The US Economic Rescue Package.

I've noticed that I've been a bit remiss in posting on this very important and sensitive topic. This is partly because I have already discussed it at length online and partly because my computer seems to get very angry every time I do but here we go the credit crunch in less then 3000 words.

Over the past twelve to eighteen months the American and by extension the rest of the world has experienced a severe and worsening economic crisis know as the credit crunch. This crisis has seen hundreds of thousands of Americans lose their homes. Many of the large industries that Americans rely on for their jobs have been forced to close their doors and some of the oldest and largest banks have run out of money and gone bankrupt. This crisis can be seen in three distinct phases; The Cause, The Problem and The Solution.

The Cause; The causes of this crisis are many and varied. Some people think it is all the fault of irresponsible and predatory lenders forcing loans onto people who cannot afford to repay. Others think it is the fault of irresponsible borrowers taking loans and mortgages where they can barely afford the interest repayments. Some have blamed President Bush's deregulation of financial markets while some have blamed property speculators for building too many homes meaning that the supply of housing exceeds demand pushing the price of property down. A large group have even blamed oil speculators from driving up the cost of a product which is the life blood of the US economy.

The correct answer is probably all of the above because the economic crisis has been described as a perfect storm. Everything that could possibly go wrong with the economy has gone wrong and it has gone wrong at the same time. This convergence of things going wrong has left the banking system which drives the US economy with one simple yet highly destructive problem.

The Problem; Banks like all other capitalist organisations are governed by one thing - the Balance Sheet. The size and complexity of a balance sheet varies with the size and complexity of the business it belongs too but basically all they are is a list with two columns on it. One column lists the businesses assets and the other lists it's liabilities. In the case of a bank the assets are money or "capital" people have deposited in that bank and the liabilities are capital that the bank has loaned out to other people often in the form of mortgages. As the name suggests the two columns of a balance sheet have to "balance" meaning that any entry in the liability column has to cancelled out by an entry of equal value in the asset column.

With the value of houses falling the value of the banks liabilities have been increases meaning that they have to inject even more capital into the asset column to cover them. As a result the bank then has less capital to lend out to people causing something known as a mortgage famine. With no mortgages available to buy houses the value of houses falls increasing the banks liabilities and so on. Unchecked market forces will conspire against themselves and the process will continue in a self-feeding downward spiral which like water draining down a plughole will only increase in speed and severity until the basin is completely empty.

The Solution; The rescue package the US government is currently trying to get through Congress is as brilliant as it is simple. They are going to buy $700bn of these liabilities taking them off the banks balance sheets and putting them on the governments balance sheet which being the governments balance sheets doesn't actually have too balance and very rarely does. With the liabilities taken off their hands the banks will then have much more capital available to lend to each other, to lend out in mortgages and lend to employers who wish to expand or consolidate their operations.

This simple and implicitly capitalist solution will increase the supply of money allowing the economy to recover and house prices to stabilise. In the short term this will allow more employers to keep more Americans in their jobs and give the banks the confidence to avoid increasing mortgage rates and be more patient with those homeowners who may through no fault of their own be having trouble keeping up with their repayments. In the long term house prices will recover decreasing the value of these liabilities allowing the government to sell them back to the banks at either the price they paid for them or even possibly at a profit.

Although the initial outlay of $700bn is quite a lot of money it is a fraction of the trillions of dollars that would need to be injected into the markets to keep them from collapsing or the quadrillions of dollars that America would lose from that collapse and there is a strong possibility that the taxpayer will recover a large proportion of that $700bn and there is even a chance they may make a profit.

Unlike other solutions which have been proposed such as mortgage protection this package will quickly and efficiently solve the problem with no real impact on the way that America's capitalist system functions. It is unfortunate that Congressional Democrats have tried to manipulate such and important bill to provide funding for socialist housing programs but this crisis is not a problem that can go unsolved and I'm sure that in the next session House Republicans will be able to deal with the add on's long before the package starts providing the programs with any money.

So in summary I hope that Congress passes this rescue package as soon as possible not least because it will really piss off those who were hoping to use an US economic downtown to close the gap with their own national economies.

It must have been a grim weekend for some.

First came the news that just 10 days after it came on line the £3.6bn Large Hadron Collider has fallen to bits and the experiment is officially over until such a time as they can make certain parts functional again.

Then the realisation came that Britain's response to last weeks economic crisis was nowhere near as crafty or clever as first thought.

In sport the UK was relegated out of tennis' world league and in golf Nick Faldo's team was soundly thumped by the Americans in the Ryder Cup.

This long roll call of the failure clearly caused the Brits to throw a bit of a sulk and they responded with a story about a father who killed his two young daughters before hanging himself. Although tragic, events like this happen on almost a monthly basis in 21st century Britain so I have to wonder why this particular one warranted such coverage.

From a metaphorical perspective it's quite clear and represents something of a mixed blessing because on a plus side it demonstrates that the state has finally accepted that the Bristol Abuse Case can never have a successful outcome and can only be discussed in a past tense where the participants will only suffer misery before dying

However on a negative note the use of a murder story rather then a justifiable homicide story only serves to demonstrate that the state has yet to understand why the Bristol Abuse Case was such a bad idea from the start. It also indicates that the state is once again going to allow a misguided notion of vengeance to stand in the way of real progress, something which does not bode well for the nation.

Damn the Brits must really have been given a hiding.

Things have gotten so bad that even the monarchy have been forced to issue a statement.

Apparently they do still honestly believe that in 18 months Prince William will begin training for an operational role with the Royal Air Force.

Not wishing to cause any unnecessary offence to the Monarch and her family but I wouldn't put much stock in that announcement because not one of their predictions of the future has paid off yet. Besides the last time I spoke to Prince William his position on the issue was quite clear.

He said there is no discussion, there is no debate. He can never work one day in the service of any country, company or organisation which gives shelter to the Bristol Abuse Case.

If my life now is the product of a carefully constructed conspiracy

Then it is a conspiracy drawn up by a six year old with a crayon.

As I went to bed last night the young women in the council care house next door decided to throw a spontaneous party for which they clearly thought I was meant to be the guest of honour. While I drifted off to sleep it couldn't help but conjure up an image of a dribble stained map on which a ham fisted civil servant had scrawled " Girlfriends live here!". Personally I haven't seen work that shoddy since I moved up to junior school but I digress so back to the point.

Yesterday UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown announced that he expects private companies to pay for Britain's high speed Internet network. As I don't know the exact time that he made this statement I will presume that he made it in error before he'd been able to get himself up to speed on the issue. I hope he's made an equally rapid retraction because quite frankly I don't know how to respond to a statement that foolish.

I could point out that dozens of very wealthy private companies would have been happy to employ me which is exactly why I wasn't permitted any qualifications.

I could point out that any private entity that has been willing to help me in the past have quickly received an unpleasant visit from the governments heavy mob. Some were so loyal that they still tried to help even after I expressly told them not too because everything you see here is nothing more then a government organised killing ground.

I could point out that if the government was forced to do it's penance then that would mean it has less money available to be frittered away on idiotic, wasteful and corrosive New Labour schemes. Something which can only be to the good of the nation.

Hell I could even re-run my "This is not a negotiation, this is not a debate" speech.

Instead I will just say one simple thing; Wet teams aside, I will be here after the next election.

The first episode of the Channel 4 series Skins

aired on January 25th 2007. At almost the same time this fanciful show about teenage life in Bristol hit our TV screens a certain student at Bristol University was awarded a £2.8million research grant. I covered the news of the twin stories by saying "Oh dear is that my case Skinning up and resting."

Although a subtle and discreet way of putting it that sentence had one clear meaning. The game is over. The will be no more skill. There will be no more demonstration of ability. This is not a discussion and this is not a debate. All that remains is a simple test. A test to see if the state can successfully complete several very easy tasks in a swift and efficient manner because right and wrong is not something reasonable people can disagree on.

Obviously this sentence was not clear enough for some people to understand because over the next year and a half they continued to believe they had options digging themselves ever deeper into a hole, further pushing up their costs and spending ever more money building a situation with such innate inertia that freewill could never again be exerted. All the while networks burned, the economy tumbled and at least seven were really and viscerally killed.

Now these same people are back on my television telling me what I won't get. You would think that will all the education, experience and power they hold they would be able to learn from their mistakes. Hell the ability to learn is even in our DNA apparently.

Now while I'm searching for a point to this thread may I paraphrase an advert for a government job I saw recently and say;

"There is one person in this room who you need on your side. Do you have what it takes to get him to warm to you?"

Sorry I completley forgot to mention.

My sister is currently back in hospital after being detained under the mental health act. I probably should have mentioned it as part of yesterday's update but we've been going though this routine for the last 15 odd years so it's just sort of slipped my mind. Besides if they've haven't found the answer by now I doubt they ever will.

Following on from yesterday, without going into too much detail, the test result that was causing concern with my grandmother was a blood test which showed the chemical conditions associated with blood clots similar to Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT). On Wednesday my father explained this too me by saying, I shit you not;

"Imagine that the vein is like a massive tunnel. If a blood clot forms it is like a car crashing in the middle of that tunnel stopping the traffic flowing through it. In order to get the traffic moving again you can either take the crashed car to pieces inside the tunnel and remove it bit by bit or you can attach a rope to the wreck and drag it out of the tunnel in one go. If you can't do either of those then you have to open up another tunnel next to the blocked one and use it to divert the traffic around the blockage."

Today we went up for an ultrasound scan of the leg and there were no clots or blockages which was good news. The process of getting the scan done though was an absolute fucking disgrace because after 11 years of a Labour government and billions of pounds of investment the NHS still can't manage the simple task of getting the right patient to the right department at the right time choosing instead to leave them lost in a corridor on their own for the best part of an hour. There you have it though patient transport, one of the great mysteries of the NHS.

Speaking of local disasters I noticed that as I was writing yesterdays post about Croydons Tram crash, an incident so serious the Air Ambulance (HEMS) helicopter was still hovering above the scene a full day after the crash occurred, the following piece of performance art was taking place in Bristol town centre; Bristol 9/11 Truth 7th anniversary Note the interesting choice of headgear.

About thirty minutes after I made yesterday's post a major news story broke as a truck caught fire in the Channel Tunnel blocking the tunnel and forcing passengers into the emergency tunnel that runs parallel diverting them past the blockage. Although no-one was killed in the incident several people had to be treated in hospital after breathing in the toxic smoke from a burning truck carrying Phenol a chemical which can be used to make plastic. As the emergency shut down the cross channel link the authorities quickly issued instructions warning people against travelling that night.

Of course today that story along with the announcement from Zimbabwe has been swept off the agenda to make way for the news that yet another budget airline known as XL has gone out of business. As I'm not one of their passengers I'm actually quite pleased because after the collapse of Zoom if things carry on like this pretty soon there won't be any flag left to fly.

Updates, Updates, Updates!

I've noticed that I haven't posted here for a while. The main main reason for this is that nothing much of interest has happened but I hate people that can't stand their blogs so here we go.

The main bit of news is that we've proved once and for all that my father will officially sleep through anything. Last week some little charmer set fire to the Wheelie Bin outside my house. With the front windows open the acrid smoke you get from burning plastic soon wafted into out living room where my father was asleep on the sofa. Failing to rouse him from his slumber the smoke then drifted into the hallway where it set off the smoke alarm. At this point I obviously went to investigate and ended up kicking the offending bin into the road to prevent it from setting fire to anything else. The fire brigade then turned up on their big red fire engine with it's siren, flashing blue lights, crashing, banging and a little swearing. After they put the fire outI went back inside and there was my father, still fast asleep on the sofa.

The next day he comes up to me and says; "Did you know there was a fire outside yesterday?!" To which the only possible answer was "No shit! That's probably why there's ash and molten plastic on my shoes!"

On a related note my grandmother, following her successful operation, is now out of hospital and has been moved to a rehabilitation unit attached to a local nursing home. There's no real medical reason for this move it's just that after several hours in my fathers company even the caring professions patience had worn seriously thin and they decided my grandmother needed a little bit of a holiday. As the move means that her wound dressings are being attended to by a qualified nurse and her exercise program is being supervised by a physiotherapist I can't really complain to much.

The program of testing and monitoring at the rehab unit did throw up a blood test result that gave the doctors cause for concern. This meant that last night my grandmother was rushed to the local accident and emergency department where further investigation revealed the situation to be an issue rather then problem and she was sent back to the rehab unit after a few hours.

By a stroke of luck the ambulance crew that took my grandmother to hospital also happened to be one of the ambulance crews that attended Sundays impressive Tram/Bus/Car crash. Apparently what happened was that one of Croydon's famous Trams plowed into a bus killing one man before propelling the bus down a pedestrian street. Further loss of life was only prevented when the bus collided with an illegally parked car causing the two vehicles to crash into a shop front. The whole incident closed the centre of Croydon for most of Sunday while Transport For London's major incident response teams dealt with the carnage.

From what I've heard some eyewitnesses reckon that at the time of the collision both the tram signal and the bus signal were set to green. I'm sure this is just eyewitnesses being confused by a stressful situation. If however they're not it does mean the civilian death toll from the Bristol Abuse Case has now risen to 8.

Greenpeace yesterday got a very good result in the UK courts when a jury ruled that six activists were justified in causing £30,000 worth of damage to the Kingsnorth power station because their actions were necessary to prevent a greater crime being committed.

Although unusual this verdict is not unprecedented because under UK law it has always been accepted that if you witness a person committing a criminal act you are allowed to yourself break the law in order to prevent that offence from taking place. For example if you hear your next door neighbour attempting to commit a murder you can lawfully commit the offence of breaking into his house and lawfully commit the offence of assault providing those offences were committed in order to prevent the murder. Hell if the offence is something as serious as smoking in a public place you are actually legally obligated to take action to prevent it.

The principal of lawful excuse does raise some interesting questions though. Imagine if you will that you witness someone kidnap, rape and psychologically abuse a young woman before forcing her to give birth to a child so that child could be used for scientific experimentation what steps would be considered reasonable to prevent that from happening?

So the Foster family are all dead then.

I'd like to pretend it's a tragedy but to be honest I never liked them much anyway.

Yes that's right we're all having some fun with the Mansion Massacre Arson story. After a week where this human interest story has had us all gripped with tales of bankruptcy, conspiracy, kidnap plots, seized computers, dead horses, obstructed investigations and unidentified adult males it turns out all that happened was that Chris Foster, the father, had a bit of a moment killed the wife and daughter before setting fire to the house and turning the gun on himself.

Now the question that everybody will be trying to fathom is what possessed him to do such a horrific thing. On this point I can be of some use because there appears to be a clear David Kelly-esque sequence of events that led up to last Tuesday's fire.

Although already deeply in debt about two weeks ago Mr Foster had the added misfortune of having his credit card details cloned by a dangerous gang of fraudsters. This gang must have been very well organised fraudsters because they not only managed to bypass the normal banking controls designed to prevent credit card fraud they also managed to bypass the special court and liquidator controls on Mr Fosters accounts in order to run up an extra couple of hundreds of thousands of pounds of debt.

After an intense fortnight where he had to deal with this new stress on top of all his other problems Mr Foster was granted a unexpected chance to relax in the form of the long bank holiday weekend. This period of sudden and intense stress followed by an equally sudden drop in pressure clearly did something to Mr Fosters mind and he decided to slaughter his family for our television enjoyment.

Personally I think that along with the French and Chinese students that's one hell of death toll just so one little lesbian can pretend she's got a real life girlfriend all of her own. On the plus side though I suppose that now the performance is over the broken and burned bodies can now be returned to their legitimate families.

In other news today I finally got that long awaited medical report from my GP and sent it off to the dreaded DWP. I should warn whoever has the misfortune of reading it that I did get a little bit carried away with the covering letter. I have no idea how this will pan out and quite frankly I don't really care. I just hope the government are fully aware that their giving of an incorrect answer will not improve their situation anytime soon. After all I'd hate for them to waste more time running chasing fantasies as they have a tendency to do.

New Orleans appears to have had a lucky escape as Hurricane Gustav has dropped to a category 1 storm and made landfall someway west of the city. No doubt this will lead to some people to criticize the cities authorities for crying wolf by ordering the evacuation. Some will even accuse them of playing politics with the storm ahead of the Republican National Convention.

This is of course nonsense because when the evacuation order was given Gustav was entering the gilf of Mexico as category 3 storm, the same strentgh as Katrina when it made landfall. This meant that there were two possible outcomes. The hurricane could have turned to the east over warm water. This would have caused it to pick up windspeed, become more violent and destructive before punching News Orleans full in the face as a category 4 storm. Alternatively it could have turned to the west over cooler waters were it would have become less brutal making landfall as little more then a windy Tuesday evening.

In the event the latter situation occurred but with no way of predicting what would happen the decision to evacuate New Orleans was not one I would envy anyone having to make and as they say better a sitting piss then a standing shit.