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"Have the Americans given up on President Zardari of Pakistan?"

This is a no-brainer. They've openly undermined and belittled him. I'm sure USA wants a strong military leader in there - so much more convenient.

light at the end of the tunnel? ......yeah right...

Re the 'Banksters' and the biggest swindle ever on ordinary people (and still no one is rioting in UK) can you get ´óÏó´«Ã½ World News Max Keiser on Newsnight as he is the only person it seems who is capable of explaining what really is going on with our money. Here's a link to his website.
thanks Sandi Dunn

Poor old Jeremy hitting the phones. He is becoming the Corporal Frazier of Dads Army of the "we're doomed" brigade. Drinking his half empty cup of coffee let us hope he is successful in finding out that the recession will go on and on.

Perhaps a little optimism for a change may tempt the banks to start lending money and probably returning to their old tricks of lining their Directors' pockets.

Good to see the French playing their part. I didn't realise they were there.

As to Pakistan, the safe haven for the Taliban, bring back the army as their politicians appear to be in league with extreme elements by turning their usual blind eye to appease their Moslem militants. They talk a lot but do little

OK I saw the special on 60 minutes when Ben Bernanke said this comment.

I was probably with the many who watched and when he made that comment all said "what planet is he on?" How can you end a crisis without having a solution??? None of his statements supported him saying that either. And those that watched saw that nothing was said towards a true solution and the recent plans he spoke of have not brought any success. Its possible he is not making any decisions but just another puppet in the government theater that smoke screens the common people. More importantly To find a solution to a problem it must be properly diagnosed.

We are in a global economic meltdown. And it was said printing money is an effective means? since when?!!! Money investments are not the answer. We have seen how the bailouts (billions lately) equal to zero results and the money seems to evaporate. The economic systems will not stabilize until humanity changes the egoistic connections between one another. The cause of the economic crisis is humanity's egoism. Our old ways of the past of dealing with problems such as these will not work. The world we live in now is a global and integral world. Everyday around the world we reveal how interconnected and interdependent all of humanity is. One global village. Like one family. Connected like the butterfly effect even. That's why we see that this crisis is different than any other we have seen, its global. Humanity's egoism has grown to a global level and is reaching its peak. Therefore it is being revealed to us all the interconnection and interdependency in humanity. A global crisis requires a global solution.

The law of nature shows us for a unit or a single body to function optimally and in harmony it needs to operate in a altruistic fashion. This is when all parts work for the sake of the whole. The same way our physical bodies function to keep us healthy. Individual people are like cells in the body of humanity. Until we start to change our relations between one another from egoism (working only for self benefit) to altruism (working for the sake of others/society) we will continue to experience our imbalance with nature and the global crisis will worsen in many facets of our lives. This isn't utopia or loose theory. We are speaking of the laws of nature that we see all other parts of Nature operate by except in the connections between people.

Once we decide to exit our selfish egoism for the sake of uniting and changing our relations to those of altruism we will see our social systems began to thrive again and excel our pictures of the past. Waiting on the government for answers is not going to help either. Even though they even say they sense the economic crisis stems from broken connections and mistrust, their egoistic modes of thinking will not let them see what's truly needed. People still do not understand that the root of the crisis is our incorrect, individualistic, egoistic behavior in a world that’s global, integral, unified and completely interdependent. It is we who must become equivalent to the world in which we live.

Even a new economy will not work unless its aim is global and integral, in line with producing goods and services for the benefit of the whole world. The producer should only receive what’s necessary for him and give the rest to the common fund. Retraining people for jobs should incorporate reeducating people about life in a globalized world. Otherwise, people won’t understand the laws of Nature, and therefore, will not be able to succeed under the new conditions.The global crisis will end when each person will begin to think about everyone else instead of himself. If we want to be optimistic lets try a new approach such as this.

COLLECTIVE GUILT

Was Newsnight intentionally providing evidence to endorse the thesis that the post-war went much too far?

If not, to me at least, the two Austrian guests last night served as rather uncomfortable (albeit at times, comical) illustrations of just hoiw unjust it was.

The male appeared to keep trying to draw attention to his own (no doubt totally ungrounded) potential perversities and the female... well... she just looked 'guilty'.

How can his case tell anyone anything about Austrian society as a whole? Does the Baby P story tell the world anything about Britain as a nation?

I fear this case has been used for perverse propaganda purposes just as much as it has to serve perverse human interests.

(Collective Guilt: Get your daily dose and remember to vote for a Liberal-Democratic, free-enterprise party!)

VENAL VIEWING

Watching Lord Myners before the Treasury Select Committee today. Not the best way to start one's day :-(

Required, masochistic, viewing for anyone has any remaining doubts about sinecures, recruitment, retention and pensions of people prone to find themselves 'asleep at the wheels' of our modern free-market/anarchistic, liberal-democratic economies.

Excellent Monday Newsnight - particularly Jeremy's interview with the trio of Andy Brough/Will Daley/Will Hopper - perhaps we are starting to see a decline in the recession...at least some good news :o)

Economic Recovery ??

It is funny my financial advisor had the exact same argument put forward by the fund manager at Schroders on Monday’s NN - only this time last year. He was convincing me to not put everything in cash and start investing when the news on the street was still gloomy, because markets move 12-18 months in advance (i.e. start buying now before everybody else spots the alleged recovery, yeah! ). Well, we all know how that turned out – as everyday went by, his fantastic buying opportunity just got cheaper and cheaper.

A*AA for Cambridge

Good heavens! The A Level exam depreciates in value even faster than women do through aging. At this rate, my own A Level certificates could be reduced down to toilet sheet covers any minute now!

We are beginning to appreciate that the problem is more than just a failure of the banking structure, or those employed within banking. Any bank can fail at any time (see Barings), to bring down a whole industry takes a government. To bring down an international structure takes several governments acting in co-ordination. Those individuals operating within the monitoring structure usually lack broad personal experience, lack knowledge experience or understanding of the sublety of the financial world and are usually driven by political motives. Far greater non-political control of the monitoring and administrative machinery is essential. Until greater understanding of the influence of poor quality, counter-productive , damaging legislation is achieved, then we stand little chance of reversing the current position.

politicalnewsmonitor (#10) "Those individuals operating within the monitoring structure usually lack broad personal experience, lack knowledge experience or understanding of the sublety of the financial world and are usually driven by political motives."

Liberal democrcies have been rolling back the state at least since Reagan's/Thatcher's times, but on whose instigation?

It has meant that the executive arm has become disempowered, regardless of what's put onto the Statute Books.

Look at how the Conservatives and New Labour privatised elements of the police, prison service, probation etc in the name of efficiency and savings.

On top of that they crippled these Public Sector services with Politicial Correctness (Cultural Anarchism) which damaged recruitment and retention.

The bottom line is that through thirty years of anti-authoritarianism/feminisation, we are now close to anarchism, and some have the chutzpah to assert that this is a good thing (see Austrian/Chicago School 'economists'). Unsurprisingly, they fled Germany in the 1930s! The trouble was, they fled to Germany and to Britain, just as many did before at the turn of the C20th.

It's an ideology which appeals to narcissistic adolescents and teh feminised who lack maturity I fear. Extreme examples are the Axis II Cluster B Personality Disorders (DSM-IV).

Turner openly said last night that many academics had got it all wrong, but who is listening? How many of those academics based what they said on empirical facts? Who are still listening to the journalists who courted these gurus of neo-liberalism and the politicians whom they persuaded? It seems to me the media is still peddling their wares for them raher than doing their job and holding them accountable. Is that not because the media has bee bought?