RIP Woolworths, MFI & Lycos

Three once great brands of various ages are falling by the wayside and according to some commentators are set to be far from the last.
 
Woolworths was probably the most obvious as their mix and match stores contained nothing essential and they had surprisingly failed to grab the power of the web. MFI were the victim, also, of an inexplicable lack of innovation in the face of increasing competition and recently worsening economic conditions. Lycos Europe - formerly top dog in the market - is suffering the consequences of missing countless opportunities, according to those who know more about it than me.
 
I remember Lycos in the early days of mass internet use - I believe it was the first search engine I used. If it wasn't Lycos, it was Ask. I certainly remember using Lycos content to read news and so on, although I don't think I used their email. Still, the last time I visited Lycos was probably 2002. And I have used the internet virtually daily since 2000.
 
Woolworths will leave a psychological hole in Britain though I couldn't truthfully claim to be expecting to miss them - jobs lost notwithstanding. I can't remember the last time I shopped in MFI - if I ever did. My two stores are B&Q and Ikea and always have been. Occasionally, I would venture into Homebase but only when they had a sale on that would help them get down to B&Q prices.
 
But, you see, these failures aren't entirely down to poor management but the ever tightening credit markets. Insurers ceased to cover Woolworth's stock orders and so Woolies had to pay in cash and service their £385m of debt. The lenders couldn't take any more and pulled the plug.
 
MFI couldn't pay the rent (literally) and lines of credit are now non-existant. Lycos couldn't convince banks that they could break even as early as 2011 and so fairwell.
 
These were only the very weakest of companies and so they are hitting the wall first but they are the tip of the iceburg - especially if retail insurers are getting as miserly as lending banks - and so we must hold our breath.
 
The talk is that the entire banking system is going to have to be nationalised on both sides of the Atlantic before liquidity truly returns and, frankly, I don't see how this can be avoided if governments want to minimise pain. The thing is, I do feel like this pain needs to be felt and then at the other end we may have a better system. Nationalising banking will cause untold ructions in societies who will be dead against government running banking for a host of reasons. "So I'll be lending to myself?" types of questions will abound and, of course, government banks are likely to be sensationally inefficient. But it could be argued that inefficient is better than collapsed. 

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Downhill

I'm no economist but I've believed the abyss was coming for a couple of years. The transparently perilous increase in house prices, flatly ridiculous availability of cheap debt ("credit" is just a euphemism) and the fact that the US and UK economies, in particular, were fuelled virtually 100% by this unsustainable supply of debt combined with vast financial institutions perching their lives on top of derivatives whose quality was based on a set of pitifully rosy assumptions was simply a time bomb. Real economists recognised this and I followed them.
 
I'm in a position where my sole exposure to this economic - infuriatingly self inflicted - earthquake is a couple of blocks of expensive debt (expensive from the start because it's unsecured) and a job. The job, I believe is fairly protected against this recession but I can't guarantee it.
 
I don't own a property or car or anything like that so, provided I stay employed, I can't see massive problems for me personally (famous last words...).
 
Still, sitting here and watching the world cave in is something to behold, it really is.
 
As of this week, the UK government has announced its pre-budget report containing a VAT cut, gifts to pensioners and those on benefits and borrowing that will soon mire the nation in a trillion pounds' worth of national debt ($1.5 trillion). Meanwhile, the US government has committed nearly $2 trillion in bail outs and ameliorating measures and this is before the $700bn infrastructure plan is announced that will be implemented by the Obama administration.
 
These figures are simultaneously eye-watering and stomach churning. The stomach churning part is the fact that it appears that the financial institutions who engineered this calamity are standing to gain the lion's share of these gargantuan sums. Precious little is going to directly or indirectly benefit little old you and me.
 
And, in case you were tempted to sit back finally and think that all this phenomenally expensive bailing out will solve the problem and we'll get back to normal in 2010 or so, not so fast. Even the governments proposing and announcing all these measures can't even come close to suggesting that success is even likely, let alone guaranteed.
 
The trouble is, we really have to change our economic psychology. We're going to have to live in a post-loan, post-mortgage society. Why have Germany, France and Italy comparatively skated over this black hole? Because mortgages are the exception and loans where not handed out like penny chews in those countries. We and America are going to be forced back into the more prudent European consumer borrowing model.
 
I was never really for a "house owning" society because I saw the risks of such massive loans in the hands of so many. It drives property prices to eventually unbearable heights, it places incompetents in possession of huge debt mountains they'll eventually mess up and it makes it harder for those who want to rent to afford rent. I fail to see the problem with renting - except you can't always keep pets.
 
As several people have said, if the government had built lots and lots of social housing whilst the money was there it would have given us a safety net and would have slowed down the rise in house prices (more supply and less incentive to buy when quality rental housing was about). On top of that, there would have been more jobs out there. This didn't happen and so we're left with the Chancellor begging the lenders not to kick people out of houses they should never have bought.
 
From inflation of 3%, interest rates of 4.5% and growth of about 2-3% two or three months ago we have gone to projections for the middle of next year of deflation, interest rates of 0.5% and a retracting economy by -1.1%.
 
It's like the world has simultaneously woken up and is in a bad dream. Thanks to none other than greedy idiots.  

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Obama 08

We-he-ell. He well and truly did it! As I predicted, he beat the election out of the park and the GOP are reduced to beating each other up on the sidelines.

The GOP have got the cause of their defeat (not being right wing enough) totally wrong and it looks like taking a while for the penny to drop that demographics are the key reason. The non-wingnuts are outnumbering the wingnuts, basically.

There are two little things I want to keep my eye on in the coming weeks and months:

• Will Palin go away forever or does she have enough GOP supporters to push her towards a 2012 comeback?
• Will McCain die in 2009? If he does, this will fully vindicate those who were rightfully appalled at his VP choice. Even if he expires before 2012, this will still have been too soon for Palin.

Even Fox News couldn't help themselves but report the staggering stories about Palin, so amazing were the claims. But as with Iraq and Afghanistan, myself and many others far more informed than I predicted the calamity to come. There was never any hope in hell that non-committed voters would be attracted to this newsreader showgirl and the transparent cynicism was so unmissable that even that would put undecideds off. And this is exactly what happened.

But what am I banging on about the GOP for when the USA has a president-elect who appears to have more potential than any president in the last 30 or 40 years! Yes, his soaring rhetoric is going to be smothered in reality - a rapidly worsening reality - but this is a man that clearly perceives reality and solutions in much the same way as most human beings would, in stark contrast to the current administration. He can get through just about any problem with majority support, I believe, and if he doesn't manage a second term - such is his shrewdness and political capital - I'll be truly amazed. I know he hasn't started his first term yet but I've seen enough of him to really believe that the US is in the safest hands it could be at this point in its history.

Just see what he has acheived in this campaign alone:

• The first non-encumbent Dem candidate to get over 51% of the vote in 2 or 3 generations
• The first black president, obviously
• He took every swing state there was, even states that hadn't voted Democrat since Barack was in Reception class (at this stage Missouri still hasn't called)
• He won by 6.5 points
• He won over the preferences of almost everywhere in the world
• He wasn't given a chance yet he beat Clinton and McCain and got stronger and stronger.
• He far from flopped over the line and seems to be getting more and more assured and solid as time passes.

So I have high hopes. No, I don't think he's a messiah. As I've alluded earlier, by this I mean he will be more than competent, will preside wisely and will not squander goodwill. These three things have been so needed in America, I really don't think the country will know what to do with itself now that they have arrived. I think Colbert and the Daily Show will struggle for a start!

Haider was gay - and his boyfriend has replaced him!

Quite staggering. This Austrian outfit was a virtually fascist party and this just amazes me. It's just strange. Very very strange.

McCain's missteps and why they happened

A truly awesome article. Stunning that it came out before Nov 4th.

Hanging by a Thread

Sold to those who think
They value it,
But then lose it, blink
And forget it

Paper thin aspirations,
Tokenised conversations,
And plagiarised creations,
Are killing off this nation

Hanging by a thread
Is our culture,
The work of the dead
Is its vulture

Endless third act redemptions,
"Affirmative" rejections,
And randomised elections,
Are killing off this nation

The mould was broken
By idiots,
The spirit broken,
By "patriots"

Wilful and contrary acts,
Perception becoming facts,
And wins for those who redact,
Are killing off this nation

(c) 2008

McCain comes clean on Fox News

http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/fns-mccain-says-palin-counter-liberal

 

All I can do is watch this agog and continue to pray that this twisted version of McCain gets nowhere near the Whitehouse.

Christopher Hitchens for Obama!!!??

http://www.slate.com/id/2202163/ - I can't believe I'd ever say this but I agree with almost every word Hitchens says. Go figure.

Palin talks more nonsense

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/13/us-elections2008-sarahpalin

 

So she says two key things that are, let's face it inconsistent. She says the whole "abuse of power" investigation was partisan and a witch hunting circus yet claims to have been entirely exonerated!

 

So this Partisan circus resulted in these "biased", "anti-Palin" investigators deciding she did nothing wrong?? If they have decided she did nothing wrong, why bother mentioning partisan motives? You'd only mention that if you thought there was stuff in there which hurt you. However, you say there isn't!

 

Utter gobbledegook.

Would Hillary Win?

So Obama got through the second debate pretty unscathed; latest polls have demonstrated precious little progress for McCain. And Obama has handled himself OK, he didn't - and probably won't - reach the heights of the debating art that Bill Clinton managed but McCain just isn't cutting it.

 

But I'd be intrigued to see where we'd be now if Hillary Clinton had managed to get the candidacy. Firstly, of course, we'd need to know who the VP would have been - which is impossible - because it would have certainly had a effect, not least on who McCain picked - would we have ever heard of Palin?

 

Let's assume all would be the same, would Clinton have been more or less effective than Obama? It's true that McCain has been anything but assured in how he's handled the period since Obama's becoming the Dem pick. His negative campaigning has largely revolved around provably false information and his claims to be this or that have respectively recent incidents that prove the lie too. His truly terrible non-suspension that he still claims was a campaign suspension was pretty symptomatic of how poorly he's played the last couple of months. But the question remains, has Obama brought this out of him or would have messed up this much with Hillary?

 

Hillary's campaigning outfit was pretty impressive but was quite heavily negative in the same way McCain's is. Hers failed against Obama and it seems McCain's is too (not really surprising). But if they both were in a face off would it be a "negative-off" or would Clinton have gone the more aspirational route?

 

I'm afraid I'm not a journalist and don't have the time to dig into her senate voting record to establish which votes surrounding the current economic situation could have been used to beat her with.

 

One thing is for sure, her Iraq/war on terror attacks would have been blunted by her voting for the war whereas Obama has no such contradiction. Would she have seemed a more fitting Commander in Chief that McCain during a time of so much military activity? That would be a key thing for the voters to chew over.

 

Given that I've been unable to answer a lot of these questions I would nevertheless instinctively feel that, although Clinton may have sneaked over the line, I think this election would have resolved by a waifer thin majority whilst Obama, I believe, is going to knock McCain out of the park when compared to recent elections. But with Clinton, the possibility would still have been quite clear that McCain could also have pipped the New York Senator and the country would be potentially more divided than ever (especially with Palin as VP).

 

Your opinions?

McCain nailed on Healthcare

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Fact Check: Are business groups critical of McCain’s health plan? « - Blogs from CNN.com

Well, this really looks like something Obama could capitalise on next debate. And when McCains appalling healthcare idea really becomes understood by voters, who the hell would wanna vote him in?

Fuller thoughts on Presidential and UK politics

I'll deal with the US first:

On analysing the polling patterns, it's looking more and more sewn up for Obama and the debates are going his way. The residual tactics of the GOP seem nasty, desperate and are old hat - I really think the public are sick of dumbed down discourse.

 

The VP debate had Palin looking like a cocky local station news anchor, winking in the "see you tomorrow at the same time" way and faking her folksiness to painful effect. I suspected she'd try this hideous flannelling tactic she used so effectively in local politics to this national forum and it failed as badly as I thought it would.

 

Sure, pundits can pundit on about "holding her own" and "beating expectations" but the US public are clearly horrified by this useless, misguided VP pick. She made statements such as "we need more oversight and regulation" but then next minute talk about government "getting out of the way" and so on. She seemed oblivious to the contradiction - but I don't think the US public is.

 

McCain has judged this whole campaign quite appallingly and certain key plays have gone very wrong - not least the "suspension" of the campaign. Palin sucks at least as hard as Quayle but McCain is nowhere near as strong as Bush Snr was. You combine that with the context in which the republican president is currently less popular than scabies and he's got a (surely) unassailable uphill battle.

 

Meanwhile, in the UK, Gordon Brown survived conference season and has just completed a reshuffle. Absurdly, for someone trying to show strength and new ideas he's brought PETER MANDLESON back into the cabinet. You read that upper case right. Frigging Mandleson - who is having a kidney stone removed, incidentally. Staggering is probably the best word.

 

So the Tories are resurgent if you believe the media, though I can't truly believe that there's any real swell of warm feelings towards them so much as they've had time to thin out previous Major/Thatcher staff and the bad memories aren't as severe.

 

It's a shame because Brown could have done really well - especially if he'd followed through on the "listening" promises he banged on about when he took over (remember those speeches?). Now, the country seems destined to be at the mercy of the most "expediency"-driven Tory party in history with some proper right-wingers in the mix that have not yet garnered attention.

 

The economy is tanking and I can't help but blame Labour and the US administration (corrupt beyond belief and prostrate at the altar of all powerful corporations) for the whole thing. Many were warning of this for about 5 years but nowt was done. Which is usually the way and, although i don't see armageddon hoving in to view, I do think it's going to be a very very rough ride for a good couple of years. But I'd rather be going through this in the UK than the (almost) safety-net free US. I really fear for the millions who are going to suffer hideously due to this exhibition of how dark, amoral and dangerous unfettered capitalism really is. I've always believed the system was this bad but it seems to be a revelation to many right-wingers over there.

The VP debate - a brief review

Looks like American voters are no longer fooled by Bush-like waffle and "folksiness" and can understand someone approaching a statesperson when they see one. Bodes very well for Obama.
 
Meanwhile, Palin was the most dishonest debater of the two. Shock horror.

The Credit Crunch, The Power Grab and the Beginning of the End

A very interesting and enlightening article. What the US government is really doing in this credit crunch.

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Countdown at its most ferocious

Post Convention-ness

Two epic American conventions and by god they were as American as they've ever been! Yes, we had the usual theatrical gimmicks, lack of any political debate of any kind, talking points co-ordinated, wheeled out and used as if video tape didn't exist before September 2008. And such tree melting disingenuousness and cynicism the moon turned green instead of its usual brain grey.

Can we please pause for a moment to applaud the McCain VP pick. Not because it was a good pick or because it is in any way clever or was even presented well but because of the 1000-watt-torch-in-your face blatant cynicism which it demonstrated. I mean, a cursory watch of the average Daily Show will show you ever deepening examples of McCain's power-hungry pandering in stark contrast to previous remarks but this Palin move is the most staggering yet.

He's hardly met the woman, she's hardly held office in anger, she's helped her constituencies pork out like bandits and she holds more core policies in opposition to him than I do! And she has similar genitalia to a certain failed Democrat Presidential candidate. Forgot about that...nearly.

This is a metaphoric wave of McCain's bare arse to American women and in particular Clinton supporters who should see it as worthy of pure contempt. It is also a work of pure evil genius in countless ways not least of which is the delight I have had in watching the GOP contort itself into strangulating positions in order not to weep into their hands on Meet the Press.

McCain: "Boo, hiss to lobbyists!"

Fact: McCain's senior campaign staff are leading lobbyists.

McCain: "Obama is just not experienced enough to be President!"

Fact: McCain has selected a VP who's sole significant political office is governor of the least populous state in the US for under 2 years and who is younger than Obama.

McCain: "I'm an agent for change."

Fact: McCain has voted with his party almost the whole time in recent history.

You could go on for pages...

************************************************

I must confess I didn't watch the Obama speech or much of the Dems. I just kinda thought it'd go well no matter what and it seems everything basically went swimmingly. It's good to see that Obama is calling the GOP out when it really starts taking the piss with the reality-reversing "spin". He'll not call it lies but he'll use pretty much every term in the English language it equates to.

Amazingly, Gordon Brown has come out in favour of Obama. I don't know whether that's a good or bad sign...

The rest of the world favours Obama too but then they also favoured Kerry so it simply don't mean much. I'm really gonna just watch it all play out.

The Daily Show has been truly on the ball throughout the last two weeks. I watched the DVD of the 2004 election season a while back and it was not a patch on this year. This week they have effortlessly slain every single "selling point" of the GOP McCain/Palin/Guiliani/Thompson et al have put forward by laying out as clear as day their 180 degree about faces on subjects and O'Reilly being only one of the guilty many.

I'm tired now but some immediate reaction is now up. :-)

Tim Russert

RIP, Tim Russert.
 
I haven't been in a position to watch Meet the Press over here in the UK for that long but it was a very worthwhile program and ensured the audience had not had an interview choking in fluff. He was revolutionary in trying almost obvious things and by all accounts was decent, instinctively neutral and open minded (ideal for a journalist) and very human.
 
A giant in the political scene in Washington, it is a very sad event and I don't think Meet the Press will ever be the same again.

America...can't decide 2008

Well we're finally tiptoeing through the Election Season proper of the US 2008 presidential election and it's starting out rather farcically, if you ask me.
 
Four different winners, none of which were predicted in December and some which weren't even predicted 12 hours before the primary itself!
 
Well, I have to say as politicians go, I do feel there is a fair range of talent out there, so I can imagine this could be a strong factor in making both GOP and Dem races so open. But most of the Republicans are either unpalatably right-wing or religious (e.g. Huckaby and Romney) or unpleasant buffoons (e.g. McCain, Romney and Giuliani). McCain is bland and too hawkish, although well versed in Washington cross-party dealing, and the others smell of fakeness, power hunger, or plain wrongness (anti-evolution Huckaby).
 
The Dems have a Robert Kennedy, a schoolteacher with teeth and a little southern man with nice words.
 
Obviously, all breath should be held until Super Duper Tuesday (only in America!) where the real shakedown will start. Literally no one can confidently call it for either party so it just boils down to who you want to win yourself.
 
Me, if Obama really is a force powerful enough to even get into the whitehouse, then he will be a good president. Just getting the whitehouse for him will be such a massive achievement that the talent, energy and policies he would have to have put forward will have to have been so good as to mean he would have to perform well. So I think in this sense, the process will find him out, will flush out whether he really has got what it takes. So if he wins the election then I'll be happy because of this rationale.
 
If he wins the nomination but not the presidency, I will have rather Hillary had won the nomination. I hope this makes sense!
 
To break it down beyond the nomination, I would like to see Edwards as VP nom, whoever wins. Imagine a black president and woman VP or vice versa, crikey, the US (middle class) wouldn't recognise itself!
 
On the GOP side, the least worst is unquestionably McCain. Giuliani is incompetent, Romney is sleaze personified, Huckaby is unacceptable, Paul is a libertarian mentalist (no income tax, my arse) and I can't even remember the other fella.
 
Meanwhile, I'm hungry and have to go. :-)