THE GREEK CAULDRON « Greek Left Review. The medieval, unaccountable Corporation of London is ripe for protest. It's the dark heart of Britain, the place where democracy goes to die, immensely powerful, equally unaccountable.
But I doubt that one in 10 British people has any idea of what the Corporation of the City of London is and how it works. This could be about to change. Alongside the Church of England, the Corporation is seeking to evict the protesters camped outside St Paul's cathedral. The protesters, in turn, have demanded that it submit to national oversight and control. What is this thing? There are four layers of elected representatives in the Corporation: common councilmen, aldermen, sheriffs and the Lord Mayor. To become Lord Mayor you must first have served as an alderman and sheriff, and you "must command the support of, and have the endorsement of, the Court of Aldermen and the Livery".
Why doesn't Britain make things any more? Before moving to Yale and becoming a bestselling historian, Paul Kennedy grew up on Tyneside in the 50s and 60s.
"A world of great noise and much dirt," is how he remembers it, where the chief industry was building ships and his father and uncles were boilermakers in Wallsend. Last year the academic gave a lecture that reminisced a little about those days. "There was a deep satisfaction about making things," he said. "A deep satisfaction among all of those that had supplied the services, whether it was the local bankers with credit; whether it was the local design firms. When a ship was launched at [Newcastle firm] Swan Hunter all the kids at the local school went to see the thing our fathers had put together and when we looked down from the cross-wired fence, tried to find Uncle Mick, Uncle Jim or your dad, this notion of an integrated, productive community was quite astonishing.
" Wandering around Wallsend a couple of weeks ago, I didn't spot any ships being launched, or even built. Austerity & Fascism In Greece: The Real 1% Doctrine. This article is cross-posted on Naked Capitalism See the guy in the photo there, dangling an ax from his left hand?
That’s Greece’s new “Minister of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks” Makis Voridis captured back in the 1980s, when he led a fascist student group called “Student Alternative” at the University of Athens law school. It’s 1985, and Minister Voridis, dressed like some Kajagoogoo Nazi, is caught on camera patrolling the campus with his fellow fascists, hunting for suspected leftist students to bash.
Voridis was booted out of law school that year, and sued by Greece’s National Association of Students for taking part in violent attacks on non-fascist law students. With all the propaganda we’ve been fed about Greece’s new “austerity” government being staffed by non-ideological “technocrats,” it may come as a surprise that fascists are now considered “technocrats” to the mainstream media and Western banking interests.
Close-up of Minister “Hammer” Voridis’ homemade ax. Rumours, disasters and ‘re-hypothecation”. The rumours are swirling.
Top of the list is “re-hypothecation”. Next is German bank re-capitalization. And last is an IMF Europe bail out fund. At the end of the US trading day came a report from the Japanese press that the G20 were going to set up a $600 billion rescue fund for Europe. American markets shot up. Everybody needs to sell their bonds/debt literally trillions over the next two years.
But none of those details worry the markets who whose only concern is how much short term profit can I make. As far as I can make out the Minister is saying that any bank he and SOFIN (the German Bail out fund) do not think is well enough capitalized, will be forced to accept state money probably in return for shares. But more interesting to me is that the German government should allow rumour of this now just as the ratings agencies are saying that Germany’s AAA rating could be downgraded on fears of the level of German debt. First what is re-hypothecation’. Why do this?