David Kreps blog

Personally I am proud to say I have been guilty of sodomy much of my life. Thank goodness I live in a country where it became legal, by the time I was 4 years old, albeit only for 21 yr olds; and although in my late teens and early 20s I was guilty of under-age sex with other 16-20yr olds, when the age of consent was finally equalised at 16 my sexual behaviour became not only legal but represented on telly in a sympathetic and even competition-winning manner (as opposed to wretched and probably dead by the end of the story). How awful that a ghastly despot in a far-flung country should be able to use a charge of ‘sodomy’ as a means of suppressing an opposition politician. It sounds like some Byzantine early Christian Roman Emperor arresting a bunch of Greek Philosophers. How grateful I am to live here, and not over there.

Anwar Ibrahim sodomy charge dismissed by Malaysian judge

As the world teeters on the brink of who knows what, and the leaders of the G7 discuss it all on a conference call, here’s a few ideas for them:

Some statecraft is needed here: we need to leave behind the discredited ‘orthodoxy’ (epitomised by the extremist views of the swivel-eyed terrorist-Tea Partiers but followed in one form or another by most western governments) and wake up to the fact that the markets are a madhouse fundamentally at odds with the interests of the vast majority of the real world, and need to be reined in and chained down like a mad dog. After bailing out the banks in 2008, and then mismanaging the sovereign debt that ensued, world debt is now three times world GDP. So either we have calamitous defaults, or we print money and stoke up enough inflation to make the numbers add up. When world GDP is equal to or greater than our debt – in numbers at least – we can settle down and balance the books again.  A litre of fuel may cost a fiver, rather than £1.40, but it’ll still be a litre of fuel.

Most importantly, we must wake up and realise that there is no ‘wisdom’ in the markets, only savage and feral self-interest that needs to be caged, tamed and closely monitored with robust and thought-through regulation that has not been written by the likes of Goldman Sachs.

Like it or not, the eurozone probably needs fundamental no-quibble fiscal union – effectively turning it into the United States of Europe with strong local government.  And that means Germany picking up the bill for a while.  They’re scared of it now, because its been their ambition for 150 years to dominate Europe again (for the first time since the collapse of the medieval Holy Roman Empire) and having gone the wrong way about it twice they’re baulking at having it given to them on a plate.  But its the only way forward now. [STOP PRESS - first moves toward this now underway]

Here at home in the UK, I have to say the man still making most sense is Vince Cable.  The rest of the coalition don’t seem to get it at all, and Ed and his crew have a lot of ground to make up yet before I’ll be convinced they’d be any better.  Probably the best way out here would be fundamental Land Reform, enabling us to tax the 0.36% of the population that own 2/3 of the land of the British Isles.

And do I think it likely that the G7 leaders will take this advice?  No.  I bet they’ll all just batten down the hatches, declare even more austerity, and run the world economy into the ground.  Having a meeting without China, is, after all, part of the hubris that brought about the problem in the first place.  ‎“What we are witnessing is not just the decline of the US but the decline of the west.”

Soon, then, will come the defaults, and the rioting will really get under way.

OK so the world can lurch on after a deal is finally being struck to stave off default in the US.  The Euro’s latest sticking plaster is more likely to last as long as many hope.

But aren’t we being chivvied headlong – by a tea-drinking dog that believes the elite should be properly rich, that there should be those who are above, and those who are below – down a road in which the middle classes are those who are progressively being culled?  Viewed from left field, although their consumption patterns are gargantuan, the super-rich – even the burgeoning global . . . → Read More: Chaos as Ice Turns to Water

“Benjamin Ferencz, an American lawyer who was a US prosecutor at the Nuremburg trials and who lives in New York state, asked whether the killing was justifiable self-defence or premeditated illegal assassination. He would have preferred he had been captured and put on trial.

Ferencz, 92, said : “The picture I get is that a bunch of highly trained, heavily armed soldiers find an

Head of the Luftwaffe Hermann Goering

old guy in pyjamas and shot him in the chest and head and that borders, without access to more facts, on murder.” He added: “Even [the head of . . . → Read More: Osama bin Laden