Thursday, 16 August, 2007
- 16 Aug 07, 05:28 PM
Tonight's programme is presented by .
MARKET TURMOIL
It's been another day of turmoil on the markets with the FTSE reacting to big falls on the Asian stock markets overnight and trading below 6,000 for the first time since October last year. So could this loss of faith in the global financial system bring us closer to a recession, or can a little fear amongst traders actually be a good thing? We'll discuss what all the uncertainty means for you.
WASTE DUMPING IN IVORY COAST
We have a special report on the fight for compensation in the Ivory Coast over allegations that a waste dumping scandal left 100,000 people injured, and 16 dead. The company being sued is vigorously defending the case but the victims are determined that Trafigura must pay. We'll be talking to the founder of Trafigura live on the programme.
CONSERVATIVE TAX PLANS
Our Political Editor Michael Crick will have the latest on the Conservative Party's plans to open up some clear blue water on tax with Labour.
THE POLITICS OF DEMONSTRATION
First the commercial airlines, now private jets. Our Business Correspondent Paul Mason has spent the day with the anti-flying protestors as they continue their battle to make us all care about the impact air travel has on the planet.
PETERLOO
Today is also the anniversary of the 1819 massacre at Peterloo, when the British military killed 11 and injured hundreds taking part in a pro-democracy demonstration in Manchester. It had a huge influence on giving ordinary people the vote. How has the politics of demonstration changed in the ensuing two centuries, and do the ancestors of today's demonstrators deserve a more fitting memorial to their sacrifice?
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Tonight I shall not need subtitles, as Kirsty is elsewhere and "attack dog" Paxo is prowling the grounds. For some reason my 70-year-old hearing can understand every word of Paxo and Gavin and Emily (and Martha) but is defeated over and over by Kirsty.
Am I alone in this? There seem to be no edges to Kirsty's diction, only fluffy middles. What is more, she is more fluffy on some nights than others. In other circumstances I am sure I would be pleased to be entertained by a Kirsty with a fluffy middle, but this is Newsnight - and I'm paying!
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Global Warming is that when our sun turns into a red giant or is it red dwarf and completly engulfs Mother Earth and frys us all in 2 to 4 billion years? Chances are the way our political muppets in charge of the countrys on this planet are carrying on we wont have anything to worry about. The heathrow protesters are all very nice i'm sure but I do feel they are barking up the wrong tree. barking being the operative word
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PETERLOO - HONOUR AND DISHONOUR
In the early 1800s at Peterloo, Henry Hunt advocated universal suffrage. In the late 1900s, Tony Blair and his Machiavellian chums manipulated a critical rump, of a half-awake residue, of adult Britons to bring to unconstrained power the man (Antony Lynton Blair) who, on this very day, is reported to have hired a top American lawyer to optimise the sale of his infamous diaries. One might think the world had already paid enough for history 鈥 Blair style; yet still he would optimise the price! This is the measure of our erstwhile, self-styled 鈥渓eader鈥.
By all means commemorate the wronged citizens of Peterloo, but at the same time note: it was universal suffrage, manipulated by 鈥渄ark forces鈥, that was 鈥渢he cause of Blair鈥 and will yet be the cause of worse than Blair.
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Instead of wasting valuable time on the headless chickens in the City of London, I suggest you examine in detail the ratio of A Level grades.
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To D Allen
Your anti global warming theories are fascinating. However, I feel it is you who is "barking" up the wrong tree, with the same emphasis on the same words.
To change my mind, all you need to do is write down your ideas in the form of a scientific paper and pass peer review. Would you, in my position, trust hard scientificly established facts over your whimms?
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Hi Sebastian. (Post 5) I couldn鈥檛 let your faith in peer review go unchallenged. You are not a worshipper at the Church of Dawkins are you? The trouble with peer review is it suppresses the new in favour of the established 鈥 even if the established is wrong. Better minds than mine are on the case:
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Toxic Dumping in Cote d'Ivoire:
Jeremy Paxman seemed at a loss on his interview with the Trafigura spokesman. Where had it been established that the waste dumped was 'petroleum waste mixed with soda', as Trafigura asserted, and therefore, as it further asserted, it was perfectly feasible that they should have diverted from landing their waste in Nederland and instead selected Abidjan because of its alleged experience of and capacity for dealing with treating this sort of waste? Was the type of waste never notified to the Dutch authorities, who were regulated to record such information? Either the company knew and withheld it, or it didn't and was palpably reckless or worse in not knowing? Why should we have to take Trafigura's assertion as factual? Where was Newsnight's rigorous investigation? Why couldn't Trafigura's assertion be soundly countered and rejected?
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"PETERLOO
Today is also the anniversary of the 1819 massacre at Peterloo, when the British military killed 11 and injured hundreds taking part in a pro-democracy demonstration in Manchester. It had a huge influence on giving ordinary people the vote. How has the politics of demonstration changed in the ensuing two centuries, and do the ancestors of today's demonstrators deserve a more fitting memorial to their sacrifice?"
Don't make me laugh. The forces of despotism suffered a mild temporary setback but they hardly lost the war. In the end they will win as the British People will have no say in forfeiting ALL of their sovereignty to the Eurocracy which will dictate every aspect of life to it in the biggest swindle since Peter Minuet bought Manhattan Island from the Indians for $24 worth of beads and trinkets. They're already more than halfway there having given up the very notion of what it means to be English. It is unacceptable to say that hundreds of thousands of Moslems and 650,000 Poles cannot be British because they will transform the culture to one of homogeniety with the rest of the EU. That's the whole idea. Voting? What have the Brits ever been allowed to vote for that actually made a difference in their lives? They are owned by a ruling class lock stock and barrel and they don't even know it. If they weren't, they wouldn't be subsidizing a Monarchy or an aristocricy. There would be no House of Lords, there wouldn't be Lords to lord it over them. Democracy in Britain, what a joke.
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Can someone please fix the programme updates on the website as again it's not working properly!!!
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I can't see Inheritance tax being abolished and not replaced with something else. It is after all a significant source of income. A flat rate above an arbritrary value seems rather simplistic (the current 40% over 拢300k). Maybe it should be tapered more, with varying rates like stamp duty, to help middle England and the middle classes. It takes no account of the number of siblings it is distributed across for a start is a valid point of fairness. One alternative option could be to give everyone in effect an inheritance tax allowance. People could also have a Capital Gains Tax allowance. The allowances could possibly be all pooled. This would mean the tax would more accurately reflect the status of the recipient. However if everyone had a single tax allowance for every tax including income tax, problems could arise by making it a disincentive to work for some of the most capable individuals, descended from rich ancestors, and that would be unlikely to help the economy. This would make all life savings of any description usable for living due to tax purposes. Surely a communist ideal. Gordon Brown's time as chancellor involved getting people off benefits and into work. This saved money, but would making it not worth peoples while working actually hurt the economy ? After all it wouldn't lead to more people claiming benefits. I would however expect a significant brain drain overseas. There is no difference in money saved, but people with rich ancestors would be inclined to become persons of leisure. So should all tax be better combined, or at least individual taxes more linked to one another to some extent. There are allowances for tax on income earned in savings such as ISA's, which are independent of income tax that not everyone uses. Income tax is paid on an annual basis, inheritance tax is a one off tax. It is a lottery as to the state of the economy and number of siblings when the estate has to be broken up. Means tested allowance maybe ? I'm not sure that would be the best idea, as it could only be means tested on income currently earnt, and not the longer term financial situation of the recipient. Inheritance tax does seem to be a double tax on income that has already been taxed once when it was originally earned. Reform the tax to more accurately reflects the status of the recipient, by allocating everyone an inheritance tax allowance is my best pragmatic conclusion.
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Several months ago I called upon Peter Barron to do a Newsnight special on derivatives. These spectacular gambles taken by banks, insurance providers, pension funds and others are extremely dangerous, risky and on the verge of unbundling. This is more than market nerves and dodgy US debt. The media, including the 大象传媒, are interviewing industry spokespersons whose advice and briefing is self serving. Talking up the market will only provide short term feel good assurance. It is not the role of the central bank to cover speculative risky gambles, as Richard stated in his answer to Jeremy Paxman. Newsnight is terrific, and a step above the usual quality of discussion, but the risk to the global economy is far greater than the longer term risks to the world due to dubious carbon emission theories. Let's have the Newsnight Special on Derivatives and Hedge Funds soon: a public service would be served.
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11 years of Education under Gordon Brown influence ....
Labour is not only content to artificially squeeze 50% of the future work force into Universities, but has to ensure there are enough A Level students available to take up the places in our increasingly dumbed down higher educational facilities.
People may bemoan the farce of grading (I do) ... what about the subjects our educational cannon fodder choose.
Saw some earlier beeb footage, about interviewing students as they opened their results.
The subjects passed those interviewed were ecstatic about were ...
- drama
- media
- film making
鈥 thankfully someone even mentioned:
- english lang
- english lit
Was is too much of the 大象传媒 to interview students at a school where useful traditional subjects (essential for a modern functional society) may still exist.
Just what the world needs, legions of unemployed & bankrupted graduates with both attitude & unachievable aspirations, unable to practically do anything other than as 'runners'.
But at least they are able to 'express themselves' to the captive audience of the Labour Exchange (& doubtless post on their media filled blogs). In between bouts of their hedonistic parasitical lifestyle & therapy for 'modern' conditions, fit for nothing more than being rejected wannabee contestants on Big Brother & X-Factor.
Perhaps they don't care about the fall in the numbers of British Students studying core subjects, as this 11 year administration are happy to asset strip the world of people with those skills at the high end & also those at lower levels (esp given lack of border control, they might as well try to 'legitimate' their loss of control).
It's farcical we are encouraging people to get a supposed education, 'choose' subjects (often trendy subjects) which hardly arm them for the work market.
Labour then indebt graduates (presuming they pass) to the point of being inactive economic participants (even if they can find work) since they have to pay off debts & if they can't find work, Labour allows them to rot on the dole.
The UK under 11 years of Gordon Browns economic & policy strategies is not only importing skilled workers to do those roles we are short of (because of a key lack on investment in our people) but also importing people to do the manual menial work our 'trendy subject' qualified unemployed should be doing?
What next? ... we start to import unemployed people? 鈥 then again as 2.8% of new arrivals from eastern europe are claiming benefit within 6 months of arriving, Gordon's got that one covered as well [1]
鈥 but the cyclic nature of economic reality will eventually hit home 鈥. bang ... BROWNS BOOMERANG will strike.
Then what? the whole nation ends up living the Full Monty, complete with media graduates dancing in the aisles of the Labour Exchange.
vikingar
SOURCES:
[1]
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Dear Sebastion d allan 2 a's
I am anti global warming, certain events in the world at present distress me Bomb making in particular in the mode of Dr Strangelove. Move to Higher Ground, Dont buld 2 million houses on a flood plane unless they are on stilts. I feel that our Labour Goverment Child killing Machine should take the lead in any Protesting taking place in our country at the moment, No point in protesting to people about Global Warming if we follow policys from Nulabour that advocates Child Killing at Home and Abroad.
Kind Regards
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Where is last night's newsnight?
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LIVING WITH A HIGH RISK SOCIETY!
As I predicted a week ago, the market slide is continuing. But, also as I predicted, the blame is still placed on the US sub-prime defaults.
Unfortunately the problem is much wider. After the recession of the late 1980s/early 1990s, which might have been expected to result in a degree of caution, we 鈥 and our political masters 鈥 have lurched in the opposite direction. The subsequent decade and a half-long boom has been fuelled by speculation at all levels; from the domestic to the global.
At the domestic level the willingness of individuals to fund current lifestyles on the back of (plastic) borrowing, in the dubious hope of paying later, clearly puts their future at some risk; especially where their old age no longer is protected by guaranteed final salary pension schemes. The accompanying gamble by them on their property investments has stretched their risks from four figures well into five. Even the high-profile defaults in the US property markets are making little impact on the cavalier optimism in the UK housing market; even though the evidence is that our own markets are even more over-stretched. The old caveat that 鈥榠nvestments can go down as well as up鈥 seems no longer to be even considered.
There is, however, a much bigger problem at the corporate and national/international levels. The massive profits being made in the City come not from well-considered investments in the wider economy but from speculation within the financial markets themselves. Even the clearing banks, whilst grudgingly carrying on with their traditional roles, have been forced by their shareholders to put their own equity 鈥 and perhaps that of their domestic customers 鈥 at risk in the pursuit of speculation on the most hazardous of derivative markets; including exposure to the US sub-prime, leading to second-line investments they would never have considered from their domestic customers. Indeed, the stock market has always been led by speculation; with the gamble not being on what the value of the companies being invested in might be, and not even on where those investment values might be going, but on what the others in the herd of investors judge this future might be. It was Lord Keynes who, the best part of a century ago, described the process as 鈥榓nimal spirits鈥. Now the speculation has been compounded by the availability of derivatives as a main vehicle for this speculation, where the derivatives markets add immeasurably to the risk by being totally opaque. Nobody knows how they work or what they contain and, in particular, what black holes lurk below the surface.
On the other hand, the wider business environment is almost as risky. Share prices, which these days seem to be the only factor which motivate corporate managements, do not reflect the underlying strength of the companies, but are too often driven by speculation as to what takeovers might be in the offing. This process has recently been escalated by the impact of the private equity organizations; which use their very high levels of gearing to strip out obscene levels of profit. Of course, as we will soon see, the (so far unreported) downside of this is the equally high levels of risk they represent.
As I said at the start, all of this reflects the new values of a society which admires the gambler, from the ephemeral 鈥榗elebrity鈥 (who is famous just for being famous) to the 鈥榚ntrepreneur鈥 (who can make billions for themselves by their speculations but whose potential losses have to be covered by the rest of us), above the more traditional heroes of earlier times.
It is perhaps significant that the Conservatives are today backing the speculative society; promising to cut taxes on speculative gains (especially on property) and simultaneously pledging to remove legislation which protects us from the worst excesses.
Are we starting on the long slide to the hell which awaits all gambling addicts?
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Protesting such as blockading is a form of terrorism in as much the idea depends upon courting publicity by law breaking. So they are exploiting the amoral character of the media for whom crime stories are a big seller.
However protesters can't know what their aims are ie gaining publicity otherwise they would know the methods of publicity e.g having the girls cycle topless through london would have got them all the publicity they needed. Basically their criminality is a form of being inarticulate publicitywise?
So why do protesters prefer illegality as a means of publicity? Because they are criminal characters rather than true publicists?
methods one might consider as effective
the use of undercover films to expose?
use of stings [ie borrow from the fake shiek book]
gate crash existing high publicity meeting such as the bin ladin at windsor
build personal relationships with every mp in the land and make sure they are on first name terms and constantly in their consciousness
if the bbc wants to promote a show do they get staff to chain themselves to railings?
democracy is all about showmanship as we are not trying to reason with the mob but entertain and emotionalise them.
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why do we buy into anything we are told: climate change is a roasting debate and it appears most are really excepting the popular view that man is the sole contributor to global warming, am not yet fully convinced.
if sebastian or any one else has some spare time watch this google video
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Well done JP... The Conservative spokesman was at least allowed to deliver his lines without the interviewer interrupting ..doing Labours work for them...He put down the Labour Spokesman several times & brought him to order, Andy Burnham was completely out of of his depth..hadn't read the Tory Policies Book at all ...just trying to score cheap points/jibes,not interested in the policies, what a sad reflection on this Government...bring back Patricia Hewitt?... oh God no , no . Any-day now they'll bring on Brown's bossiest Babe Yvette 'yer know' Cooper, to rant & rave.!!They should have got around to discussing(her) HIPS & the roll-out to three bedroom houses ..another OLD/new Labour NEW stealth Tax ... they certainly know how to push the self destruct button...a mini Poll Tax Labour style.
Lets have more sensible policies from the Tories & get our Country back before it's too late!
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Re: (Posting No.7) Richard Harkinson on:
Toxic Dumping in Cote d'Ivoire
My understanding is that this matter is subjet to a legal/judicial procedure.
Jeremy Paxman's interview successfully (in my view) drew our attention to the matter whilst also highlighting (quite clearly, I thought) questions that still need answering in the issue. Furthermore, the interview revealed a certain reticence on the part of the founder of Transfigura to answer directly certain fairly simple questions.
To Mr Harkinson's question:
"Why couldn't Trafigura's assertion be soundly countered & rejected?", I ask:
Is it really Newsnight's place to come to a final conclusion on this question or is that a matter for the legal/judicial process?
Thank you.
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Typing Correction on Previous my previous posting:
Re: (Posting No.7) Richard Harkinson on:
Toxic Dumping in Cote d'Ivoire
My understanding is that this matter is subjet to a legal/judicial procedure.
Jeremy Paxman's interview successfully (in my view) drew our attention to the matter whilst also highlighting (quite clearly, I thought) questions that still need answering in the issue. Furthermore, the interview revealed a certain reticence on the part of the founder of Trafigura to answer directly certain fairly simple questions.
To Mr Harkinson's question:
"Why couldn't Trafigura's assertion be soundly countered & rejected?", I ask:
Is it really Newsnight's place to come to a final conclusion on this question or is that a matter for the legal/judicial process?
Thank you.
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