telegraph – Olduvai.ca

The Telegraph picked the perfect messenger to communicate the new way we should think about population declines. A high-level WEF adviser tells us:

Oxford Professor Sarah Harper is a very important person. The Telegraph article listing her credentials forgot to mention that she serves on the Global Agenda Council on Ageing Societies of the World Economic Forum.

Prof Harper is thrilled about recent declines in fertility:

Prof Harper told the Telegraph: “I think it’s a good thing that the high-income, high-consuming countries of the world are reducing the number of children that they’re having. I’m quite positive about that.”

The academic said declining fertility in rich countries would help to address the “general overconsumption that we have at the moment”, which has a negative impact on the planet.

Most importantly, declines in births will bring about reductions in CO2 emissions from wealthy nations, Prof Harper points out:

Research has found that wealthy nations tend to have much larger carbon footprints than poorer countries, as rich people can afford to buy more goods, travel more and do other activities that generate emissions.

Carbon emissions from high-income countries were 29 times larger than low-income countries on a per capita basis in 2020, World Bank figures show.

Population Declines or Population Replacement?

Here’s the strange part: If the leadership of the World Economic Forum wanted to reduce emissions from wealthy countries, I could understand how they would hope that population reductions would lead to a decline in economic output. Aside from moral implications, it is simple math that fewer people means fewer cars on the road, less food consumed and so on.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

World faces wave of epic debt defaults, fears central bank veteran

November 23, 2017

World faces wave of epic debt defaults, fears central bank veteran

Exclusive: Situation worse than it was in 2007, says chairman of the OECD’s review committee

The next task awaiting the global authorities is how to manage debt write-offs without setting off a political storm Photo: Rex

The global financial system has become dangerously unstable and faces an avalanche of bankruptcies that will test social and political stability, a leading monetary theorist has warned.

“The situation is worse than it was in 2007. Our macroeconomic ammunition to fight downturns is essentially all used up,” said William White, the Swiss-based chairman of the OECD’s review committee and former chief economist of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

“Emerging markets were part of the solution after the Lehman crisis. Now they are part of the problem, too.”
William White, OECD

“Debts have continued to build up over the last eight years and they have reached such levels in every part of the world that they have become a potent cause for mischief,” he said.

“It will become obvious in the next recession that many of these debts will never be serviced or repaid, and this will be uncomfortable for a lot of people who think they own assets that are worth something,” he told The Telegraph on the eve of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“The only question is whether we are able to look reality in the eye and face what is coming in an orderly fashion, or whether it will be disorderly. Debt jubilees have been going on for 5,000 years, as far back as the Sumerians.”

The next task awaiting the global authorities is how to manage debt write-offs – and therefore a massive reordering of winners and losers in society – without setting off a political storm.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Brexit = Death of the Technocrats

June 25, 2016

Brexit = Death of the Technocrats

| Posted Friday Jun 24, 2016 at 1:01 pm

Screen Shot 2016-06-24 at 12.36.57 PM

My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) … the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

– J. R. R. Tolkien

What transpired last night in the United Kingdom represented one of the most extraordinary expressions of democracy in my lifetime. When faced with an event of such monumental significance, it’s difficult to pick any particular direction for a post like this. I have so many thoughts running through my mind and so many angles I could potentially address, it’s simply impossible to do them all justice. As such, I’ve decided to focus on one very meaningful implication of Brexit: death of the technocrats.

To start, I want to dive into one of the more interesting controversies from the weeks leading up to the vote. What I’m referring to is the statement made by Vote Leave’s Michael Grove regarding “experts.”

From the Telegraph:

On Friday night, during an interview on Sky News about the EU, Faisal Islam challenged the Justice Secretary to name a single independent economic authority that thought Brexit was a good idea. Mr Gove’s response was defiant.

“I’m glad these organizations aren’t on my side,” he said. “I think people in this country have had enough of experts.”

Mr Islam spluttered incredulously. People in this country, he repeated, “have had enough of experts?”

Mr Gove stood his ground. Yes, he said, people in this country had had enough of experts “saying that they know what is best”. Mr Gove had “faith in the British people”. The so-called experts, clearly, did not.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Gold is the spectre haunting our monetary system

April 22, 2016

Close-up of bars of pure gold bullion — A scramble for gold has begun as central banks bet against US dollar inflation CREDIT:ALAMY

For a century, elites have worked to eliminate monetary gold, both physically and ideologically.

This began in 1914, with the UK’s entry into the First World War. The Bank of England wanted to suspend convertibility of bank notes into gold. Keynes counselled wisely that the bank should not do so. Gold was finite, but credit elastic.

By staying on gold, the UK could maintain its credit, and finance the war effort. This transpired. The House of Morgan organised massive credits for the UK, and none for Germany. This finance was crucial, and sustained the UK until the US abandoned neutrality and tipped the military balance against Germany.

Despite formal convertibility of sterling to gold, the Bank of England successfully discouraged actual conversion.

Gold sovereigns were withdrawn from circulation and turned into 400-ounce bars. This form of bullion limited gold ownership to the wealthy, and confined gold’s presence to vaults. A similar disappearance of gold as a circulating currency occurred in the US.

Gold graph — The price of gold has jumped in recent years CREDIT: LONDON METAL EXCHANGE

In 1933, US President Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order making ownership of gold a crime. FDR relied on the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 as statutory authority for this edict. Since the US was not at war in 1933, the enemy was presumably the American people.

In 1971, US President Richard Nixon ended convertibility of US dollars into gold by trading partners of the US. Closing the gold window was said by Nixon to be temporary. Forty-five years later the window is still closed.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Dutch referendum shows how the internet is taking back power from our Europhile elites

April 6, 2016

Dutch member of the Socialist Party (SP) Harry van Bommel hands out flyers against a referendum on the association treaty with Ukraine CREDIT: BART MAAT

Today’s Dutch referendum on the EU’s expansionist agreement with Ukraine really is the people’s referendum.

It wasn’t triggered by politicians or political parties, but by a determined group of well-organised, highly-motivated individuals.

GeenPeil, a project stemming from the popular Dutch blog GeenStijl, collected some 420,000 signed, verified, signatures triggering this referendum. It is an extraordinary achievement that highlights how western democracy is evolving.

Steven Woolfe MEP

✔‎@Steven_Woolfe

Dutch referendum is example that euroscepticism is rife throughout Europe. Hope the Dutch people give EU elite a kick in the teeth & vote no

5:23 AM – 6 Apr 2016

The internet truly is the gamechanger of our time. A small collection of individuals with an idea can find thousands of other kindred spirits who join them in championing a cause. That develops, becoming tens of thousands and then allowing a message to reach out to millions.

This revolution is sweeping Europe as we speak. Just look at Beppe Grillo’s Five Star movement in Italy, who harness a system of direct democracy amongst their supporters. When Five Star had MEPs elected to the European Parliament, the party asked supporters to vote on which group they should sit with. Supporters had their say and the Five Star Movement now sit alongside Ukip.

Without the internet, the development and growth of Ukip in Britain would have been far tougher. YouTube gave speeches I made in the European Parliament a platform, reaching out to new audiences not just in the United Kingdom but right across the world. Most encouragingly, these are young audiences, a generation who are now able to access virtually unlimited quantities of information. The internet takes western democracy into a new sphere. Unchartered territory with exciting possibilities.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

IMF has betrayed its mission in Greece, captive to EMU creditors

June 6, 2015

IMF has betrayed its mission in Greece, captive to EMU creditors

The IMF’s Original Sin in Greece was to let Dominique Strauss-Kahn hijack the institution to save Europe’s banks and the euro when the crisis erupted, dooming Greece to disaster.

The International Monetary Fund is in very serious trouble. Events have reached a point in Greece where the Fund’s own credibility and long-term survival are at stake.

The Greeks are not withholding a €300m payment to the IMF because they have run out of money, though they soon will do.

Five key players in the radical-Left Syriza movement – meeting in the Maximus Mansion in Athens yesterday – took an ice-cold, calculated, and carefully-considered decision not to pay.

They knew exactly what they were doing. The IMF’s Christine Lagardewas caught badly off guard. Staff officials in Washington were stunned.

On one level, the “bundling” of €1.6bn of payments due to the IMF in June is just a technical shuffle, albeit invoking a procedure last used by Zambia for different reasons in the 1980s. In reality it is a warning shot, and a dangerous escalation for all parties.

Syriza’s leaders are letting it be known that they are so angry, and so driven by a sense of injustice, that they may indeed default to the IMF on June 30 and in so doing place the institution in the invidious position of explaining to its 188 member countries why it has lost their money so carelessly, and why it has made such a colossal hash of its affairs.

The Greeks accuse the IMF of colluding in an EMU-imposed austerity regime that breaches the Fund’s own rules and is in open contradiction with five years of analysis by its own excellent research department and chief economist, Olivier Blanchard.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

As Banks Tighten Grip on the Media, British Journalist Rebels Against HSBC-Run Telegraph

February 20, 2015

As Banks Tighten Grip on the Media, British Journalist Rebels Against HSBC-Run Telegraph

“Banks are the feudal knights of today’s world,” Hervé Falciani says in an interview. “They are a power without a counterweight, without opposition.”

That is not to say that they don’t have a weak point, adds the 42-year-old whistleblower who blew the lid on HSBC’s global tax evasion and money laundering practices. “For the banks, reputation is increasingly important. When they lose it, they don’t know how to get it back.”

Hence the importance of banks being able to control news at its source, as the Daily Telegraph’s ex-chief political commentator, Peter Oborne, has learned, and (to his great credit) revealed in a ball-busting exposé of his former employer’s cozy ties with the world’s second largest – and arguably most criminal – bank:

Three years ago the Telegraph investigations team… received a tip off about accounts held with HSBC in Jersey… After three months’ research the Telegraph resolved to publish. Six articles on this subject can now be found online, between 8 and 15 November 2012, although three are not available to view.

Thereafter no fresh reports appeared. Reporters were ordered to destroy all emails, reports and documents related to the HSBC investigation… From the start of 2013 onwards stories critical of HSBC were discouraged. HSBC suspended its advertising with the Telegraph…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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