In the past, this would cheer the financial sector as cheap borrowing means more capital floating around the stock market (equalling higher stock prices and returns) however I judge that this won't be effective in the current situation.

Previously one of the side effects of this type of rate cutting was to cause an increase in speculation, one of the causes of the current economic crisis. Rate cuts meant that financial gamblers could take out huge loans cheaply and play market psychology in order to reap short-term profits for investment companies and large commissions for individual stock brokers.

However these rate cuts will not change the economic situation much. The contradictions that caused the current economic crisis still remain and can't be paved over by cheaper loans. Stocks aren't going to bring returns when everyone's profits are falling and Main Street is cutting expenditure due to personal debt and job losses. We're in a vicious cycle.

Governments will inevitably have to go after the sector of society which is awash with cash, but loathes to pay taxes. Super-rich individuals and companies who look for loopholes to pay less tax than the working and middle class must be penalised. The majority cannot afford to pay for the higher government spending needed to increase demand in the economy, but the personal wealth (siphoned from the rest of society I will add) of the super-rich could do that and so much more.

It will be seen if governments have the political will to tackle the super-wealthy, because if they don't then it will be the misery of us all.

...many DUers are susceptible to old school palaeocon nuttiness of the Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan variety.

There is a presumption that because palaeoconservatism opposes neoconservatism, palaeoconservatism must have some sort of nobility in it, when in fact palaeoconservatism is a deeply insidious world view in its own right.

It's a laugh to see some DUers support goldbugism, when such a policy unnecessarily prolonged the Great Depression in the United States. Goldbugism reduces liquidity and investment in the economy at a time when the economy needs an increase in overall demand, available consumer capital, and available public capital.

With the poll predicting a large cull of Cabinet ministers, this could mean the end of Gordon Brown before a General Election showdown.

An impending wipe-out for the Lib Dems and Labour will happen if current trends continue, though the prospect of proportional representation won't seem as offensive to the latter as it once did. If I was a Labour partisan I would certainly be taking another look at PR. Outside of foreign policy I see little to distinguish the Lib Dems from New Labour these days.

A Lib Dem-Labour tactical alliance could keep the Tories out, but like you say something needs to be done in place of the failed Anglo-American economic model. Meanwhile Sweden's economy will continue grow above 2% for the next two years according to an OECD report (http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/5/53/20213258... ).

Is this what they mean about having more women involved with the Conservative Party?

I never knew the Hegelians were such preening dandies and for determinate negation of physical flaws.

although I would imagine that the claw-back will be far smaller than what Bush obtained after the GOP Convention in 2004. McCain is arguably much worse a public speaker than Bush, and so he would need to make the speech of his life to make any significant bump.

The other side of it will be the GOP spin operation, if McCain makes a semi-coherent speech it will be lauded by GOP talking points, and it will be up to the media to carry this through. If the media thinks "John McCain makes comeback speech" will be a good narrative, then that's what it will push. There's always a fair chance that the media could make a story out of "McCain blows it at convention" if the GOP spin is ineffective and the DNC spin is effective. I won't hold my breath for the latter as it's in the media's interest for a close race as it is hoped that this would carry greater public attention.

Early European colonialism (that is from the 15th century onwards) was driven by the increase of available world markets, such as spice trade routes in the east, and the eventual discovery of huge gold reserves (capital) in the Americas by the Spanish.

Major European states at the time were undergoing a transformation from feudal property relations to early mercantile capitalism. A result of this was the rise in power of the merchant classes, whom European monarchs would often rely on to finance their wars and budget spending commitments. The eventual dispossessing of the independent mediaeval baron's former power saw much of the aristocracy and landed gentry make common cause with the new merchant class, and had come around to this mercantile way of thinking. The titular aristocracy eventually opened up to wealthy merchants who could buy land and titles and as such could help foment policy in advisory and legislative bodies. Monarchs saw advantage in furthering their merchant classes' capital interests overseas as a way of national enrichment and to entrench civic and dynastical stability.

Colonialism of the 18th and 19th centuries was more intense in that Europe being the first to industrialise had a great impact on the world. Advanced military technology and an established track record of capital management by merchants gave European states strong economies. The advance of modern capitalism had given great aggression to the accumulation of capital so that we saw the mass enslavement of human beings and transportation over large distances. Exploiting cheap or slave labour and plunder of third world resources helped fuel continued European growth (and US growth which also became an imperial power).

The transformation of Europe's feudal nature to that of early mercantile capitalism, and then further on to imperialist capitalism meant that Europe had the means and the economic drive to plunder third world resources and annex great tracts of the world. China, despite being the world's most technologically-advanced state in 1250 shut itself off from outside influence until British imperialism in the 19th century forced it open at gun-point. Chinese property relations and economic structure did not change at all for half a millennia, in which a despotic monarchy extracts surplus profit from communal villages and powerful trade centres. This structure of economy was incredibly stable, but China's self-imposed cultural isolation meant that it did not benefit as much from technological creep and efficient methods of industry. The eventual subjugation of the Chinese imperial family to the powerful West, caused the rise of anti-imperialist nationalism which took forms of right-wing republicanism and left-wing communism, and the beginning of eventual Chinese industrialisation.

India remained in a similar state. Many of its peoples lived in communal settlements that were economically balanced and primitive communistic in nature due to all property being shared by the community. Tribute was then extracted by the dominant princes. The stability of this economic arrangement meant its lack of transformation, and cultural differences gave little incentive for Indians to reform its economy on alien European lines. It was only when Britain conquered and annexed India that it enforced monopoly capitalism and western concepts of property relations at gunpoint. The abandoning of organic communal economics saw living standards for most Indians drop significantly as Britain pushed down wages, and extracted far more capital profit than had the previous Indian princely states.

Both these reports ask questions of the Georgian leadership and to what extent the US promised them backing.

Obviously, the attempt by Georgia to rein in South Ossetia and Abkhazia by violating the ceasefire and engage the Russians was a foolhardy scheme. Was it a serious attempt to forcefully establish Tbilisi's control over these areas?

Or maybe there was something else at play here. Georgia has been lobbying for NATO membership with US support for years now, but its latest membership application was blocked by European countries who did not wish to antagonise Russia.

Was this foolhardy offensive by Georgia a way to show Europe its vulnerability against a larger "aggressor" and thus justifying NATO membership? If this is the case, did the US hope that any sort of Russian counteroffensive would galvanise support in Europe for Georgian entry into NATO?

If the Georgian breaking of last week's ceasefire was not a huge miscalculated blunder of its own devising, then was it taken on the understanding that the US would deliver more support than it eventually did? Given Georgia's close relationship with Washington, then it would be hard to believe that the US didn't have an inkling of what was going on. Perhaps Georgia was promised greater US support than merely the diplomatic indignation that Washington followed through with.

If such promises were made, then Washington may well have changed its mind once the operation was underway. Given the hard-line Russian attitude to its military's presence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Washington may have realised that its level of political capital is weaker than first thought, and that Russian resolve was stronger. Was this a Georgian blunder, a State Department blunder, do both share the blame? In any case, despite the Western media's pro-Georgia stance it can't change the fact that Georgia had reneged on its ceasefire and this weakens its claim to be a victim of an aggressor.

In any case now, Russia can take advantage of the situation and could enforce regime-change in Tbilisi if it wanted. It is unlikely to wish to forcibly incorporate Georgia into the Federation despite the apocalyptic fears of Western sabre-rattlers. A safely pro-Kremlin government in an independent Georgia would serve its interests much better than having to fight a pro-independence insurgency.

If Georgia's pro-western state is to survive then it needs to cut its losses regarding South Ossetia and Abkhazia (recognising independence) and hope its concessions to this will get Russian forces to withdraw from rump Georgia. Tbilisi would be negotiating from a very weakened position and right now, any negotiated settlement which allows rump Georgia to survive with its pro-western government and military intact should be heartily accepted.

Most intelligent Brits know what the Daily Mail is about. But there's plenty of bigoted types who think they'll only hear the truth in the Mail and consider everything else to be a left-wing conspiracy.

To make a US comparison. The Daily Mail is like a composite of the worst aspects of Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Coulter, Savage, Santorum, Alex Jones, and Geraldo Rivera... cubed.

A change of leader can go either way in terms of electoral fortunes. In 2007, the Australian Labor Party were heading for yet another drubbing until they switched leaders and got a huge bounce in the polls, eventually ending a decade of right-wing conservative government,

Ditching Thatcher in late 1990 in favour of John Major worked for the Tories and pulled a seemingly unlikely win out of the bag. If the Tories had kept Thatcher running into 1992, you'd have seen a Kinnock premiership.

Ditching leaders doesn't work for everyone, consider the Lib Dems' track record these past three years, and the Tories' track record these past eight years.

I do suspect that Labour's problems go beyond its leader, in particular the economic ideology of its advisers and senior MPs. Working class voters are staying home more every election and there is the perception that Labour are no longer a party that helps working people.

Blair/Brown neoliberalism helped to win over the City, Murdoch et al to the New Labour project, but parliamentary social democracy needed to be sacrificed.

Labour are between a rock and a hard place at the moment. It cannot keep the coalition of the unions, the working class, middle class liberals, Rupert Murdoch, and liberal interventionists that brought Labour landslides in 1997 and 2001.

If Labour do win in 2010, it will be marginal and the party will still be weak. It has some long-term rebuilding to do. The Tory Party is neither the renewed force that people reckon, as the Tory coalition masks a great deal of ideological and class conflict. It has only been the frustration of a decade of opposition that has given these contradictions a tenuous ceasefire, but expect these to flair up in a Tory government. I doubt that there will be a huge Tory victory in 2010, but a working majority is possible.

A formal Tory-Lib Dem coalition is unlikely, but an informal pact where Lib Dems supply votes to prop up the government is possible, especially if the Lib Dems don't wish to have another election campaign shortly after.

...posting on CiF?



I'm doubtful that this was a resignation by a man to "clear his name" too. It's obvious that Lewis is a total gobshite. As Assembly Member John Biggs (Labour) put it, "Either there is a conspiracy involving virtually the whole world or the man is a complete fantasist."

I think Boris will carry the can for this, even that it's probably more Cameron/Tory HQ's fault than anything. I doubt Johnson would be permitted to make his appointments without Tory suits holding his hand.

The key for Mayor Boris to appear competent was for him to read his Tory HQ vetted script. However the flaws in this plan appear when there are incompetents directing his policies/appointments back in Tory HQ.

The disestablishment of the Fairness Doctrine was a significant blow to free speech and journalism within the United States.

Opponents of the Fairness Doctrine have themselves put forward a free speech argument, but they're merely defending poor journalistic practices in which media become susceptible to the interests of the wealthy (lobbyists, conservative business). As a result we have less free speech instead of more since the last Fairness Doctrine expired.

I hope the next Democratic Congress realise how important the Fairness will be in maintaining a long-term, fairer political landscape.

is not a social libertarian. In regards to civil issues he is an old-fashioned palaeocon. His supposed progressive stance on civil liberties is a red herring. He is against the state when it inhibits how rich white men spend their money. However he's all for legally reinstating second-class citizenship for women, criminalising the GLBT community, ending affirmative action, and totally gutting social services.

Ron Paul is for a powerful conservative authoritarian state just as long as it doesn't tax the rich, and just funds the military, government and the police.

BBC America is a subsidiary of BBC Worldwide a commercial for-profit company. The BBC in the UK is a non-commercial company. Due to pressure from commercial rivals, the publicly-funded BBC cannot subsidise its commercial arms with its array of programming. BBC America is treated like a separate entity and must pay full market price for BBC programming and compete for rights with other non-UK broadcasters for BBC programming.

This why BBC America puts a lot of fluff in its schedules, so it can save money to buy the rights to the occasionally worthy BBC show.

There seem to be plenty of people with overly-active imaginations who believe in no-planes, nukes, holograms and directed-energy beam theories. A lot of them are evidently present on DU. My ex-brother-in-law is an adamant no-planer I'm sad to say and he's certainly not COINTELPRO, he just happens to be attracted to these highly speculative conspiracy theories.

With someone like Alex Jones who pushes these types of theories, I don't think he's COINTELPRO, he's just a man out to make a buck. Most rational observers know what he is about. The right-wing populism that Alex Jones, Lyndon LaRouche and their fellow travellers revel in is very much hostile to the Bush administration from a right-ward perspective. They have latched on to the "Truth Movement" (or if you prefer, its highly disagreeing and divergent factions) to further their own agenda.