THE GREATEST DECEPTION OF ALL

Quantitative Easing: State sponsored theft on a larger-than-industrial scale from the working and middle classes to the mega rich. In addition to denuding the mass of the population of their meagre resources, employment and welfare, the proud cultural heritage of countries such as the United Kingdom is also being ruthlessly plundered.

It's Friday. It's Financial. It must be FRIDAY FINANCIAL

with the blog's money and banking expert JULIAN SAYER.

This week Julian takes a look at how RBS has managed to take billions of taxpayers’ money and, err, piss it against the wall.

MUCH to the dismay of the British taxpayer, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) announced their latest financial results this week. Only another £8.2 billion pound loss, bringing the staggering total of losses since 2008 to £46 billion.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/02/27/uk-rbs-earnings-idUKBREA1Q0ED20140227

This raises a lot of questions, but the one I want to illustrate today is how does a bank survive these losses, and continue to operate in the financial world. The very simple explanation is Quantitive Easing (QE.)

Quantitive Easing is simply the art of creating money out of thin air via central banks, in our case The Bank of England. That money is then given to commercial banks such as RBS, in exchange for huge chunks of toxic debts that the bank has on its balance sheet, and are effectively worthless. The commercial banks are then meant to use these magically created new funds to start lending to the economy and everything in the economy will be hunky dory.

However, that hasn't happened. So what has happened since the financial crisis broke in 2007? Well, first off, the banks moved the goal posts on lending. Fearing more losses they reduced the criteria on which they lent, cut the amount of mortgages they issued, reduced the overdrafts they lent, and cut new lending almost overnight. This in turn had a disastrous effect on the real economy, businesses cut back, many went to the wall and unemployment soared. Hundreds of thousands of businesses have gone to the wall over the last few years. So if the banks weren't lending this new money, what did they do with it?

UNDEMOCRATIC STATE INTIMIDATION ENFORCES YOUR 'DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS'

ONE of the reasons I've taken to the intent with my blog Named, Blamed and Shamed, is to get people to think and to do their own research. In fact it's the main reason.

My thinking is quite straightforward. I know that when people do their own digging they'll come to the same conclusions as me.

So when I did my blog piece recently on the threatening letters sent out to people like me who refuse to register to vote, I was delighted that JAMES CAMPBELL not only read it but started thinking about it. Better than that, he's written a guest blog. Here you go . . .

LABOUR DONT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOUNG PEOPLE OR THE LOW PAID

Stockton North Labour MP Alex Cunningham. His constituents have complained via Twitter because while campaigning for a Living Wage, he shamelessly exploits a young office apprentice by paying them just £125 per week.

By HARRY BLACKWOOD

If the Labour Party MP Sadiq Khan is to believed (please don't, he's a politician) his party cares deeply about Britain's young people. They must do. Why else would Labour be committed to lowering the voting age to 16?

Well, how about if it was nothing more than a callous and calculated plan to get young people to THINK Labour cares in order to grab a few extra votes? Forgive my cynicism, but a lifetime of dealing with scheming, duplicitous, lying politicians has taught me to be suspicious about everything they say and do.

The reality is that the Labour Party don't give a damn about young people. If they did they'd make a manifesto pledge to do something about the insultingly low wages paid to young people. The National Minimum Wage of £3.72 an hour for 16/17 year olds is nothing more than slavery. Hell's teeth why don't they just go the whole hog and start sending kids up chimneys again?

This issue of low pay was brought into sharp focus this week when Stockton North Labour MP Alex Cunningham was taken to task on Twitter by constituents after it emerged that he was taking on an apprentice in his office and paying the young person £3.37 an hour, or the princely sum of £125 a week for a 37 hour week.

CASTLES BUILT ON SAND

INTRODUCTION TO FINANCIAL FRIDAY GUEST BLOGGER

By HARRY BLACKWOOD

My blog is not yet a week old and already I've got a second guest writer.

Financial whizz Julian Sayer has been watching the world's economies go down the pan since the big crash and his prediction is that it's going to get worse. Much worse.

Every week Julian will give us expert insight into the inevitable financial crash.

Stay tuned. Here's Julian first post:

CASTLES BUILT ON SAND

by JULIAN SAYER, Guest Blogger

Make no mistake, we are living through historic times. Countries around the world are rioting, people are dying and personal freedoms are being eroded. The people of Ukraine, Venezuela

and Thailand have taken to the streets and put their lives on the line in order to protest.

This will not be a flash in the pan, this is going to be the norm, we are in worrying times. Brazil, Turkey, Egypt, have all seen mass protests and the list is growing. What is causing this huge uprising of social anger? In a word, economics. One of the dullest subjects you can imagine, but a subject that will change history. Finance, taxation and economics are inherently boring, but they are the very bedrock of the policies and deception shaping the world.

GUTLESS ED 'MR BEAN' MILIBAND MAY NOT EMBRACE LIVING WAGE

Sir George Bain, credited with devising the UK minimum wage has told the Financial Times that his system of protection for the low paid is outdated

By HARRY BLACKWOOD

WITH impeccable comedy timing, the Manchester United footballer, Wayne Rooney, signed a new contract today that will see him earn £300,000 a week. Yes you read that correctly £300,000 A WEEK for kicking a football.

Now I realise that's not funny. No, what's funny is that on the same day as an oafish footballer was putting pen to paper on a contract that will see him earn over a million quid every month, Sir George Bain - the man credited with coming up with the UK minimum wage - was telling the Financial Times that his system of protection for the poor had run its course.

You bet it's run it's course. It had run its course the day it was introduced because minimum wage was never going to lift people out of poverty. It was only ever going to keep them IN poverty. After 15 years that's EXACTLY what it's achieved.

The same poor bastards that were working all week on minimum wage In 1999 to earn enough just to scrape by are doing precisely that in 2014. Earning £6.31 an hour (the current legal minimum for adults) certainly isn't living. Hell's teeth, it's barely even surviving. That's what millions in the world's sixth richest country are doing - working their backsides off just to exist.

What Sir George failed to properly address in his FT article is how his minimum wage concept has actually failed miserably. What it's done is normalise low wages instead of acting as a benchmark to create a ripple effect and drive wages upwards.

There has been no ripple. There are 1.2 million UK workers who are paid £6.31 (or within 5p of that) and a further 1.4 million who are on within a measly 50p more. Employers think they are gushing philanthropists if they pay a few coppers above what they are legally obliged to.

In total there are five million workers in the UK who are 'low paid' by using the "official yardstick" of two thirds of the typical hourly wage. AND THERE IN A NEAT LITTLE PACKAGE IS THE PROBLEM.

WRIGHT AND THE MAIL. EXPERTS IN HYPOCRISY

Joy Yates, Editor, Hartlepool Mail

by HARRY BLACKWOOD

In a previous blog I wrote about the breathtaking hypocrisy of Hartlepool's Labour MP Iain Wright.

Wright, is happy to blather on about how the government is not doing enough to bring decent jobs to Northern towns like Hartlepool, but it's a case of do as I say, not as I do. You see Wright thinks it's perfectly acceptable to employ his wife on £27,000 a year instead of giving that job to an unemployed local person.

In the good old days of proper journalism when local newspapers would make MPs like Wright accountable for their actions, The Hartlepool Mail would have been asking him to explain his duplicity.

Not these days. No flaming chance.

It would be hard for the Hartlepool Mail to bring Wright to book because the Editor and the papers owners are just as proficient in the hypocrisy stakes as Wright.

MR WRIGHT IS MR WRONG

Hartlepool MP Ian Wright opening one of the town's food banks.

by HARRY BLACKWOOD

This smarmy character with the ill-fitting suit and a stupid grin on his face is cutting the ribbon to "officially" open Hartlepool's first food bank.

So who is he and why would he be smiling at the thought of people having to rely on food hand-outs to keep hunger at bay?

Well, the "gentlemen" in question is Iain Wright and he's the Labour MP for Hartlepool.

I have no idea why he has a moronic grin on his face considering what he's doing, but I'll hazard a guess. He's grinning at the thought that it's another photo opportunity for the sheepie in his Labour stronghold to be brainwashed by. Well, that and the fact that Mr Wright is never, ever, likely to need a food bank.

One of the reasons of course is that he has a very nice MPs salary. It gets better. Mr Wright has a second income as well. His wife Tiff is in the fortunate position to be earning more than £27,000 a year working part-time as a secretary.

THE ARCHBISHOP AND THE JOBCENTRE

The Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols.

by HARRY BLACKWOOD

Nothing changes. This week the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols laid into the government for its welfare reforms which he branded a disgrace.

Britain's most senior Catholic accused the coalition of removing even the most basic safety net, leaving society's most vulnerable facing hunger and destitution.

Now, I've got no time for the Catholic Church - or any organised religion - but having watched the Archbishop on BBC news, I was impressed with what he had to say and the way he said it.

I've been very fortunate with my career. I've never claimed a penny in unemployment benefit - or any benefit - but just over five years ago I had the audacity to try to make a claim when I went to my local Jobcentre for the one and only time

Here's how it went . . .

DON'T REGISTER TO VOTE AND WE'LL SCREW YOUR CREDIT RATING

By HARRY BLACKWOOD

I'm regularly told by those who oppose my DON'T VOTE stance that my vote is important. I'm told it's a hard-won democratic right that should be cherished and acted upon?

Well, let's just say for the purposes of debate, that's correct. If it is, the Powers That Be should be so comfortable that they occupy the moral high ground that they'd be happy to allow us to make a personal choice.

If you want to vote do so. Of you don't then it's your choice.

That is certainly not the case. For starters it's illegal not to complete the form you get to enter your details on the electoral register.

Here's the official bullshit:

DON'T VOTE. IT ONLY ENCOURAGES THEM

by HARRY BLACKWOOD

It's now more than 25 years since I voted in any sort of election and I've spent the past ten years actively campaigning to get people to follow suit.

You may have been told otherwise but voting is not actively taking part in democracy. It is actively taking part in an elaborate con trick. It's stupid and I know I can convince you that I'm right.

My politics can best be described as compassionate socialism. My leanings have always been left of centre. So, living in Hartlepool - a Labour stronghold in the North East of England - I should have been a happy bunny. Not a bit of it. I've always had a deep-seated mistrust of politicians and when, in 1991, Labour parachuted a smarmy, middle class spin doctor into constituency, I really began to think about how voting and democracy actually works.

That man was Peter Mandelson and his arrival in my home town not only changed my views of politics, democracy and voting, it changed the entire course of my life. But all that is for another day.

So, why was Mandelson handed the safe Labour seat of Hartlepool to fight in the 1992 election? Well, it certainly wasn't for his strong Northern roots or his working class background. Both were non-existent. And it wasn't because of any political achievements. It was a reward for favours done and favours expected.

When Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Stephen Byers, Alan Milburn, Mandelson and others plotted to hijack an ailing Labour Party, they weren't doing it for the good of the nation, the good of democracy or the good of the Labour Party. They were doing it for the good of themselves. Just like the Great Train Robbers divided up the spoils of their haul, so the architects of New Labour did for many years to come. Instead of getting a few mail sacks full of £20 notes, Mandy got the safe seat of Hartlepool as a launch pad to becoming a multi-millionaire Bilderberger and political power broker.

But don't think this scam is unique to New Labour. Far from it. The Tories do precisely the same; as do all political parties. It's the same grace and favour system operated by Royalty and rich landowners for generations.

But here's the rub. This is the bit where hopefully you wake up. They can only get away with it if
you go out and vote. They are desperate for your vote. They will do anything and say anything to get your vote. Without your vote they are finished. It has nothing to do with democracy or policies or principles. It's all about power and control.

Don't believe me? OK try this. At the last election the parties spent more than £30 million trying to get your vote. The Tories spent more than half the total amount. Do you honestly think they spend these vast sums of money to benefit democracy? Give your head a shake. They do it for power. Agreed?

So why do they want power? For power's sake. OK I'll give you that, they're a bunch of power mad psychopaths. So how about thinking further. Where did that £15 million that the Tories spent come from?

LIBERAL DEMOCRAT PROBLEMS RUN DEEPER THAN CLEGG

Leader of the Liberal Democrats and Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg.

by ANDY FLEMING, Guest Blogger

As a fellow human being you’ve got to feel some sympathy towards Nick Clegg.  After nearly four years as the Coalition government’s Deputy Prime Minister, his fortunes have nosedived from being a political Adonis to being the Devil incarnate.  He’s been blamed for most of the political misfortunes that have befallen his party, culminating numerous Liberal Democrat meltdown s in both local and national elections over the last few years. And then of course there was the debacle over the result of his party's only original idea, Alternative Vote system.

In truth, most of his problems are self-inflicted as he adopted the “default position” for politicians of lying to the electorate.  Springing to mind straight away is the duplicitous Coalition Agreement entered into with David Cameron’s Conservatives to introduce student higher education tuition fees of up to £9,000 per annum.