Gold buying restrictions have begun

This looks suspiciously like a prelude to an EU-wide tax on gold, yes?

According to gold experts, "margin calls" have been significantly increased, so making the holding of gold stocks disproportionately more costly for the small investor.

That's what caused two of the recent gold sell-offs - shaking small private investors out of the tree.

Now, these EU countries are ensuring that gold cannot be traded for cash - it must be traded electronically, so that a bank can clock the deal.

Now that the bank knows you've got gold, it can direct the government's tax nose to your pot of gold, when it wants more of your money. After all, it already has access to your bank account, so it can just lift a government-decreed levy from your funds with the click of a mouse. These boys sure are greedy.

I wouldn't be surprised if the morally leprous EU latched onto this as another great way to fleece the public - while their printing presses churn out more worthless fiat currency.

A gold tax would be accompanied by some fairy story claiming that government must curb gold sales to "safeguard the global monetary system". Said Alice.


I give it a year.

Merkel wins bailout vote in Bundestag

Merkel won the "bailout vote" in the Bundestag - by a considerable margin.

Anyone surprised?

What we've seen over the past few days from Merkel and German constitutional experts was pure political theatre.

The next question is, will Germans get a referendum on whether to change their constitution to allow this to go though?

I think we all know the answer to that one.

The Euro is practically dead, says banker

According to Hungarian economist and Global Head of Global Securities Services at UniCredit Group in Milan, Szalay-Berzeviczy:

• "the euro is “practically dead” and Europe faces a financial earthquake from a Greek default"... 
• “The euro is beyond rescue”... 
• “The only remaining question is how many days the hopeless rearguard action of European governments and the European Central Bank can keep up Greece’s spirits.”
• "A Greek default will trigger an immediate “magnitude 10” earthquake across Europe."
• "Holders of Greek government bonds will have to write off their entire investment, the southern European nation will stop paying salaries and pensions and automated teller machines in the country will empty within minutes.”

If you think that's scary, read on ...

Related:

• Crash 2 exclusive: German rejection of G20 rescue plan reflects 'triumph of national self-interest' - The Slog
• Crash 2 :  Eurozone bailout bombshell as lenders draw line at 20% haircut - The Slog

Technocracy versus Realism

Douglas Carswell laments the lamentable decisions our Dear Leaders have recently taken over Europe.

The realists among us are exasperated at the idiocy of the bailouts and the outrageous burden they will place on taxayers. I'm inclined to believe this mindset is that of the technocrat.

The technocrat believes that any problem can be solved via the right system. You find these sorts of people in casinos.

The libertarian's belief system is founded on reality and principle, principle being the internal discipline which is firmly rooted in reality.

Largely, it seems, leftists or big government types tend to be technocrats, while conservatives (not empire-building NeoCons) tend to be realistic.

Unfortunately, the technocrats hold the levers of power currently. They have a goal, and are still scrambling to find a system to achieve it.

You can't argue with a technocrat, because his psyche is not grounded in reality.

Therefore, you can expect the Euro crisis to get far, far worse, before it gets better.

Our Dear Leaders might benefit from a spell with their psychiatrists.

Financial war: World War 3?

Planned obsolecence: the cause of consumerism?

It's hardly surprising that our lives are dominated by consumerism. Our entire political system is underwritten by corporations (who write the laws in the UK, the EU, the UN, the WHO, the WTO - you name it), for their own benefit.

All the while, sending our jobs to third world countries.

While I was growing up, people bought goods that would last a lifetime. Now, it's difficult to find goods that will last beyond a few years - particularly electronics.

How did this happen?

During the Great Depression in the 1930s, western governments, particularly the US and UK, decided that the corporate world would increase their profits if they built obsolescence into their products, reducing the length of their useful lives.

The results of planned obsolecence?

• Corporations sold more products,
• Governments leeched more tax,
• Whole countries became "consumerist" as they were exhorted to spend, spend, spend,
• Landfill emerged as a problem, where none existed before.

Once again, government caused the problem - which it wants to blame on us.

The government needs to reverse the "planned obsolescence" policy.

Perhaps someone should tell Chris Huhne.

Facebook CIA connection?

The secret immigration policy they tried to hide

Linda Kaucher, a researcher on international trade, posted an article to politics.co.uk on secret labour agreements the EU has with third world countries.

Unfortunately, the article has now been pulled. (It's now back - must've been down for an edit, or something).

Fortunately, I have a copy, the text of which is posted below.

After you've read it, take a trip down memory lane to Cameron's visit to India earlier this year to drum up investment and jobs for the UK, so he told us.

What he didn't tell us was that the jobs aren't for UK citizens.

What's more, if this article's premise is correct, Cameron's pledge to reduce immigration is simply not true. But then, which pledges has he kept so far?

Read and be horrified ...

 The secret immigration policy they tried to hide 

 Linda Kaucher is a researcher on international trade

 Thursday, 1 September 2011 4:02 PM

 Behind closed doors, EU negotiations will trigger a new wave of cheap labour into Britain.

 By Linda Kaucher

 While political reporters for the most part ignore the EU, British
 domestic policy is actually formulated to fit not just with internal
 EU directives, but, importantly, with the EU's external international
 trade agenda.

 This broader policy affects people's lives here, particularly their
 employment and that of their children and grandchildren in the future.
 Yet information on this broader picture, the parts of EU trade policy
 that will affect people most, is kept from them.

 A very relevant and major feature of EU trade policy is the concession
 that allows transnational corporations to bring workers into the EU.
 In tradespeak this is called 'Mode 4'.

 The World Trade Organisation (WTO) defines four modes for cross-border
 trade in services: via internet (Mode 1); where the customer crosses
 borders e.g. tourism and the international student market (Mode 2);
 where a company establishes in another country (Mode 3); and by moving
 workers across borders (Mode 4).

 Moving workers from a lower to a higher socio-economic country is a
 very profitable business for the transnational corporations that are
 in a position to benefit, on a par with moving production and service
 work to cheaper labour areas of the world.

 With the WTO Doha deal apparently abandoned, the EU has been
 negotiating a set of bilateral and regional trade deals with much of
 the
world.
 These deals are more secretive than WTO negotiations, with the
 contents of negotiations kept private until those negotiations are
completed.
 But investigative work has revealed the urgency of the situation.

 The EU is including Mode 4 concessions in all of the deals it is
 currently negotiating. In fact Mode 4 is the carrot, to obtain, in
 exchange, investment opportunity access into trading partner countries
 for transnational financial services corporations, which are for the
 most part based in London.

 Actually these corporations benefit from both sides of the deals. They
 get the investment opportunities but also cheap labour brought in,
 and, as this 'reserve army of labour' undermines the power of
 organised labour, strengthening the power of capital in its balance of
 power with labour.

 Although these are EU deals, the UK is the main and willing target for
 the Mode 4 concessions. Thus it is UK workers who will pay the price.
 A very important trade deal in this regard is the EU/India Free Trade
 Agreement (FTA) that has been under negotiation for four years. It has
 been discovered that Mode 4 concessions are the one thing that the
 Indian government is demanding. In addition, leaked documentation
 shows that the liberalised UK will be taking the bulk of the EU's Mode
 4 commitment.

 In fact Trade Commission staff have admitted that the EU/India FTA is,
 in effect , 85% a UK deal. That's the percentage of the gains which
 will accrue to the UK (well, the international financial firms based
 in London, anyway) while the UK (UK workers, this time) will get that
 percentage of the pain.

 Financial services investment opportunities overseas will not produce
 jobs here. But workers will be displaced via Mode 4, especially in a
 time of cuts. Transnational firms will be able to offer cheap onshore
 outsourcing, using cheaper temporary migrant labour and will also be
 able to supply labour into other firms allowing them to offload all
 employer responsibilities.

 Within the supposedly 'capped' UK points based system for labour
 migration, the government has ensured that the categories relevant to
 trade commitments have no numerical limits. There are no such limits
 on the 'intra-corporate transferees (ICTs) category in Tier 2 or on
 the 'international agreements' category in Tier 5. Neither is there
 any resident labour market test, which would stipulate that jobs have
 to be offered here first.

 In fact both these restrictions are disallowed at the international
 trade level in respect of Mode 4.

 Under the current points based system, skilled workers are currently
 being brought in and paid the minimum wage, which is then made up to a
 low industry norm with tax-free expenses and with no national
 insurance payable. Thus the UK government is even now encouraging the
 use of a cheap labour supply that not only displaces workers here but
 also damages the national economy in a variety of ways. Wages are
 repatriated overseas, the earn/spend cycle needed for recovery is
 broken, workers become unemployed and the welfare bill increases, the
 employment future for young people is further curtailed, and skills
 transfer are lost for the future.

 As trade agreements, with Mode 4 included, are committed to hard
 international trade law, they become effectively permanent. This is
 why this handing of control of UK labour migration to transnational
 corporations will affect not only present but future generations. Any
 attempt by any future government to pull back on these commitments
 will potentially invoke corporate legal action to recover all
 anticipated profits that may be negatively affected by the government
action.

 International financial services corporations based in London are
 proactive in directing UK input to EU trade policy via their lobbying
 mechanism 'thecityuk' and in Brussels through the European Services
 Forum, the mechanism that influences EU institutions directly.

 'Thecityuk' is made up of International Financial Services London
 (IFSL) and the Corporation of London and the UK Trade and Industry
 (UKTI) section of the Business, Innovation and Skills Department is
 closely connected. 'Thecityuk''s secretive Liberalisation of Trade in
 Services
 (LOTIS) Committee ensures that UKTI bureaucrats take financial services'
 own directives into EU trade policy like carrier pigeons. And UK
 governments ensure that domestic regulation is formulated to fit with
 this.

 The Labour party has not told the UK public about this EU/India
 agreement and the centrality of the Mode 4 concessions even though
 Peter Mandelson initiated all the current agreements. Neither has the
 Conservative/Liberal coalition, even when David Cameron and Vince
 Cable led a specific 'trade' delegation to India in 2010. Greens MP
 Caroline Lucas spent years as an MEP and a member of the European
 parliament's International Trade Committee (INTA) but has declined to
 warn UK workers what they are being signed up to, and similarly Ukip,
 which has two members on the INTA but actually supports the concept of
 temporary labour from outside the EU being brought in by transnational
 corporations.

 The House of Commons select committee tasked with overseeing the
 Department of Business, Innovation and Skills has failed to bring the
 Department's role in moving workers into the country into focus and
 has accepted the silence of the secretary of state, Cable, on this.

 Who will tell the UK public about these irreversible commitments on
 their behalf?

 There is a small light at the end of the tunnel. The Railways,
 Maritime and Transport (RMT) union is going to argue to the TUC's
 September Congress that it should campaign to alert the UK public to
 the implications of the EU/India trade deal and of Mode 4. Yet, as the
 TUC has so far been part of the cover-up, it remains to be seen first
 if this motion is passed, and then what the TUC does with it.

 Linda Kaucher is a researcher on international trade. With Masters
 degrees in Journalism and in Human Geography, from Australia and the
 London School of Economics, and a broad background as an educator, she
 campaigns to take the lid off trade secrecy. She has written articles
 for the Morning Star and submissions to government consultations. She
 was invited by the EU Trade Commission to make a presentation to its
 civil society dialogue on services trade. Click here to read it.

 The opinions in politics.co.uk's Comment and Analysis section are
 those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the website
 or its owners.

This is corporatism at work again, working against what's best for the people of Britain.