronic trading instruments and Slovakia, Slovenia and Estonia have absolutely no Tier 1 bank presence.

Jeremy Corbyns policies echo this line of thinking.

The Tobin tax was originally proposed to target the FX market when it was orchestrated by James Tobin in the 1970s, and whilst Britain has managed to remain free from its burden until now, Jeremy Corbyn is a staunch advocate of implementing it.

In September 2015, Jeremy Corbyn and Shadow Chancellor and equally leftist John McDonnell made a schedule to meet four times per year with a seven-strong group comprising of economic academics (rather than business leaders) one of which was Anastasia Nesvetailova, a self-designated expert on the international financial sector and its role in the global financial crisis of 2007-09. Ms. Nesvietailova, is an academic who spends her day in the classroom rather than the boardroom, thus is a theorist and has no practical experience. Just the type of policy advisors favored by the left.

During one particular conversation, the Labor Partys support for the implementation of the Tobin Tax on all trading transactions was raised, as was, rather alarmingly, the potential of a Britain free of dominance of the financial sector.

Bearing this in mind, it is worth looking at John McDonnells credentials and viewpoint.

Mr. McDonnell is a former trade unionist who backs renationalizing banks and imposing wealth taxes. He actually lists generally fomenting the overthrow of capitalism as one of his interests in the Whos Who directory of influential people. He also advocates the complete public ownership of all banks.

Mr McDonnell has served as Chair of the Socialist Campaign Group in Parliament and the Labour Representation Committee, and was the chair of the Public Services Not Private Profit Group. He is also Parliamentary Convenor of the Trade Union Co-ordinating Group of eight left-wing trade unions representing over half a million workers

The thought of Tier 1 FX desks being run by teams of entitled, unaccountable gray cardigan-wearing Caravan Club memberswith civil service pension plans should be enough to send the entire industry striking up prime brokerage relationships in Hong Kong, New York and Singapore.

Mr McDonnell has also said publicly that if he was able to, he would have assassinated Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, a comment that when challenged, he retracted and said it was a joke.

Well, Mr McDonnell, that kind of extreme anti-business mentality combined with a will to bring the entire financial markets sector to its knees in the rebellious quest for overthrowing capitalism is not welcome.

Mr McDonnell wrote in 2012 that a financial transaction tax would halt the frenetic, madcap speculation in the City and raise money for infrastructure investment.

If the City resists then lets make it clear that capital controls would follow, he said in a piece for Labour Briefing, a left-wing website.

He has also said he wants to take the power to set interest rates away from the Bank of England and to give it back to government. This would reverse a decision by the Blair government to let the central bank decide monetary policy.

If his choice of senior cabinet ministers is not enough to ensure that this odious relic of the dark days of socialism stays out of office, Mr. Corbyns affection for Venezuelan communist dictator Hugo Chavez should do the trick.

In 2013, Mr. Corbyn tweeted Thanks Hugo Chavez for showing that the poor matter and wealth can be shared. He made massive contributions to Venezuela & a very wide world just after president Chavez passed away.

The hard-left policies of Mr Corbyns idol Hugo Chavez have left a once-rich nation brutalized and devastated and with 2,200% inflation, strict capital control laws and an inability to do business with any free market nations.

Venezuela shows quite clearly just how catastrophic socialism is. So you might then expect those well-meaning folk who held up Chavez as a paragon to admit their mistake. Naomi Campbell, Diane Abbott, Seumas Milne and Owen Jones in the UK; Sean Penn, Oliver Stone and Michael Moore in the US. Not a peep from any of them.

Hugo Chavez successor Nicolas Maduro has turned out to be a first class economic incompetent. In 2016, imports collapsed by more than 50% (largely due to socialist trade sanctions) and the economy nosedived by 19%.

The budget deficit is around 20% of GDP. The minimum wage is now the equivalent of 25 a month. Conversely, Londons financial sector employs several middle managers between the ages of 25 and 35 who easily earn between 150,000 to 200,000 per annum, rising to over 500,000 for a senior executive position, and professional mobility the chance of switching to new firms and accelerating ones career is among the best in the world.

After a Central Bank estimate that suggested that the Venezuelan economy had contracted by 19% last year was leaked to the press, Mr Maduro fired the banks president and replaced him with a Marxist loyalist demonstrating another very problematic aspect of left wing control, censorship and that anyone who speaks against the ideology, whether right or wrong, will be removed from office.

Up to 640 billion of oil money was lavished on the countrys poor during the oil boom years, creating a gargantuan dependency culture. The country quintupled its national debt and hundreds of thousands of homes (of questionable construction quality) were handed to the poor. President Chavez created a massive and unsustainable bubble which is now beginning its slow, painful collapse.

At the heart of Venezuelas economic chaos lie market distortions. Gasoline is sold locally for less than 1 British pence per litre and it receives 12 billion of state subsidies a year. The country has a complex monetary arrangement that makes use of three different exchange rates simultaneously.

This feeds rampant corruption because those with close connections to the president can buy dollars from the state at 10 bolivars a dollar but sell them at 3,300 bolivars a dollar on the black market a classic case of do as I say, dont do as I do.

Price controls have made it unprofitable for small businesses to sell staple goods, leading to widespread shortages. Carjackings and kidnappings are now epidemic. Caracass murder rate is 80 times higher than that of London, which over the last 15 years has become very safe indeed, especially in Central London, and in particular, the Square Mile where it would be extremely rotten luck to have even so much as a wallet stolen from a pocket.

It does not bear thinking about should a government with these views and ideas which are aimed at instilling a new world order gain office, hence London will likely be business as usual on June 9 once the sensible rather than anarchic have done the right thing at the polling booths.

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Jeremy Corbyn's hard-line socialism and Bolivarian aspirations ... - FinanceFeeds (blog)

Ian McShane: I had free further education under socialism – Big Issue

Ian McShane has told The Big Issue how he benefitted in his teenage years from socialist rule but was glad to escape his home town.

In this weeks Big Issue, the veteran actor also talks candidly about his drinking problems, and the moment that changed his life.

I got on with everyone when I was 16, says McShane. Atschool there were all these groups you had the teddy boys, the swots. But I got on with them all. Im glad I got the f**k out of Manchester but you never escape your childhood.

Im glad I left, but you never escape your childhood

I love going back, he continues. I still see my oldest friends. And the odd ex-girlfriend I had when I was 16, which all seems very sweet now I look back on it.

I had a happy life there. I had the best of the NHS and free further education I was brought up in the first 15 years of socialist rule.

In this weeks Letter to My Younger Self, the Lovejoy star currently appearing in Jawbone and American Gods says that he recognisedthe significance of meeting his wife for the first time.

DID YOU KNOW

The Big Issue has inspired the launch of 120 street papers globally, including sister titles in Australia, South Africa, Japan, Taiwan and Korea.

As soon as I saw her, 38 years ago, I thought, Aaah shit, Im in trouble,' he says.I wasnt looking for a long-term relationship so I did just go, oh Christ. You cant explain it. Love is what it is. If Id waited a moment longer I might have walked the other way.

If I could go back to any time in my life it would be just a week after we met. I was in LAX airport, leaving to go to Britain, thinking Ah, great girl, Ill be seeing her again in two weeks. And she suddenly turned up to say goodbye. I was sitting having a beer and she came up and said, Hello darling, I love you. I think thats one of my happiest memories.

Read more from Ian McShane on his alcoholismand relationship with his father inthis weeks Big Issue, on sale now

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Ian McShane: I had free further education under socialism - Big Issue

Socialism: The View from Venezuela – Reason (blog)

YouTubeProtests against the long national nightmare of socialism continue in Venezuela, as the death toll over the last month has risen to 37 and over the weekend demonstrators tore down a statue of Hugo Chavez, the former president who ushered in the era of chavismo, his Latin American flavor of socialism, or "Bolivarian socialism"the protests represent the inevitable end to any socialist experiment.

In his heyday, Chavez was heralded by a number of leftists in the West as a model of democratic socialism. After Chavez's 2013 death, filmmaker Michael Moore gushed over Chavez's nationalization of the oil industry. "He used the oil $ 2 eliminate 75% of extreme poverty, provide free health & education 4 all," Moore tweeted. U.K. Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn said Chavez showed the world that "the poor matter and wealth can be shared" and that he made massive contributions to Venezuela" and the world.

Chavez was succeeded by his vice president, Nicolas Maduro, who continued Chavez's policies sans the kind of charisma that blinded some to the incompetence of Chavez and the incoherence of Bolivarian socialism, and eventually without the high oil prices to subsidize profligate government spending either. Left to its own devices, the centralized planning of socialism has failed spectacularly in Venezuela.

America's favorite homegrown socialist, Bernie Sanders, once pointed to Venezuela as a model too.

"These days, the American dream is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina, where incomes are actually more equal today than they are in the land of Horatio Alger," Sanders wrote in a 2011 op-ed. "Who's the banana republic now?"

Last year, the average Venezuelan living in extreme poverty lost 19 pounds amid mass food shortages largely created and then exacerbated by government price controls60 percent of Venezuelans said they had to skip at least one meal a day. Maduro joked that the "Maduro diet," as the government-induced starvation has been called, was leading to better sex, to the applause of government workers and party loyalists but few others. There have been shortages of food as well as goods like toilet paper, deodorants, condoms, and even beer.

Some hardline socialists have been more critical of Chavez, criticizing the Western left's infatuation with Chavez, who the Socialist Party of Great Britain complained did not really understand socialism. Their argument boiled down to the fact that, to paraphrase Rick & Morty, Chavez should be trying socialism with extra steps. The Socialist Worker condemned Maduro's slide to authoritarianism earlier this month, even though the authoritarianism started soon after Chavez first came to power. The idea that socialism can ever effectively exclude cronyists when it accumulates the kind of power to which cronyists are attracted is preposterous.

Sanders, when he ran for president last year, no longer brought up the Venezuelan example of socialism. Instead he leaned on Americans' misinformed view of Scandinavian countries as socialist paradises. But Scandinavian countries like Sweden have "deregulation, free trade, a national school voucher system, partially privatized pensions, no property tax, no inheritance tax, and much lower corporate taxes," as Johan Norberg wrote last year.

Western leftists should not be allowed to distance themselves from the spoiled fruits of socialism in Venezuela, which they embraced only a few years ago. Countries across South America welcomed different versions of socialism over the last two decades, often to praise in the West, and, as The Economist noted in its latest Democracy Index, South American voters have tired of this left-wing populism and are slowly returning to more sensible, right-of-center free market policies.

Free market policies also happen to be the best antidotes to the currently ascendant populism and economic authoritarianism, as they have the power to best mitigate the kind of economically poor conditions in which populism thrives in the first place.

Maduro, and diehard supporters, blame the United States for Venezuela's woes, an increasingly unbelievable assertion in the face of evidence to the contrary. Even ThinkProgress, in a piece on the catastrophe in Venezuela that manages to avoid mentioning socialism (or chavismo or Bolivarianism for that matter) a single time, dismisses Maduro's fever dreams of U.S. responsibility for Venezuela's self-inflicted economic and political wounds.

The opposition in Venezuela won control of the legislature in elections in 2015, which was followed by the Maduro government working diligently to consolidate power even further. Protesters in Venezuela have demanded early elections, while Maduro has proposed a new constitution protesters call a coup.

The imprisoned opposition leader Leopold Lopez has called for the protests to continue.

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Socialism: The View from Venezuela - Reason (blog)

Huawei mixes Silicon Valley drive with Chinese socialism – Financial Times


Financial Times
Huawei mixes Silicon Valley drive with Chinese socialism
Financial Times
The vibe on the Huawei campus, spread out across two square miles in the city of Shenzhen, north of Hong Kong, is more state-owned enterprise than Silicon ...

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Huawei mixes Silicon Valley drive with Chinese socialism - Financial Times

CONNECTING THE DOTS: ISLAMISM…SOCIALISM GLOBALISM – Canada Free Press

The globalist elite play chess while the Islamists and Leftists/Socialists play checkers

The word globalism is often used in its narrowest context to mean global trade, which obscures its broader political intention to internationalize nation states and ultimately impose one-world government.

Similarly the word Islamism is often used in its narrowest context to mean a religion like any other which obscures its broader political intention to reestablish the caliphate and impose sharia law worldwide.

Both are supremacist, expansionist socio-political movements intent on world dominion.

Islamists like Globalists believe themselves and their supremacist tenets to be morally superior to all others. The Islamist cloaks his supremacy in religious fervor and the disingenuous conviction that Islam is a peaceful religion because peace to an Islamist means when all the world is Muslim.

The Globalist cloaks his supremacy in a parallel and equally disingenuous conviction that Globalism is tolerant because tolerance to a globalist means tolerating those who LOOK different, not those who THINK differently.

Both systems are tyrannical in their demand for absolute conformity to their proscribed rules of behavior - for Islamists it is religious sharia law and for globalists it is secular political correctness.

The Islamist and the Globalist are both soldiers in their parallel wars seeking totalitarian rule of the world. The difference between Islamists and Globalists is the difference between communism and socialism described by Ayn Rand:

THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COMMUNISM AND SOCIALISM, EXCEPT IN THE MEANS OF ACHIEVING THE SAME ULTIMATE END: COMMUNISM PROPOSES TO ENSLAVE MEN BY FORCE, SOCIALISM BY VOTE. IT IS MERELY THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MURDER AND SUICIDE.

Islamism and Globalism appear to exist on opposite sides of the political spectrum but they share a common enemy - the nation state. Nationalism is the single greatest obstacle to the religious caliphate of Islamism and to the secular one-world government of Globalism. The ancient proverb The enemy of my enemy is my friend explains the counter-intuitive common cause and intersectional alliance between Islamists and Globalists today.

Disinformation is a deliberate tactic of war. The Islamist fiction that the annihilation of Israel will bring peace to the middle east is a unifying tactic of war designed to demonize Israel, manipulate public opinion, and garner intersectional support from left-wing liberal lemmings against Israel. Islamist disinformation has a name - TAQIYYA - lying in the service of Islam. It is a deceitful strategy that deflects attention from the Islamist end game of eliminating the left-wing liberal infidels who support them. Similarly, the disinformation campaign supporting the fiction that Socialism will bring justice to the United States also has a name - ALINSKIYYA - lying in the service of Socialism. The hippies and anarchists of the 60s did not go quietly into the night. They have reconstituted themselves as the professors, administrators, politicians, activist judges, and policy-makers adhering to well-defined Tavistock Institute principles of social engineering and mass indoctrination designed to disinform, destabilize, and destroy America from within. Whoever controls the information controls society - and whoever controls the educational curriculum controls the future.

Islamists and Globalists follow the same expansionist playbook codified by Saul Alinsky in his book Rules for Radicals, Rule #12:

PICK THE TARGET, FREEZE IT, PERSONALIZE IT, POLARIZE IT. DONT TRY TO ATTACK ABSTRACT CORPORATIONS OR BUREAUCRACIES. IDENTIFY A RESPONSIBLE INDIVIDUAL. IGNORE ATTEMPTS TO SHIFT OR SPREAD THE BLAME.

Israel and America have been demonized, targeted, personalized, and polarized because both are unapologetic and unwavering in their commitments to their national sovereignty. The war against Israel and America is a war against nationalism. Israels right to exist as a sovereign Jewish state is actually being debated as is Americas right to exist as a sovereign democratic nation. The left-wing liberal narrative courtesy of Barack Hussein Obama has reformatted American education and American entertainment to reflect the dreams from his father - a Kenyan radical socialist who considered America an evil colonial power. The information war waged by the colluding mainstream media, academia, and the entertainment industry foments American self-loathing, demonizes President Donald Trump the symbol of America-first nationalism, and glorifies socialism, anti-semitism, and presents internationalism as the panacea that will bring social justice to the masses. Socialism has never worked in the long-run in any country in the world because as Margaret Thatcher pointed out Eventually you run out of other peoples money. Socialism has only had limited success in the short-run in very small homogenous populations because socialism and pluralism are antithetical to each other. Socialisms greatest success is in destroying a nations prosperity and in sacrificing individual citizens rights to government control. Ayn Rand explains that socialism even robs an individual of his right to exist:

SOCIALISM IS THE DOCTRINE THAT MAN HAS NO RIGHT TO EXIST FOR HIS OWN SAKE, THAT HIS LIFE AND HIS WORK DO NOT BELONG TO HIM, BUT BELONG TO SOCIETY, THAT THE ONLY JUSTIFICATION OF HIS EXISTENCE IS HIS SERVICE TO SOCIETY, AND THAT SOCIETY MAY DISPOSE OF HIM IN ANY WAY IT PLEASES FOR THE SAKE OF WHATEVER IT DEEMS TO BE ITS OWN TRIBAL, COLLECTIVE GOOD.

The essential question is WHY the Left is promoting communist values. The left-wing liberal agenda seeks to destroy the socio-political capitalist infrastructure of American democracy and transform it into a dependent socialist state with cradle to grave control by the government. Their strategy is to destroy the traditional American institutions of family, religion,, and education that promote independence, adulthood, individualism, and ego strength - all the qualities that made America great. The entire narrative of the Left is designed to induce regression through educational indoctrination and the media - as Hillary Clinton famously remarked they need an unaware compliant public. Unaware and compliant are the hallmarks of childhood. The sales pitch might sound good to a childish mind who is seduced by candy from a stranger but the adult mind understands the sinister end-game. Once the public is entirely dependent on the government they lose all individual rights and national sovereignty and the newly socialized state is poised to become part of an internationalized one-world government. That is the end-game of the globalist elite and the motivation for indoctrinating America toward socialism.

The problem is that the left-wing liberal lemmings are too arrogant to understand that they are participating in their own destruction - they are just the useful idiots. The Left has been indoctrinated to believe they are fighting for social justice when in fact they are helping to establish the dystopian nightmare of one-world government where there is no middle class, no upward mobility, no national sovereignty, and absolutely no individual freedoms. There is only the master ruling elite and the enslaved population who service them. The left-wing liberal lemmings should take a break from marching and resisting and start reading Bertrand Russells The Impact of Science on Society written in 1952. They will learn that their script was written 65 years ago by the globalist elites who dreamed of their own one-world government - a binary socio-political system of masters and slaves. The globalist elites New World Order was their personal self-serving answer to the Malthusian problem of the earth not having enough resources to sustain the population growth.

Tavistock Institute was exported to America after WWII with the specific purpose of indoctrinating Americans via education and the media - particularly television - the greatest vehicle for mass social engineering ever invented. The Hollywood glitterati and the protesting hoards should take a pause and understand there is no place for them in the New World Order - they are simply useful idiots who will be destroyed. The aristocratic Lord Bertrand Russell and the late David Rockefeller had no moral problem with eliminating the useless eaters anymore than Hitler had with exterminating Jews, Islamists with exterminating infidels, or the Chinese Emperors with burying their concubines alive to service them in the afterlife. The point is elitism is supremacist - there is no egalitarian respect for human life only the pretense of humanitarian considerations. The Left and the Islamists have common cause in trying to destroy America from within - but it is the globalist elites who finance and disingenuously facilitate both groups because the social chaos they each engender is a prerequisite for imposing globalist one-world government. For the globalist elite the Left and the Islamists are BOTH useful idiots. The globalist elite play chess while the Islamists and Leftists/Socialists play checkers.

Linda Goudsmit is a devoted wife, mother, and grandmother. She and her husband owned and operated a girls clothing store in Michigan for 40 years and are now retired on the beach in sunny Florida. Linda graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, earning a B.A. in English literature. Having a lifelong commitment to learning, she is an avid reader and observer of life. She has shared her thoughts, observations, and philosophy of behavior in her book DEAR AMERICA Whos Driving the Bus? Linda is currently working on a childrens book series titled Mimis STRATEGY that offers helpful problem solving techniques encouraging resourcefulness and critical thinking skills for kids.

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CONNECTING THE DOTS: ISLAMISM...SOCIALISM GLOBALISM - Canada Free Press