Freaky in the FT

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rockfreak
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Freaky in the FT

Post by rockfreak »

He's done it again, only this time it's the lead letter in the Weekend FT - "The interest rate is irrelevant if consumers are not in the mood". A first for Freaky and maybe for CH. It questions the ability of the Bank of England to deal on its own with inflation or recession. Unfortunately the FT has a paywall so the print edition will cost £4.30 for anyone who is interested in my musings.

Actually I often stump up the money for the weekend edition because it's a darn good general read on a range of subjects. You may raise an eyebrow though at the accompanying glossy supplement called 'How To Spend It' which illustrates the wealth gap that the ONS tells us has grown as a result of forty years of witch Thatcher and her followers. What the American socio-economist Thorstein Veblen called "conspicuous consumption".
Last edited by rockfreak on Sat Nov 27, 2021 8:02 pm, edited 2 times in total.
sejintenej
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Re: Freaky in the FT

Post by sejintenej »

rockfreak wrote: Sat Nov 27, 2021 12:15 pm He's done it again, only this time it's the lead letter in the Weekend FT -. A first for Freaky and maybe for CH.
I doubt very much if I was the first but I did precede the Freak. The first time for me was when, against international competition, I won the FT annual writing contest "Who is the greatest person who ever lived" with references to Siberian shamen and to denizens of the ethereal palaces of Alpha Centauri. The last time I am aware of was when two of us were able to alleviate suffering in Nigeria by arranging huge amounts of aid
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rockfreak
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Re: Freaky in the FT

Post by rockfreak »

The trouble with Thatcher was that, while she was lying in the morgue before burial, no-one managed to sneak in with a sharpened stake and a mallet and finish her off. As a result she rises at dusk every evening and flies the land biting people on the neck, and this is why her unworkable ideas continue to proliferate.
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Re: Freaky in the FT

Post by Foureyes »

Rockfreak,
That is both very unpleasant and uncalled for. If you cannot do better than that, I suggest that you keep your opinions to yourself.
David :shock:
time please
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Re: Freaky in the FT

Post by time please »

rockfreak wrote: Sat Nov 27, 2021 8:00 pm The trouble with Thatcher was that, while she was lying in the morgue before burial, no-one managed to sneak in with a sharpened stake and a mallet and finish her off. As a result she rises at dusk every evening and flies the land biting people on the neck, and this is why her unworkable ideas continue to proliferate.
Regardless of what Four Eyes thinks ( and he has every right to his opinion ) it made me chuckle! Never having lived in England under Thatcher or any PM since 75 I have no idea what she was like.

Four Eyes got offended: in todays society offending someone is paramount to treason. I for one am offended by the offended
rockfreak
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Re: Freaky in the FT

Post by rockfreak »

Foureyes wrote: Sat Nov 27, 2021 10:46 pm Rockfreak,
That is both very unpleasant and uncalled for. If you cannot do better than that, I suggest that you keep your opinions to yourself.
David :shock:

Thatcher herself was both unpleasant and uncalled for. She caused two of the worst recessions and unemployment since the 1930s and there were incidences of some people being driven to the edge and ending up hanging themselves in their garage. I don't believe I've done that yet. I was just about to post that today I've got another letter in the papers, only this time The Observer. Under the heading "Johnson was never a real Conservative", I detail the origins of one-nation conservatism and how it got perverted from 1979 onwards by this odious woman who merely strove to fracture, divide and rule, leaving us with inequality that was last seen in the Edwardian era. Pork Barrel Bozza is merely the logical endgame to this vicious and unworkable ideology and even The Observer's Andrew Rawnsley calls today's Tories blue anarchists. Interestingly, it's Norman Tebbit of all people who has recently shown a bit of grace and admitted that perhaps they should have closed the mines more gradually and tried harder to invest in replacement sectors.
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Re: Freaky in the FT

Post by Foureyes »

I posted: "That is both very unpleasant and uncalled for. If you cannot do better than that, I suggest that you keep your opinions to yourself."

I was not offended by what Rockfreak wrote - it was par for the course where he is concerned. What I was endeavouring to suggest was that it is the violence of his language which actually weakens his case. He may even have some valid points, but the way he expresses them serves only to antagonise many of his readers.

For example, he says "...leaving us with inequality that was last seen in the Edwardian era.[/i]" That is worth debating. It is a statement that is often made, but never analysed. I can quite see that there were distinct layers in Edwardian society and there was a lot of social inequality. But what is the situation today? The aristocrats of old have long since ceased to be of any relevance (except, reputedly, in obtaining tables at short notice in London restaurants). So, who are in the social layers today?

Finally, he refers in several posts to miners. I am proud of my miner heritage. My great-grandfather was a miner in the Forest of Dean and my grandfather, whom I knew, was a miner in Wheatley Hill in County Durham. I maintain a Davy Lamp in our sitting-room as a reminder of where I came from. My grandfather's very firm advice to all his sons was 'Don't go down the pits' and they didn't. The Wheatley Hill pit closed in the 1968, well ahead of Thatcher and Scargill. In those years 127 men and boys died as a result of accidents, with more losing their health (including my grandfather) through a variety of pit-related diseases. And that was just a small pit - I wonder how the national total stacked up? Surely we are well rid of that?Incidentally, Wheatley Hill is in the Sedgefield constituency which voted for Labour MPs from 1935 until 2019, when it returned a Conservative with a very healthy majority - so, if there was ill will towards Thatcher, it has long since dissipated.

It seems a pity that rockfreak doesn't stand for Parliament himself, instead of writing letters to elitist newspapers such as the Observer and Financial Times.

David :shock:
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Re: Freaky in the FT

Post by Pe.A »

rockfreak wrote: Sat Nov 27, 2021 12:15 pm Unfortunately the FT has a paywall so the print edition will cost £4.30 for anyone who is interested in my musings.
**AHEM**
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Re: Freaky in the FT

Post by AMP »

The interest rate is irrelevant if consumers are not in the mood". A first for Freaky and maybe for CH. It questions the

Always nice for a journo to be a published journo.

But nothing new here.

Thatcher was railroaded into the ERM by Lawson and Howe and look what a disaster that was.

"You can't buck the market" she said.

Be it speculators or just ordinary folk who want to spend their hard earned furlough.

But did Major, Heseltine, Clarke and Hurd listen?

No, we must be good europeans and support Chancellor Kohl, who by the way was not wasting his precious Deutsch marks propping up Sterling when rates hit 15%.
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Re: Freaky in the FT

Post by rockfreak »

Was the ERM a disaster? For us maybe. But most other countries survived their stay and the ERM went on to become the Euro. The problem was that we went in at too high a rate. Rather reflecting the mistake that Churchill made as Chancellor in 1925 when putting us back onto gold at an overvalued rate. "We will make the pound the benchmark currency of Europe" bragged John Major. Really? said the speculators led by George Soros. "You're still mired in a sodding great recession with large numbers unemployed, you're losing your companies hand over fist into foreign ownership and we don't believe you can stay in the ERM at this level. They were right as they attacked the pound and made a fortune in the process.

Other countries seem to have survived pretty well with the Euro. But the lesson is, I imagine, that a single currency has to operate among countries with similar economies. Since Thatcher and Nigel Lawson we have sold our companies off abroad (often into the avaricious maw of private equity), and our productivity and balance of payments positions have declined, so that we long ago ceased to be mentioned among the first rank of dynamic first world economies.
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Re: Freaky in the FT

Post by Pe.A »

rockfreak wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 12:02 pm
Foureyes wrote: Sat Nov 27, 2021 10:46 pm Rockfreak,
That is both very unpleasant and uncalled for. If you cannot do better than that, I suggest that you keep your opinions to yourself.
David :shock:

Thatcher herself was both unpleasant and uncalled for. She caused two of the worst recessions and unemployment since the 1930s and there were incidences of some people being driven to the edge and ending up hanging themselves in their garage. I don't believe I've done that yet. I was just about to post that today I've got another letter in the papers, only this time The Observer. Under the heading "Johnson was never a real Conservative", I detail the origins of one-nation conservatism and how it got perverted from 1979 onwards by this odious woman who merely strove to fracture, divide and rule, leaving us with inequality that was last seen in the Edwardian era. Pork Barrel Bozza is merely the logical endgame to this vicious and unworkable ideology and even The Observer's Andrew Rawnsley calls today's Tories blue anarchists. Interestingly, it's Norman Tebbit of all people who has recently shown a bit of grace and admitted that perhaps they should have closed the mines more gradually and tried harder to invest in replacement sectors.
What state was Britain in during the 70s? You make it sound like the fractured society only appeared after 1979. Britain was trying to run an imperial economy, but without an empire. Something had to give.

Norman Tebbit was correct - but goes some way to prove that what was wrong was not what was done, but how it was done. But i suppose that's one of the weaknesses of a parliamentary democracy, where political parties only have 4 years to get things done, whereas something as far reaching as that needed far longer to implement.
Last edited by Pe.A on Wed Dec 22, 2021 7:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
Pe.A
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Re: Freaky in the FT

Post by Pe.A »

rockfreak wrote: Fri Dec 03, 2021 8:16 pm Was the ERM a disaster? For us maybe. But most other countries survived their stay and the ERM went on to become the Euro. The problem was that we went in at too high a rate. Rather reflecting the mistake that Churchill made as Chancellor in 1925 when putting us back onto gold at an overvalued rate. "We will make the pound the benchmark currency of Europe" bragged John Major. Really? said the speculators led by George Soros. "You're still mired in a sodding great recession with large numbers unemployed, you're losing your companies hand over fist into foreign ownership and we don't believe you can stay in the ERM at this level. They were right as they attacked the pound and made a fortune in the process.

Other countries seem to have survived pretty well with the Euro. But the lesson is, I imagine, that a single currency has to operate among countries with similar economies. Since Thatcher and Nigel Lawson we have sold our companies off abroad (often into the avaricious maw of private equity), and our productivity and balance of payments positions have declined, so that we long ago ceased to be mentioned among the first rank of dynamic first world economies.
In your esteemed opinion, would Britain have crashed out of the ERM if Soros had not been fiddling around in the background (i am reluctant to use the word manipulated)?
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Re: Freaky in the FT

Post by sejintenej »

Delighted to see that a Polish politician has at last admitted that Germany is trying to turn the EU into the Fourth Reich.
Unfortunately that is what I was saying about that unmentionable German woman for a long time.
What happens if a politician drowns in a river? That is pollution.
What happens if all of them drown? That is solution!!!
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Re: Freaky in the FT

Post by Pe.A »

sejintenej wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 4:30 pm Delighted to see that a Polish politician has at last admitted that Germany is trying to turn the EU into the Fourth Reich.
Unfortunately that is what I was saying about that unmentionable German woman for a long time.
I don't think the word 'admitted' really fits - more 'accused'...

Do you really want to take the opinion of a right wing Polish politician...?
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Re: Freaky in the FT

Post by Avon »

sejintenej wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 4:30 pm Unfortunately that is what I was saying about that unmentionable German woman for a long time.
Alice Weidel or Frauke Petry?
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