Anglo-Irish Bondholders Should Take the Losses Is the ECB Forcing Ireland to Protect German Investments?

Guido Fawkes
"Anglo-Irish Bank did not represent a systemic risk to the Irish economy, it wasn’t a high street bank like AIB or the Bank of Ireland. If it had been allowed to go the way of Lehmans the only losers would have been shareholders and bondholders. The Irish state stepped in and nationalised a bank that was basically run by crooks lending to property speculators. The Irish people are taking losses that should rightly have been shouldered by bondholders.

Every child in Ireland is being bequeathed a huge debt at birth to protect the interests of foreign, mainly German, bondholders – why? Guido was once a bond trader, it was always understood that sometimes the bond issuer defaults. That is the risk investors take.

So why is Dublin’s political establishment so keen to protect foreign investors at the expense of future generations? Guido has obtained the list of foreign Anglo-Irish bondholders as at the close of business tonight. These are the people whom Dublin’s politicians really seem to care about: ..."

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Irish bank bail-out outrage du jour comes courtesy of Guido Fawkes. FT

Multiculturalism in Germany has 'utterly failed', claims Chancellor Angela Merkel

Daily Mail
"‘We are a country which at the beginning of the 1960s actually brought guest workers to Germany,’ Ms Merkel said.

‘Now they live with us and we lied to ourselves for a while, saying that they won't stay and that they will have disappeared again one day.

‘That's not the reality. This (multicultural) approach - saying that we simply live side by side and are happy about each other - this approach has failed, utterly failed.’

China's not the villain if the West tries to debase its debt through QE

Telegraph
"What is now clear is that some of the world's leading economies are deliberately debasing their currencies in order to make their exports more competitive and lower the real value of the massive debts they owe the rest of the world. ..."

The price of a Belgian apparatchik

Hermann Van Rompuy, President of the EU, looks to be a very expensive figurehead indeed, says Christopher Booker, Telegraph
"There was some excitement over the discovery by Bruno Waterfield, The Daily Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent, that the EU President, Hermann van Rompuy, spent more than £4,000 of EU taxpayers’ money on a motorcade, to take nine members of his family to catch a holiday flight from Paris in August. Mr Waterfield also noted that the EU’s new post of president, created under the Lisbon Treaty, has a salary of £263,000 a year, more than President Obama’s.

He might also have added that EU taxpayers are now paying £280 million to build Mr van Rompouy a lavish presidential palace in Brussels – £40 million of it contributed by UK taxpayers."

Pound hits 8-month high as US hints on QE

Daily Mail
"Sterling hit an eight-month high against the dollar today as US monetary chief Ben Bernanke made further overtures towards quantitative easing. But the pound dropped back from its $1.610 high as details on the US Federal Reserve's plans were scant."

Quango cuts announced

Telegraph
"The Government has announced that 192 public bodies will be abolished or merged as part of David Cameron’s “bonfire of the quangos.” ....The move will save money and also stop ministers being able to “hide behind” quangos as a way of avoiding accountability, Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister said. It means of the 901 existing public bodies only 648 will remain, 118 will be merged, 380 will be retained, 171 retained but reformed substantially and 40 remain under consideration. "

US Federal Reserve set on QE2 course as dissenter speaks out

Telegraph
"The Federal Reserve's leading opponent against more quantitative easing said there's "no strong evidence" it will work, as the minutes from the central bank's last meeting cemented expectations that his colleagues believe more money printing is necessary. ......Thomas Hoenig, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas, on Tuesday launched his most strident attack yet against QE, arguing it would not help drive an economic recovery.

"There is simply no evidence the additional liquidity would be particularly effective in spurring new investment, accelerating consumption, or cushioning or accelerating the deleveraging that is hopefully winding down," Mr Hoenig told an audience in Denver. "

Ed Miliband is the costliest politician in British history

When Ed Miliband won the Labour leadership, the commentators overlooked his most startling achievement, says Christopher Booker(Telegraph)
"Signally missing from all the attempts to find any substance in the strangely two-dimensional figure who is now leader of the Labour Party has been any reference to Ed Miliband's most spectacular achievement – the fact that he is potentially the most expensive politician in Britain's history,

The only real contribution David Miliband's little brother has so far made to our lives in his meteoric political career was to put through the 2008 Climate Change Act. This commits Britain, uniquely in the world, to cutting its CO2 emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, at a cost estimated, on the website of his old Department for Energy and Climate Change, at up to £18.3 billion every year for the next four decades. In cash terms this amounts to £734 billion, making it far and away the most costly law ever put through Parliament. It will equate to more than £700 a year for every household in the land, as we pay for thousands more useless windmills and other quixotic gestures through fast-rising taxes, soaring electricity bills, draconian regulatory costs and heaven knows what else. Furthermore, neither Mr Miliband himself, nor any of his Act's supporters, could begin to explain how that 80 per cent target is to be attained without closing down virtually our entire economy."

Population 'will soar to 70m by 2027': Official figures reveal full impact of migrant influx

Daily Mail
"Britain’s fast-growing population will hit 70million in just 17 years’ time if immigration goes unchecked, official figures revealed yesterday.The projections mean that numbers are racing towards a point which even Labour politicians believe will mean overcrowding and extra costs.The breakdown from the Office for National Statistics shows how the population is expected to rise if different rates of immigration are sustained over the next 25 years.It indicates that numbers will reach 70million in 2027 if net migration – the number of immigrants arriving in the country minus those who leave – continues at last year’s level.The 196,000 added to the population by net migration last year – the equivalent of a city the size of Portsmouth – was the fourth highest level on record."

IMF admits that the West is stuck in near depression

Telegraph
"If you strip away the political correctness, Chapter Three of the IMF's World Economic Outlook more or less condemns Southern Europe to death by slow suffocation and leaves little doubt that fiscal tightening will trap North Europe, Britain and America in slump for a long time. "

Wall Street Sees World Economy Decoupling From U.S.

Bloomberg
“The world has already become partially decoupled,” Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, a professor at New York’s Columbia University, said in a Sept. 20 interview in Zurich. He will speak at an IMF event this week. "

A trillion and rising: Britain’s £1,000,000,000,000 debt means we now pay as much in interest as we do for defence

Daily Mail
"Britain's debt has grown to a hitherto unimaginable level, it emerged yesterday – smashing the £1trillion barrier for the first time.Government borrowing hit £1,000,389,000,000 at the end of March – or £40,000 per household – the Office for National Statistics said.The figure is so enormous, equivalent to more than one million million pounds, that the country must pay £40billion interest on it in this year alone – roughly what is spent on the entire defence budget.It follows unprecedented levels of spending under Labour which saw the Government borrow nearly £450million a day under Gordon Brown. But the £1trillion figure does not include items such as the cost of public sector pensions and private finance initiatives.Experts believe the true debt, including these hidden items, is between £4trillion and £5trillion."