From my post of 19 January...
Wars are about gaining power and possessions and used to fought totally with armies. China has found a new way of waging war and now owns vast tracts of the western world.

The Chinese are not dumb and are very difficult to understand for westerners, mainly because of their conception of time. The goals we have and measure in months or years, they measure in generations. That ownership of western assets and financial instruments started decades ago and, at the moment, it is a sword of Damocles over the heads of several countries, namely the US given the vast holding of US issued debt instruments by the Chinese State, Chinese State entities and Chinese companies in general.

Let's, however, look at that from another angle. Financial, currency and trade wars are nothing new to mankind. The issue with them, though, is that it starts there but usually escalates towards real war. And, Tim, let's be honest; right now several issues around the world are ripe for the start of a large scale war. There are several tensions, several issues here and there, escalations and provocations in several points of the planet which may end up in a large scale war. The worst of all this is that I am not fully convinced that a large war is a bad thing at this time...

AND the developing world too Tim.

It staggered me to see how much of SE and Central Asia has been bought-up, and/or built by the Chinese in these regions - and as a consequence, is now under their control.

Although I've never been there, it's a similar story in/around the African continent too, so I understand.
:thumbdown:

Political leadership is fun
 

Currently visiting German speaking Switzerland, they, the Swiss, are awaiting some leadership from the UK regarding their own dispute with the EU; the latter comes down to the issue of free movement of people - the Swiss have voted in their own referendum to restrict future movement and their government have two years from that outcome to implement the wishes of the population. That two years expires next year, so everyone here is supposedly waiting to see what our own referendum decides on 23 June.

Copper in particular, see this article from 2008: China's drive for mineral wealth

Yes true, they are doing loads in SE Asia, I was reading a piece in the Bangkok Post the other day about China, they are even controlling the water flow in the Mekong, via Dams built, from some Province in China north of Laos. Due to not much rain in the Rainy Season quite a lot of places are having a bit of a drought and some rice fields are failing. The Mekong fills a lot of subsidiary rivers and lakes, but apparently only when China releases the water now.

Wayne

Airbus warns British employees on cost of Brexit
 

...and reflecting the loyalty of Airbus Group to its' EU/UK workers here last month, is the first model to roll off their newly completed production plant in that great European State:Alabama! :rofl:

https://www.flightglobal.com/assets/...x?itemid=66133

...also to be kept in mind by Airbus workers would be their 1998 offer to the Chinese government to move wing production from Chester to China in exchange for orders. Wing design & production being the "holy grail" of aircraft technology: https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/airbus-may-move-wing-production-to-china-43640/ YOU DON'T GIVE IT AWAY.

Should Airbus again wish to make such an offer to our industrious Chinese cousins neither the Welsh or UK Government could block it as neither has Sovereignty; it would be a EU issue. Airbus wish to keep it this way and is the reason for the anxieties of Airbus re. BREXIT.

As with steel, so with airliners...doh

Referenda: a huge problem for the EU
 

Look no further than this top Eurocrat for proof of Brussels’ loathing for democracy. After Dutch voters had the gall to defy the EU last week, Fraser Cameron, a former senior adviser to the Commission, wrote this on why “it is time for an EU ban on referenda”.

“Referenda are becoming a huge problem for the EU. The latest result in the Netherlands on the Association Agreement with Ukraine is probably the worst possible outcome. If the turnout had been below 30% the Dutch government could have safely ignored the vote…
Undoubtedly there is a growing trend towards referenda. There have been over 50 in the last twenty years. Sometimes referenda are forced upon governments if there is sufficient voter support, as was the case in the Netherlands… Perhaps it is time for an EU ban on referenda!”

Pesky democracy, getting in the way of the European super-state…


UKIP’s Steven Woolfe's view:

“Here is the EU’s disdain for democracy exposed. Fraser Cameron worked as a senior adviser to the Commission for a decade and his is a view held by many in the corridors of Brussels. He and his fellow apparatchiks don’t want the people to have a say in the future development of the European Superstate.”

Who remembers voting for this jumped up little c**t?




...another day another revelation:-In aninterview with the Vice President of the European Parliament in which he claims the PM’s (call me "Dave") renegotiation is not legally binding after all. Alexander Graf Lambsdorff says Brussels “clearly went too far” during its negotiations with call me "Dave" and suggests the deal could be altered if we stay in the EU:

“their agreement is in no way a document of the European Union, but a text of hybrid character, which is unspecified and not legally binding”

Anyone who still thinks a reformed Europe is anything but a fantasy must surely have woken up by now? Vote leave. You know it makes sense. :D

Foreign policy for the Commission
 

Anyone who has taken on board the earlier posts in here won't be surprised to read in the short article below about how the EC is developing itself, the direction in which it is headed and the type of functionaries who stand behind the public image that is portrayed.

Empire Building Under The Radar: How Europe Uses Its External Action Service | UK Column

The good news is that the official campaigning starts now and there are just 10 more weeks of this!

Just got back from a week away to find the government 'please don't leave' booklet in the letterbox. Apart from saying 'please don't leave' a dozen or more times it consists of twaddle such as "44% of UK exports go to the EU" but "less than 8% of EU exports come to the UK".

To call this disingenous is being polite. 8% of exports from 27 countries are quite obviously far more more than 44% from one.

I shall be sending my booklet back to the Conservative Party using their free post address

I sent mine to 10 Downing St, London SW1A 2AA. No stamp. They must have a skip out back full of them by now.It's a kind of early referendum indicator for them.

Lacking integrity
 

If you use a freepost address, it costs them.
Sending without a stamp may also cost, but our revered, privatised, post office probably has instructions to go direct to the skip with such mail.

Reported somewhere that there is a petition to encourage our house of commons to debate the issue of use of public funds for the purposes of this campaign; hasn't happened to date of course and I guess they will find time for this debate before 23 June.

So far, the most interesting aspect has been to see the scabby politicians chasing about after their own arguments.
As for ex-Chancellors of the Exchequer, look up who employs a certain A Darling nowadays and who is employing G Brown.
Next up will be Pres Obama.

...yes, that petition required a threshold of 100,000 signatures before 23rd June for it to be debated in the HoC; in point of fact it is already at 215,752 signatures and climbing and the debate will now be held :D

I haven't looked up who employs them but would they have their snouts in the trough of Goldman Sachs by any chance?

I remember seeing ex-PM John Major advocating remain "purely in the interests of the British people" but then I wondered just how he became a multi-millionaire on a civil servants pay...

"Broken window" economics (an economic concept from a few hundred years ago) likely won't end well in the modern world.
Still, we have proxy conflicts already in place which are all part of the bigger issue of the current currency war.
Japan carried out their physical pre-emptive strike at Pearl Harbour in Dec 1941 after a period of economic blockade by ------- you know who.

Commentary from today:-
Gold is the spectre haunting our monetary system
With further informed comment contained in this blog:-
https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2016/04...ner-or-a-pest/


Morgan Stanley and Pimco respectively.
Alistair Darling joins Morgan Stanley - BBC News

Incidentally, John Major had the balls to run away to join the circus (or some such story on those lines - maybe his parents were trapeze artists?).
He also had the balls to get off with a certain Edwina. Ye Gods.

Our crop of politicos must hate the existance of the internet, but it has been reported that two of the "great and good" have recently deleted all of their earlier speeches from their websites - Cameron and Corbyn.

74% of British soldiers vote leave
 

Of the very few forums I frequent three of them of similar polls to this one.;

AARSE, a forum for soldiers are voting 74% leave

Pistonheads are voting 62% leave

Horizons Unlimited 46% leave