French farmers challenge ban on GM maize

The entire debate about GM foods is now in fairly ridiculous territory. USA is merrily going about growing and using GM food. But here in Europe, its like its Frankenstein food. Which is also such a big reason why Europe is so much more expensive food wise and the poor end up spending more money on food. But then, never let it be said that the politicians can actually do something smart. They would prefer to ban GM food and say it benefits farmers. But here’s an interesting counterpoint. I quote

French maize growers and seed companies have appealed a ban on the cultivation of a strain of genetically modified maize to the country's highest court, saying it was unjustified and economically harmful for farmers.

France placed a temporary ban on the growth of Monsanto's MON810 GMO maize earlier this month after a previous moratorium was annulled by the country's top court in November on the basis that it was not sufficiently justified.

"This restriction does not rely on any serious scientific element, and maize producers, hit by [insects], sustain real financial damage," French growers group AGPM, French seed firms group UFS and the maize and sorghum producers federation FNPSMS said in a joint statement yesterday (29 March).

EU countries are able to restrict genetically modified crop cultivation under strict conditions asauthorisation licences are valid across the 27-country bloc, in accordance with the principles of the EU's single market.

Several member states have repeatedly invoked an EU safeguard clause enabling them to suspend the marketing or growth on their territory of GM crops that enjoy EU-wide authorisation, but the European Commission has never substantiated their applications and has always ordered the lifting of national bans.

France asked the European Commission in February to suspend authorization to sow the insect-resistant maize, the only GMO crop allowed for cultivation in the European Union.

The French government's request to the EU Commission was based on "significant risks for the environment" shown in recent scientific studies, it said.

Global agribusiness company Monsanto said its GMO maize is perfectly safe.

French and European farmers have expressed concerns about the consequences of EU consumers' hostility to GMOs, saying it is likely to make them fall behind in the competitive world grain market.

The safety assessments performed by the European Food Safety Authority have come under criticism over the years. The EU executive has tried to introduce practical changes to the EFSA'sGMO-approval process. 

Of course it will fall behind, it is already behind and my taxes are currently going to keep these more efficient agricultural practises out and inefficiency in. Bah

Now there’s courage for you

Michael O’Leary, the boss of a low cost airline in Ireland says what he thinks. That its basically the state in the form of politicians and bureaucrats who are the enemies of innovation. The sheer irony that the European Commission had to setup a conference to talk about innovation. The stupidity of these morons is breath taking, which is why I don't have much hope for Europe, its currency or its future. Its a shitehole.

Guess what? He is the CEO of Ryanair, but the EU cannot pay for low cost air fares. And this is why I am paying my taxes for? WTF?

STOP SPENDING MY MONEY!

Watch the entire thing, see why these dinosaurs of the European Commission are extinct, moron and stupid. That is a good thing, but the only problem is that they will end up spending a wodge of my hard earned cash.

When in doubt, blame the hungarians

I read this in the FT. I quote:

A Hungarian acquaintance argues that every organisation that Hungary has joined for the last 150 years has collapsed shortly afterwards. The Hapsburgs were one of the Europe’s most successful dynasties. But then in 1867, the Austro-Hungarian empire was formed, and by 1918 it had disappeared. Hungary chose the losing side in both the first and second world wars. After 1945, it became a member of the Warsaw Pact and Comecon. Given this long record of failure, the EU should have been on its guard when it welcomed Hungary as a member in 2004.

Heh, very amusing indeed. But why am I talking about it? I was speaking to one of my colleagues who is Austrian with a very amusing sense of humour.

I was wearing a poppy at that time, paying homage to the soldiers of the UK and Commonwealth who fell in the various wars for their country. Wars, by definition, are an indication that the politics, jaw jaw and diplomacy has failed. And then it falls on the soldiers to do something about it. Anyway, he said that he doesn't want to celebrate it as his grandfather and other relatives fell in WW1 and WW2. We had a long chat about the Astro Hungarian empire and Vienna and and and. Its a fascinating story. Its a fascinating story relating to how one of these structures (a precursor of the EU) worked and how it worked and how it ended. It was pretty big, it contained modern-day Austria, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, large parts of Serbia and Romania and smaller parts of Italy,Montenegro, Poland and Ukraine.

Is that bloody EU listening?

In the meantime, Hungary’s debt has been downgraded to Junk Status.

You call this a budget, you muppets?

So lets see, you have agreed to an increase of 2.02% in the budget of the European Union where pretty much most of the countries will be seeing growth of less than 2% in 2012. So basically that’s government spending more than what they will generate. Nice one.

Then you cannot prove that your spending is good and proper with your auditors unable to sign off on your accounts for 14 years.

Then you have a shortfall of $200 which you cannot account for and need more money. What the hell is this?

STOP SPENDING MY MONEY! See this.

And then to add insult to injury, the bureaucrats want to strike. Why?

Some 40,000 officials are embroiled in a dispute over plans to increase their working week from 37.5 hours to 40 hours, raise their retirement age from 58, and award a pay rise of 1.8 cent.

I would be lucky if I have a bloody 40 hour week, get to retire at 58 and have a frikking pay rise of 1.8%. Useless gits. Fire them all, appoint the hordes of unemployed. Ok ok, I know this isnt going to work, but stiff. Sheesh. And the threat is that if they go on strike, the machinery of the EU is going to grind to a halt. Oh! really? how will we know? They spend their time worrying about if water can stop dehydration or not. Or actually, perhaps they should stop their work looking at the sheer mess they have made of the Euro.

/facepalm

Swedes are actually inviting Russians

I nearly fell out of the chair when I read about this story. I quote:

Sorsele municipality, in northern Sweden, are overjoyed in the continued interest in the area, after receiving over 900 applications from enthusiastic Russian families keen to move there.
As The Local reported in 2010, within the next five or six years, over 350 locally employed public sector employees will retire from Sorsele municipality, in the county of Västerbotten.
That's 30 percent of their workforce and it was feared that Sorsele wouldn't be able to find anyone to fill the positions.
The local authorities therefore decided to market themselves to their Russian neighbours, with the aim of boosting dwindling population figures and to ensure an influx of foreign labour.
However, there is no guarantee that the job openings will be filled by the Russians. According to Wikström, they will be competing about the jobs with everyone else.
As part of the project, which will cost about six million kronor ($891,000), the idea is that the Russians would learn Swedish before their arrival to Sweden.
The council is hoping for funding from the EU. According to them, there's plenty of housing but fewer jobs.
So far, the council reports a massive interest.
And according to the local authorities, among the 900 applicants are doctors, teachers, veterinary surgeons and engineers.
Despite one aim of the project being boosting population figures, Wikström told SVT that it isn't necessarily women of child bearing age that they especially welcome.
”Absolutely not. We want whole families with children as every community need young people,” said Wikström to SVT.
However, local authorities stressed that money from the EU is essential to make the project work.
The first Russians could then be arriving in the county of Västerbotten in a year's time.

Sweden and Russian have been fighting for a fair few centuries now although there hasn't been one for about 200 years now. Still, for Sweden to actually invite Russians into the cold frigid north is interesting. Second one was obviously the fact that the Swedish local authorities need to borrow money from my taxes to pay for this. Welcome to the wonderland of EU.

Designed for failure: A critique of the Common Fisheries Policy of the European Union

You might wonder why a banker is talking about fish? Well, there are many reasons, not least that I am a Bengali and fish is in my blood or fishy blood or bloody fish, but anyway, you get what I mean. Fish is integral to my culture :). But that’s the jokey reason, i am interested in fish because it is a crucial part of the world’s economic, political and environmental system. If you do not manage your fish stocks properly, you WILL get into trouble because unemployment in a vital sector will plunge, nutrition across the wider population will be impacted, the upstream and downstream impacts of lack of fish is huge, and so on and so forth. Being in a bank unfortunately guarantees that every problem will ultimately impact the banking system in some shape or form. Whether its to do with corporate funding, interest rates, bankruptcies, you name it, a bank has to handle it.

One would have expected that a supranational body like the EU, which was original designed for making sure that the Coal and Steel production in the core European Union countries was coordinated, could have handled something like the fish stocks in the EU? After all, the Europeans have been fishing for thousands of years, much longer than they have been making steel. But no. This paper bluntly puts in clear terms, the reasons why the European Union has spectacularly failed in managing its fish stocks via the Common Fisheries Policy and has inexorably lead to overfishing, massive unemployment in so many fishing communities around Europe, huge subsidy bills and basically screwed up the sea environment. So what were the issues?

1. Biological Issues: Every year, the scientists propose a sustainable level of fish stocks based upon a rather clear mathematical model based upon unexploited stock size, the maximum economic yield, the maximum sustainable yield and a precautionary lower biomass limit. Based upon this model, you know how much fish to catch. There are other factors such as when do juvenile fish become adults and start spawning, how many times do you want the fish to spawn before being caught, etc. Guess what? the European Commission and the Council of Ministers usually agree a limit circa 50% higher than what the scientists propose. Hmmm, that really helps guys.

2. Economic Issues: Fish stocks suffer from the problem of common goods, everybody owns fish and nobody owns them at the same time. Its like common pasture grounds where everybody can graze their cows but nobody has to take responsibility for the pasture. So individual motivation is to overfish and thus have overcapacity. If you provide fishing quotas to fishermen, which is comparatively economically efficient (even if you consider the 50% over permissioning from above), it still doesnt work efficiently as monopolies can form, quotas dont really address the issue of the catch size itself and finally this doesnt apply to fishermen from outside the political structure. Not much can be done about Japanese fishermen fishing off the economic zones in Europe, can you? And who will validate once the fishing boat lands up in a Japanese port? not the EU authorities anyway. In the EU’s case, subsidies have been given for developing boats, subsidising fuel, and so on and so forth. Totally distorted economic market in Europe.

3. Legal Issues: You have to have ONE regulatory / legal body to handle issues such as this. But no, the whole panoply of rules, regulations, decrees, courts, councils, and and and is just complex, non transparent, riddled with inefficiencies, cannot enforce suitably, and so on and so forth.

4. Political Issues: The fisheries ministers in the respective EU nations are not judged on the basis of how well they manage fish stocks on an European wide basis but on how much quota they manage to get for their own constituents. There is no minister representing the poor fish, see? So everybody goes about raping the fish and devil take the hindmost. Also because this is a slow decline, politicians do not take responsibility as they will be long gone by the time the populations actually collapse. Due to different election timelines, there is no consistent policy making either. Consequently, the European Fisheries policy frequently reduces to the lowest common denominator.

These are just few of the issues that we are facing. Looking at how the EU actually handled something that was huge and crucial such as the Bosnian Crisis, the Kosovo Crisis or even the Greek Debt Crisis, I am not sanguine how it will handle a situation like this with the fish stocks, but still, some attempts need to be made to address this problem from a multi disciplinary perspective.

Yearly leave of 3 months in the EU

Now this is very nice indeed. I quote:

Despite being paid six figure salaries, 1,962 of EU's most senior civil servants have been allowed to join a "flexitime" scheme, originally meant for lower paid secretarial staff, that gives an extra 24 days off work every year for those that put in an extra 45 minutes a day in the office.

The perk comes on top of annual holidays of 24 days as well as seven days off for public holidays, and in 2010, 11 "non-working" days out of the office when the Brussels institutions are closed in summer and at Christmas.

The allowances mean that last year many EU staff were entitle to 66 days or 13 weeks or a quarter of the year off work.

I found it further amusing that Inge Grassler thinks that leadership roles with 6 figure salaries in industry work 37.5 hours. Which industry would that be, Inge? Leadership roles at that level frequently put in 50 hour average weeks. bah!

This is indeed bloody strange and what a rip off.

How Europe is seizing your pension assets

And this is happening all legally. Remember, you chaps, your money is not save from these grasping politicians who will rob the people who scrimp and save to give to the feckless and useless. Bloody thieves. Argentina did the same. And then these buggers want you to increase your pension contribution. Bah!, no wonder pensions are the furthest things from people’s minds.

I quote:

People’s retirement savings are a convenient source of revenue for governments that don’t want to reduce spending or make privatizations. As most pension schemes in Europe are organised by the state, European ministers of finance have a facilitated access to the savings accumulated there, and it is only logical that they try to get a hold of this money for their own ends. In recent weeks I have noted five such attempts: Three situations concern private personal savings; two others refer to national funds.

The most striking example is Hungary, where last month the government made the citizens an offer they could not refuse. They could either remit their individual retirement savings to the state, or lose the right to the basic state pension (but still have an obligation to pay contributions for it). In this extortionate way, the government wants to gain control over $14bn of individual retirement savings.

The Bulgarian government has come up with a similar idea. $300m of private early retirement savings was supposed to be transferred to the state pension scheme. The government gave way after trade unions protested and finally only about 20% of the original plans were implemented.

A slightly less drastic situation is developing in Poland. The government wants to transfer of 1/3 of future contributions from individual retirement accounts to the state-run social security system. Since this system does not back its liabilities with stocks or even bonds, the money taken away from the savers will go directly to the state treasury and savers will lose about $2.3bn a year. The Polish government is more generous than the Hungarian one, but only because it wants to seize just 1/3 of the future savings and also allows the citizens to keep the money accumulated so far.

The fourth example is Ireland. In 2001, the National Pension Reserve Fund was brought into existence for the purpose of supporting pensions of the Irish people in the years 2025-2050. The scheme was also supposed to provide for the pensions of some public sector employees (mainly university staff). However, in March 2009, the Irish government earmarked €4bn from this fund for rescuing banks. In November 2010, the remaining savings of €2.5bn was seized to support the bailout of the rest of the country.

The final example is France. In November, the French parliament decided to earmark €33bn from the national reserve pension fund FRR to reduce the short-term pension scheme deficit. In this way, the retirement savings intended for the years 2020-2040 will be used earlier, that is in the years 2011-2024, and the government will spend the saved up resources on other purposes.

It looks like although the governments are able to enforce general participation in pension schemes, they do not seem to be the best guardians of the money accumulated there. 

Low European Donations to Pakistan – Islamophobia or bad Pakistani reputation?

Found these 3 links on the Pakistani Floods situation.

1. Most Germans reluctant to donate to Pakistan

2. Why Europe Has Been Slow to Help Flood Victims. Quote:

"Many Pakistanis are struggling to understand why the response in the West has been so inadequate," writes Pakistani historian Tariq Ali in the columns of Süddeutsche Zeitung. "Some among them," he explains, "argue that Europe and the United States are reluctant to release funds because their country is now viewed as refuge for terrorists. In fact the issue is more complex, but it is clear that the problem has not been solely caused by Pakistan. The reality is that the main factor limiting international aid is the flagrant Islamaphobia that has that has emerged in Europe and North America since Sept. 11. In a recent poll, more than 50 percent of respondents associated the word "Islam" with terrorism.

"Of course," Tariq Ali remarks, "all of the people interviewed were in the UK, but the British, the French, the Germans, the Dutch and the Danes all think alike. Pakistan is under water and the rest of the world remains indifferent." And he bitterly insists, "Yes, latent prejudice against Muslim countries is one of the reasons for the lack of international aid. But the problem has also been compounded by another factor which is a specifically local: many Pakistanis themselves are reluctant to hand over money because they fear it will end up lining the pockets of the country's corrupt politicians."

In response, the implacable Jyllands Posten points out that "for years Pakistan has contributed to its terrible international reputation." The country "is now viewed as one of the most dangerous places in the world: a nuclear power with an army that is unwilling or unable to stand up to the Taliban and al-Qaida, and a secret service that supports the Taliban." Having said that, even if "it does not benefit from much sympathy, Pakistan still needs massive humanitarian aid," points out the Danish daily.

3. Record rains – but Pakistan is dying for water. Quote:

To put matters in their depressing context, the number of children who perish daily from water-related diseases is several times higher than the rate at which people perished in last week's devastating floods.

The poor Pakistani’s, somebody needs to save them from not only the floods, but their leaders, both civil and military, but the Islamophobia argument is very weak, based upon what I have read and figured, its more to do with the reputation of Pakistan due to corruption, terrorism and general incompetence all around.

 

Update: 21 August 2010: BBC asked some talking heads on this issue. I quote:

Dr Marie Lall, Pakistan expert at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) and senior lecturer at the Institute of Education, says: "I think there is donor fatigue all around. The [2004] Indian Ocean tsunami, the Burmese Cyclone [Nargis, 2008], the [2005] Pakistan earthquake, and [this year's] Haiti earthquake. It is getting too much; we are in a recession and people are short of money."

Rebecca Wynn, Pakistan specialist for UK-based aid agency Oxfam, says: "Many donors have made substantial contributions in humanitarian assistance to Pakistan over the years, particularly in response to the conflict-related displacements over the last two years. Of course, the fact that the people of Pakistan have been hit time and again by disaster is even more reason to give."

Dr Elizabeth Ferris, senior fellow at the US-based Brookings Institution, a foreign policy think tank, says: "It should also be noted that the international humanitarian system isn't set up to deal with more than one major crisis a year. USAID, for example, committed one-third of its annual budget to the Haitian earthquake response. And among the general public there may be a feeling of, 'Well, I donated to the victims of the Haitian earthquake and Haiti is a far needier country than Pakistan.'"

Corruption

Yale University economics professor Dean Karlan, an expert on charitable giving, says: "Corruption concerns may explain why giving is lower to developing countries than many would like it to be, but it does not explain why there is less money pouring into Pakistan now than does to disaster relief causes in other developing countries with similar governance issues."

Dr Marie Lall says: "People in Pakistan are sceptical the government will be transparent. But they are giving to philanthropic organisations. In the UK, I think people are sceptical of [non-governmental organisations'] overheads and costs. They don't know which ones are transparent and reliable, even though local organisations such as TCF [The Citizens' Foundation] are doing an incredible job."

Dr Elizabeth Ferris says: "People are always sceptical about their money reaching flood victims, particularly in countries with reputations for corruption. But Haiti didn't have a very good reputation in this regard. [Pakistan] President [Asif Ali] Zardari trip to Europe [during the floods] was not a good move. For a few days, that was the 'story' of the Pakistani floods, which doesn't inspire people to be generous, particularly in this economic climate."

Terrorism

Dr Marie Lall says: "British Prime Minister David Cameron's comments in India [when he said Islamabad promoted the export of terror] did not help."

Dr Elizabeth Ferris says: "People are less likely to donate to any country seen as a haven for terrorism. And more generally, the fact that so much Western news coverage in recent years about Pakistan has been negative, stressing its links with the conflict in Afghanistan. I think this is the major reason for the slow public response - the image of Pakistan in our media. There may also be a feeling, particularly in the US, that Islamic governments and charities should be stepping up to the plate to donate."

Timing

Rebecca Wynn says: "This disaster has come at a bad time, following the financial crisis and the Haiti earthquake. Many donors made huge commitments to Haiti, so may find it hard to fund another major disaster, particularly in the same year."

Dr Marie Lall says: "Timing may be a factor, but I think it's more to do with not realising the scale of the disaster, and the attitude by the British government; the UK should be leading the aid effort, given the Pakistani diaspora here and the fact that we need Pakistan for the war in Afghanistan."

'Wrong' disaster

Professor Dean Karlan says: "Sudden events seem to generate more funds. A flood (and droughts) happen gradually and build. There isn't any one single day in which news is huge. For the same reason, this pushes the story away from the media spotlight. But massive and sudden earthquakes or tsunamis draw our immediate attention and shock us."

Dr Elizabeth Ferris says: "It's important to note that in general people are likely to give more to emergencies occurring in countries geographically closer to them - although this didn't hold true for the tsunami. But when you trace contributions over time, you find that Americans and Canadians are more likely to respond to disasters in the Western hemisphere while Europeans tend to be more responsive to African countries (and their former colonies, in particular)."

Dr Marie Lall says: "This was not one cataclysmic event, but one which grew over three weeks. The fact that 25% of the country was or is under water is not understood. The low numbers of dead, relatively speaking, mask the disaster on the ground. The crisis has destroyed crops, dead livestock and damaged homes and infrastructure. Food prices are through the roof and there won't be a normal harvest. It will get worse. Farmers will starve."

So pretty much everything, eh?

More on the scandal of the European Union Accounts Fraud and Incompetence

I got this email from a list. This level of incompetence and fraud is shocking, and to think that they are doing this with our money. Bleah.

 

Subject: Re: EU audit

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2010 10:46:10 +0100

Perhaps I can clarify things a little...

The only part of the EU's spending which is audited and signed off

is the part handled directly by the Commission, and that includes

the cost of the European Parliament. It accounts for less than 10%

of the total.

All the rest comes under what is absurdly known as "shared

management", on which I have waxed lyrical more than once in years

past. Effectively, the EU decides to give money for a project in a

member state or in a candidate country and then expects that

country's government to account for it properly, having added an

agreed percentage to the total cost of whatever is being

funded. (Example, Greece, whose application for subsidies for its

olive groves covers such a large land mass that it can only mean

that olives are grown in the middle of Athens and in the Aegean

Sea. Everybody in Brussels knows it is a scam and they have never

done anything to stop it.)

The Court of Auditors, another poodle of the EU and made up of

appointees from the member states (many of whom are not qualified

accountants, by the way), then supposedly checks on the information

provided, sends staff to a handful of locations to verify the

"facts", and then decides there are too many errors and

unsubstantiated sets of accounts for them to sign off the whole lot.

Added to which, when the EU switched from single-entry book-keeping

to double-entry in 2005 they were unable to agree the closing

balances on the existing accounts, which meant that there were no

opening balances under the new system!

So, in reality, they can NEVER sign off the accounts because they

never knew where they were starting from.

Hope that helps

Ashley Mote

(MEP 2004-2009, and member of the EP's Budget Control Committee

throughout that time)

PS: Double-entry book-keeping was the invention of an Italian monk

some 1500 years ago. Quite why it took the EU until 2005 to catch

up has never been explained.

EU asks who will pay for high-speed Internet

I quote:

In the consultation, the Commission will be asking whether Internet access should be a public right and how the EU's current rules, dating from 2002, can be tweaked to include the bloc's goal of providing 'broadband for all'.

This ties in with the Spanish EU Presidency's goal of making high-speed Internet compulsory across the bloc, aimed at improving Web access in rural areas (EurActiv 18/12/09).

Who will foot the bill?

The EU plans to revise rules governing access to the Internet and telephones throughout the bloc. Yesterday (2 March) the European Commission launched a consultation asking whether money for wider broadband coverage should come from the public purse or from industry coffers.

these guys talk as if there is no cost to the public purse, leeches and parasites, these govt agencies. So they turn around and portray this as if the public purse is an in-exhaustible bottom less pit of funds which are free. Well, its not free, somebody has to pay for this. If somebody wants broadband, let them pay for it. Sheesh. But I am fine with their behaviour, the bond markets will kick away their govt debt crutches all. robbers, all of them.

Remember this, you faceless thieving robbing bureaucrats, the more you load on the public sector, the more you draw away from productive investments. By forcing this kind of behaviour, you make situations like Greece and Ireland more possible. We in the private sector then end up paying for it twice, first by paying for this kind of investment in the first place and then second to get rid of you guys. But remember, who would hire people who can only spend and not add value?

Beware of Greeks bearing change?

Having had the pleasure of working in Greece for many months at a bank, I have an attachment to that lovely country. It is a great country, great food, great people, great architecture, wonderful history and just tickety boo in all respects. In fact, I was thinking at that time of retiring there but then I came to know and love Italy, but that is for another post. Therefore, when I read about Green suffering macro-economic challenges, it is obviously of interest to me.

Greece, as you might have read, is facing severe financial deficits. I do not want to go into the details of the history behind how Greece got into trouble but suffice to say that it told a few porkies to get into the Euro and then it has gone downhill ever since. Here is a good overview of the crisis. The deficit is out of control, the public finances are a disaster, growth is anemic, corruption rife and its competitiveness is very weak. Combine this with a rather dysfunctional political maturity and what you have is a full-blown national crisis.

So what do you do? Well, depends upon which side of the economic rail tracks you are, some believe that you need a bit more assistance from the other Euro zone countries or from the IMF. Cut public spending, improve statistical data collection and publication / governance, improve competitiveness, etc. etc. The new government has promised to cut the deficit and improve growth. But here is the problem which interests me. The markets simply do not believe that the government can do this.

One of my teachers once told me this. “We judge ourselves by what we think we are capable of doing while others judge us by what we have done”. This applies to us as individuals and as well way up to national governments. What about for those who are deep in the weeds doing projects? I sometimes think that we are no different from the old style prophets who through a combination of doom and gloom sticks plus a heavy dose of eternal salvation carrots come up with a project plan (10 commandments, Quranic rules, etc.) to get there.

But just like what happened to Greece, how do we make sure that people believe in the fact that we are going to get there? Everybody has different ways of doing this, but I prefer to have a good agreed scope / benefits / objectives document, clear transparent project plan, a good governance around it, clear links between the actions and the resources (responsible, accountable, informed, communicated), solid risk and issue management and the financial bits. While nobody knows the future accurately, to engender belief, one has to show that we have put in place these measures and are open and transparent on our progress, problems and issues.

I have seen projects which do not have identified risks and issues and that fill me with dread. After ruling out the presence of divinity (as only heavenly creatures do not commit mistakes, have issues and risks), one has to regretfully conclude that the project will face significant problems because risks and issues are not being identified.

Look what happened when the Greek PM announced its plans. Immediately the market said, sorry, mate, do not believe you. The cost of insuring against Greek debt is now the highest ever. In my opinion, this is because the government is not transparent with the economic data, the plans to achieve the objectives are seriously flaky, the issues and risks not laid out nor are the management actions to deal with them. Over here in the UK, Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party says that we have to do the same thing for the UK as well. Unfortunately, the political calendar dictates that transparency is a fond hope and rigorous macro-economic planning and execution has to wait. In the meantime, the market is judging us by what we have done.

How would I vote in the European Elections

Well, here you go:

After voting in this poll, this is what the black box came back with. Heh, interesting, eh? I am slam in the middle of everything, cant make up my mind, eh? lol

No signoff on the EU accounts yet again

So this year again, the Netherlands government is refusing to sign off on the EU Accounts. I quote:

Finance Minister Wouter Bos has announced the Netherlands will vote against the annual financial statement of the European Union for 2007. He made his statement after a meeting of European finance ministers.
For the 14th time, the EU accounting office reports that many billions of euros in expenses have not been properly accounted for. Mr Bos says that the Dutch parliament would never accept such a statement from a finance minister, and that the Netherlands will therefore vote against.
The Netherlands is once again the only country to reject the EU financial statement. Mr Bos says an increasing number of countries agree with the Netherlands, but fear being punished financially should they vote against the statement.

I have complained about this before. But nothing happens. The European Union, in its estimable undemocratic way, keeps on going ahead, spraying my tax dollars on weird and wonderful initiatives, with no proper accounting for the funds. The Netherlands seems to be the only country which has a set of proper balls for proper accounting and treatment of their funds.

Now I wonder why the British Government does not follow suit? Oh! sorry, I forgot that the British Politicians are equally venal as the EU bureaucrats, and would prefer to keep their expenses secret. Welcome to the land of corruption. And dont tell me that we are cleaner than Nigeria or Bangladesh. We are NOT a third world country, we live in a trust society and in return for my tax dollars, you are to be open and transparent in your spending which you are doing on MY behalf. If you are incompetent, then you need to be fired and if corrupt, exposed. Is there anybody else besides the Dutch who would be brave enough to hold these EU incompetent gits to account?

Technorati Tags: Europe,European Commission,Corruption

Quote of the day:
Many would be cowards if they had courage enough. - Thomas Fuller

More European hypocrisy & stupidity

I quote from here:

Whilst President Vaclav Klaus was visiting Dublin there was an official dinner where he sat with the Irish Taoiseach, Brian Cowen. No doubt they had much to discuss.

Elsewhere the two first ladies were having a discussion. Mary Molloy, a member of the Lenihan political dynasty, remarked that the Irish had "voted wrongly" when they rejected the Lisbon Treaty. Livia Klausová, a respected economist, responded, "Well, were they wrong when they elected your husband?"

Given that Cowen, like British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, was not elected as PM this was, dare I say it, a little tart.

The breathtaking hypocrisy of the European politicians is simply astounding. As it so happens, Gordon Brown lied about the Reform Treaty being put to the British referendum in violation to his manifesto promises, but that twit lies through his incompetent teeth anyway.

Technorati Tags: EU,politics,Ireland,constitution

More Fraud in the EU

Remember this time last year? When the EU court of auditors refused to sign off on the EU accounts? How much you want to bet that they will refuse to sign off again this year? Not much, right?

So let me see if I understand this, for the 14th year running, there is fraud and incompetence running riot in the EU. Almost every area of its running is open to incompetence, fraud, stupidity and frankly corruption.

And then Anonymous had the teremity to argue with me to tell me that I am wrong? Listen, my dear chap, I am currently executing the world's largest financial transformation programme and am knee deep in auditors, accountants and the like. So dont tell me that its technical reasons, you pillock.

Here, read what another person says on this disgusting state of affairs. I quote:

 

Here we go again. Today, for the 14th year in a row, the European Court of Auditors will unveil their report, telling us that they refuse to clear the EU accounts. What's worse, no one will really seem to care. We are told that the accounts won't be cleared until 2020 - if then.

Having worked inside the Brussels nomenklatura and having being sacked for my insistence that financial controls have to be strengthened, I am not surprised to find that nothing has changed other than the arguments deployed to defend this state of affairs. What the auditors have been saying for years is that most of the payments made by the Commission from its £70 billion-a- year budget cannot be deemed legal or regular. That is, that they cannot confirm those payments have been made to the correct person for the correct purpose and for the correct amount. It stretches credulity to insist, as the Europhiles do, that this does not mean that there is fraud.

Because the payments are made to beneficiaries in the member countries it's easy enough for the institutions to put the blame on those recipients. Which is what they do, claiming that the problem is one of insufficient attention being paid to the paperwork. But who designed the paperwork that no one understands or completes? And who doesn't insist on it being completed? The institutions themselves, of course. Because this control is missing there is no way to protect against fraud or even to uncover it.

Corruption in Romania

This is what gets my goat. While the EU gets excited about the democratic finger in Ireland, they forget about structural issues such as corruption. I read about Romania in this week's Economist. And it was gobsmacking. But then, we already know that the EU itself is heaving with corruption. But this is the sad part, for it not to fix these maggots inside EU means that it will become even more irrelevant. And thus the seeds of the EU destruction will be sowed by the EU itself.

SHAME!

Technorati Tags: Corruption,Europe,EU

Evidence that Europe is elitist or mad

I have to admit that I did a little hop skip and jump when I passed a TV screen yesterday showing that the Irish had rejected the poxy EU Constitution. So, the bald facts are

1. The EU Reform treaty is rejected by Irish voters and by the rules of the EU, the entire treaty is now rejected.

So the people have spoken. And what do our people's representatives do? They persist in doing the SAME things that have lead people to reject the EU in its current shape. This qualifies them at best to be insane or at worst, to be corrupt, elitist, autocratic morons who are basically out of touch with the common man. See the BBC report here. And its basically across the continent. Here:

France and Germany have described the No vote in the referendum as a serious blow but have urged the EU to press ahead with the project.

So the people said no, but the leaders say yes, and lets just ignore what the people said, yes? Pesky people, who cares about those little people, no?

FRANK-WALTER STEINMEIER, GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER

Naturally we are disappointed, it is a hard blow. Nevertheless, I am convinced that we need this treaty. Therefore we are sticking with our goal for it to come into force. The ratification process must continue.

HE believes it so it must go on, sod the people.

 

But here's the EC Head, Barroso who comes across as frankly a bit stupid. He says that the treaty is not dead. No? Its not dead? Really? Its as dead as the Norwegian blue parrot. The treaty is not going anywhere now. So the head of the EC says basically stupid things. I would have called him a liar, but stupid people's utterances are not lies, lies impute a degree of intelligence and motivation.

Then we have our little liar in our midst.

DAVID MILIBAND, UK FOREIGN SECRETARY

The Irish government have made clear they believe it's right for countries like Britain to continue the ratification process because there needs to be a British view as well as an Irish view... So I believe it's right that we continue with our own process and take up the Irish offer of further discussions about the next steps forward.

Did you notice that there was nothing in his statement about what the British people want? Of course, the British people do not want him and his lot anyway. So he is perhaps the foreign minister of one of the most unpopular governments in the recent times. Again, an elitist view of the world. Governments and elites talk to each other and decide for me, eh? Mr. Miliband, some people thought of you as a potential Prime Minister. Well, Sir, you are not. The British View is what the people say, not what you say. And if you say that your view is what the people want, lets put it to the test, shall we? When did I vote or say yes to this treaty? Oh! but I CAN CALL YOU A LIAR because YOU PROMISED in your manifesto for a referendum and then withdrew. Your frankly stupid protestations notwithstanding, you are basically a liar.

Thank you, Irish! As for the EU, remember the Danish referendum in 1992 and 2000? the Swedish rejection of the Euro? the French and Dutch rejections? And the previous Irish rejection? Here's an idea, try to look up what the word "rejecting" means in the bloody dictionary, you twits. I quote:

• To refuse to accept, submit to, believe, or make use of.
• To refuse to consider or grant; deny.
• To refuse to recognize or give affection to (a person).
• To discard as defective or useless; throw away.
• To spit out or vomit.

 

Technorati Tags: Ireland,EU,Europe,Constitution,democracy

The Irish Govt and the EU forget what democracy is

This makes me extremely cynical indeed. A constitution is supposed to be one of the foundations of the state and it is to be expected that the citizens would agree and appreciate it.

It just tells me the depths to which this European project has sunk that it is now reduced to whining and moaning about a dark future without this constitution. Only ONE country out of tens is asking its citizens about its constitution and that too is causing major issues. That is democracy for you, you elitist corrupt lot?

Bernard Kouchner, France's foreign minister says that "Irish voters were warned on Monday that the rest of the European Union would look at them with “gigantic incomprehension” if they rejected the bloc’s Lisbon reform treaty in Thursday’s referendum."

No, Bernard, we are looking at you with cynical comprehension that you are basically an elite, who have no pretensions towards democracy and the will of people. And it is indeed telling that you are uncomprehending of the will of the people. After all, you and your other European Elite never followed it, did you?

And then you have an unelected leader of a government which has perhaps the lowest popularity rating of any recent government in British History, busy signing up the country to a constitution which is crap.

Technorati Tags: Ireland,EU,Constitution

3 Legal Systems and child rape

This was fascinating to discuss. The barebones of the argument are clear, it is a case of child rape and the fellow is sentenced to death. Incidentally, if it was up to me, I would bring back pre-historic punishments for child rape such as tearing apart limb by limb or boiling alive for these child rapists till they are near death but not quite dead yet. I am a firm anti death penalty man, but that doesn't mean that some nice chaps cannot be taken to a situation where they would wish they had crossed the boundary and seen the white light. But unfortunately, since it is not up to me, I have to leave emotion aside and think about some interesting comparisons.

Here we have 3 legal situations and I am just talking about child rape right now, ceteris paribus. First legal system (the domestic US Legal system) is what is currently in play, that the death penalty is only given for murder but the consensus which seems to be brewing is that the death penalty is fine for child rape.

The second legal system, which relates to international (read European and British) law, relates to the fact that the death penalty should not be extended to crimes which it did not cover. I quote:

International authorities have long agreed that nations that retain the death penalty must refrain from expanding the death penalty to crimes to which it currenlty does not apply--a principle that has been codified in a regional convention and reaffirmed by the jurisprudence of human rights bodies. There is an equally strong global consensus that nations should gradually narrow the categories of offenses for which the death penalty may be imposed.

Both are discussed here. But further to this, consider the legal situations relating to this in the Sunni schools of law (see here for example) . Punishment of rape (forget about child rape) is death but it is not "mandatory". In other words, it is up to the judge to evaluate if capital punishment is allowed. But bear in mind, this is slowly changing as well and this entire gamut of rape is being slowly modified. See here for example. While this story concentrates on the women side and not on the punishment side, it still bears quoting:

Under the Hudood ordinance, rape is included in matters covered under Islamic law, like marriage and divorce. A woman who reports that she has been raped must produce four male witnesses to prove it. If she fails to do so, she can be prosecuted for adultery. Thousands of women have been punished under the law, often on the flimsiest evidence. That risk has kept many women from trying to bring their attackers to justice.

The legislation passed Wednesday will move rape cases to criminal courts rather than Islamic courts. The new legislation allows forensic and circumstantial evidence to be used as a basis for convictions, as with other crimes.

Now the question is, if you move to the secular (chuckle) criminal court, what does that do for punishments? Do they follow model 2 and let the child rapist escape capital punishment? Or do they follow model 1 and leave the Islamic punishment of capital punishment in? So many questions. If this happens, then women will lose out (4 witness issues, women punished...) but on the other hand, the child rapists will escape capital punishment.

Three legal systems, 3 situations, 3 rapists and 3 victims. Justice is served where? how? for whom?

Technorati Tags: Legal Systems,EU,United Kingdom,USA,Saudi Arabia.,Pakistan,Death Penalty