Damn right

From Craig Murray:

Purnell's instincts towards social security were precisely those of Norman Tebbit, only mingled with less compassion. He attempted in effect to reintroduce the Victorian distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor, opposition to which was one of the founding motives of the Labour Party. Like Blair, he had no left wing beliefs, but saw the takeover of a moribund Labour Party as a simple career opportunity.

I remember him being quoted in the FT a while ago saying, as far as the DWP was concerned 'everything is up for sale' in terms of private companies running whole parts of the state. There'll always be a place for him at the IMF.

Our Great Depression

The Great Depression isn't over. According to Gerald Celente.

Ryanair is horrible and other reasons not to fly

What is it about the man who owns Ryanair that makes me want to vomit every time he opens his mouth? Now it turns out he wants to tax passengers to pee so he can remove two toilets from his aeroplanes to make room for six extra passenger seats. Never mind the fact that when you queue for a toilet now on a plane, the cabin crew look poised to jump on you if you make any sudden moves that could be the beginning of a terrorist outrage at 35,000 ft.

A while ago, I vowed never to use this shyster airline because Lyin'air are so deceptive in their prices and destinations. eg. Fly to Oslo - well a two hour coach ride from Oslo. No thanks. Even though you've got to be the biggest airline in Europe, you make everyone who flies with you feel like a nuisance, with their bags and breathing.

More worryingly, I'm not getting on an Airbus 330, with their mysterious fly by wire computer software problems. I'd rather have a cable connecting the flight controls to the bits that make the plane dive than a computer. Computers crash, planes crash. That's it.

Funny Money

From Telegraph

In eight months, Sheikh Mansour has made a £1.45bn profit on a £2bn investment in Barclays.

Just think how useful it would be if the taxpayer had made that profit. All it would have taken was some funny money created by the Bank of England to buy Barclays shares. Of course, the shares may not have risen as much if the bank hadn't 'stood on it's own two feet' but every little penny helps.