Images and videos are not evidence in the sense of providing a cast iron confirmation of who carried out atrocities. Much visual evidence in today's conflicts is staged. Journalists are ill-qualified to fact check evidence under conditions of conflict. This is because observing outcomes of an incident usually does not provide any indication of who carried out an attack. Those linked to military will almost always blame whoever they are up against. On the other hand, the willful murder of one's own citizens by military contingents are known to occur and then the guilty party states that enemy forces were responsible. In some cases military don the uniforms of their enemy to carry out such tasks in order to generate a "locally witnessed" event so as to generate a collection of witnesses to state, as a resultof the deception, that a specific side carried out the attacks concerned.

The destruction of houses and apartments quite often cannot be linked directly to one side or the other. However, in the Donbass, after 8 years of conflict, there is ample confirmation that most of the destruction of houses and civilian deaths have been caused, and continue to be caused, by Ukrainian action. They continue to deploy a now well-established procedure of withdrawing from mapped cities and villages and then timing attacks from their new positions aimed at specific points in cities to coincide with known times of community agglomerations in markets, transport hubs and schools.

The accusations of the existence of "mass graves" have all been disproven where Russians have allowed access by journalists in those areas taken by Russians in the Donbass. On the other hand, accusations of mass graves related to areas where Russians are no longer present such as Bucha, and others in the North West of Ukraine remain as accusations by Ukrainian authorities but little forensic evidence other than statements and numerous body bags, has been provided. The problem is the issue of knowing who killed any of the people concerned.

In war, unfortunately, extreme actions, including killing civilians who are supposed to be protected, is used to stage false flag events to blame the other side. Such extremes are encouraged by the desire to produce media content to demonize the opposition. Unfortunately journalists and media hopeful for maintaining their circulation, accept images and words which have no context with respect to who is responsible for atrocities. As a result media contribute to a widespread dissemination of misrepresentations. This, in today's environment, is a macabre behaviour intentionally used to shape public opinion to gain political support for government decisions.



08/05/2022: The blitz of propaganda surrounding the Ukrainian crisis makes objective analysis difficult and the establishment of a peace-making process virtually impossible. One of the most significant problems is a top down demonization of either Russia, on the one hand, or Ukraine on the other, very much buoyed up by the media. As a result what is considered to be "evidence" of war crimes is more often than not a casting of actual or non-existent events as real events. Although we have a national media, such as the BBC, which is supposed to be impartial, this organization still repeats details of events as being attributable to Russian or Ukrainian actions when the mounting post-"event" information has demonstrated that these widely circulated "facts" are a total misrepresentations of the truth. As a result radio chat hosts in the UK arguing against contrary facts resort to accusing those doubting the government narrative on Ukraine or Russia as being sympathizers or supporters of Russian propaganda because the "evidence" proves them to be wrong. Radio hosts have even stated that views opposing the UK government narrative is treasonous and in the last war people raising such views would have been imprisoned. This, to a large extent, is the problem. The government is running a blunderbuss propaganda and censorship campaign even although we are officially not at war, and therefore, those who wish to exercise their freedom of analysis and expression can attempt to balance the public discussion. In the meantime, the government is, in fact, doing all it can to encourage Ukrainians to fight on at risk to their lives. This is a very easy way to provide an impression of resolute decision making and support when we are not directly at risk. Our politicians are content to wear blue and yellow ribbons and agree to assign budgets and military hardware all paid out of public resources, and to otherwise get on with their lives.

The most important current priority is to bring the killing to an end which means Ukraine needs to be brought to the negotiation table to compromise, yes compromise, by backing down from the position of "not surrendering". The notion of the valiant David standing up to Goliath palls at the levels of Ukrainian corruption and political extremism which is exposed by those presenting the alternative narratives while corporate media condemn this information as Russian propaganda. It is obvious that the USA and UK want this war to continue so as to tie Russia up in the long campaign but this only means more Ukrainians and Russians being added to death lists as a result of our government's actions.

A neutral demilitarized Ukraine is clearly a step in the direction in terms of a mutual strategic security framework as a rational compromise which would remove the threat of any future military actions. This would not be a "step down" but rather a step up to establishing a peaceful future for the whole of Europe and Russia.

Recently, interviews have taken place with Russian media and captured Ukrainian commanders who were in the Mariupol Azovstal plant and captured while trying to escape. It is evident that the Ukrainian government wanted them to fight on in a suicidal manner while promising reinforcements which were in fact not being sent. Although most interviews with such captives have been unprompted rambling sessions, a recent one was somewhat triumphalistic on the part of an interviewer and this was quite distasteful given the actual plight of the captured Ukrainian commander. However, this was a microcosm of the equally distasteful reactions of the USA and UK which gave rise to this current crisis. This was the negative reaction of the USA and UK to Russia's appeals in 2007 for a mutual strategic security framework to include all peoples of Europe. The assumed luxury of being able to dismiss other populations is a strategic weakness exposing a blind spot to the fact that this creates concern and is perceived to be a threat to the survival of a people and their culture. Arming and assisting Ukraine to continue its targeting of Russian-speaking civilians in the Donbass and supporting Ukraine's cancellation of their undertakings in the only hope for a peaceful settlement, in the form of the Minsk agreement, was an indication that NATO and Ukraine represented a security threat to Russia. What followed was inevitable but very much driven by an animosity held by leaders in the USA and UK.

The United Kingdom, in particular, appears to have developed an endemic close to pathological paranoid and irrational political animosity towards Russia. Remarkably, this appears to have emerged from the days of expanding empire when Russia, under Tsar Peter 1st, Peter the Great, (1672-1725), adopted English ship building processes creating a large and powerful navy modelled on the Royal Navy by the time of his death. However, English leadership considered this to represent a potential economic and military threat to England's expanding colonial ambitions. Since then there were collaboration and adversity such as the Crimean War over what today would be considered to be somewhat irrelevant issues but confronting the primitive notions of power and spheres of influence.

Russia, as an ally during World War II, contributed significantly to the termination of Nazi dominance in Europe, at a significant cost to Russia. The post-war cold war was underlined by the economic devastation suffered by the Soviet Union. With the collapse of the Soviet Union a shameful triumphalism on the part of the West, glorified the failure of a political system but ignored, as usual, the needs of the people. Privatization of state assets throughout the previous Soviet satellite countries was supported by the EU PHARE programme, the UK Know How Fund and USAID, inadvertently created a small group of multi-millionaire oligarchs, largely through corrupt privatization deals enabling the acquisition of significant productive assets at bargain basement prices or even free of charge to so-called "young communists". These individuals became influential in the "new politics" as a result of the enormous differentials between their wealth and the economic states of new political parties in Central, Eastern Europe and the Baltic fringe countries, all of which were characterized by a "new democracy" with a wide range of levels of corruption. Vladimir Putin came on the scene and reacted to this state of affairs and set about reconstructing the Russian economy. He has succeeded, while at the same time creating a political opposition funded largely by those oligarchs who were subjected to legal processes alleging corrupt acquisition of state assets. Within a relatively short period of just 20 years, Putin has been able to guide the country back to a state of economic resilience largely because he had been willing to delegate responsibilities to capable administrators. The importance and evidence of the state of Russia's economic resilience has been well demonstrated by the success of Russia in resisting major negative impacts caused by the economic sanctions imposed by the USA, NATO countries and the UK. On the other hand the economies of countries imposing these sanctions have proven to be far less resilient and facing a serious recoil effect on their cost of living.

Many oligarchs who left Russia to avoid legal processes, fund British political parties. In the United Kingdom, many parliamentary exchanges, when it comes to Russia, are markedly coloured by the use of exceptionally negative adjectives concerning most things Russian. Indeed, the whole development of the "cancellation" of all things Russian, including Russian citizens who have no connection to Russian politics being isolated and insulted by demands that they denounce their own government come from this subliminal irrational psychosis of a manufactured hatred promoted by politicians. There does appear to be an issue of a biased educational orientation of those who enter politics in the UK and a particularly shallow appreciation of, and therefore dismissive attitude towards, the significant role of Russian history and culture in the shaping of modern Europe.

As a result, the United Kingdom suffers from a dilettante leadership that is not fit for purpose. Rather than indulge such pathological outlooks or advocacy to support such irrational positions, people need to enquire and seek collaboration with Russians to work together to bring about peace. The most effective foundation to establishing the necessary levels of communication is for people to understand that the people of Russia and, indeed, Ukraine, share the basic human desires and motivations of the population of Britain. For such understanding to lead to beneficial results for all, people need to reject the pathological desires of leadership, so-called, and to demand a rapid coordinated movement towards a practical mutual strategic security arrangement whose fundamental objective is collaboration between peoples through a communication of shared cultural values and expressions as the foundation for a productive and fulfilling peaceful existence.




The issues of Boris Johnson being an inveterate liar and being embroiled in party gate as well as supporting an MP on the make, with the Patterson affair, pall at the depths on immorality that surround his every decision to avoid being forced to step down. The latest decision on this irresponsible journey, Johnson has enthusiastically thrown his efforts in entirely the wrong direction. He is leading a campaign to support the Ukrainian government which has imprisoned leading opposition politicians, closed down independent media and is implicated in the assassination of journalists and opposition MPs. This government has also created national heroes out of those who collaborated with the Nazi murders of close to a million Roma, Jews, Poles and Russians during the Second World War. These completely undemocratic acts are the result of the ominous rise and hold that neo-Nazi battalions and their political representatives have over the Ukraine government and society.

Johnson has appeased these violent elements by assisting them consolidate their power through contributing to the spreading propaganda, including advice on the organization of false flag events based on the Syrian White helmets model, by training them and supplying arms all justified on the basis of the absurd notion that defending Ukraine is defending our freedom. No acknowledgement is made of the 8 years of warfare pursued these neo-Nazi battalions against innocent civilians in the South East of Ukraine in the Donbass where this killing still continues. In developing a high profile well-publicized diversionary tactic of supporting Ukraine, Johnson is helping the installation and consolidation of a Nazi-oriented government in Europe. This government came into existence in 2014 as the result of a bloody coup organized by the US State Department in the middle of Europe with the assistance of these neo-Nazi brigades. Johnson's decisions only helps strengthen the growth and spread of the negative consequences of Nazism in Europe in supporting this ongoing murderous brutality.

This is worse than Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler because Chamberlain was duped by a false promise. On the other hand, Johnson is aware of the continuation of the genocide is the result of a broken promise of the Ukrainian government not to pursue the peaceful option of the Minsk agreement to which it had agreed in 2014 and again in 2015. This decision indicated that the neo-Nazis had taken over the direction of government policy and wished to continue with the genocide. Johnson's irresponsible actions are a frantic effort to save his own skin and survival by any means within the parochial Westminster bubble by supporting wholesale murder and war crimes in Ukraine. He equates this horrendous killing to a defence of democratic principles when the track record of Ukraine is a demonstration that no such principles exist.

Johnson has destroyed the image of Britain being an international vanguard against Nazism established during the Second World War and has replaced this with an image of cowardice and decadence as a result of his singular enthusiastic championing of development and spread of Nazi brutality in Europe today. As we witness the results of this corruption, Johnson risks becoming remembered as an articulate war criminal with blood on his hands.

The horrific scene below is a Nazi murdering a woman and her child in Ukraine in 1942. Then we fought to eliminate Nazism. Today Ukrainian Nazi battalions are continuing to murder civilians in the Donbass region of Ukraine. The British government enthusiastically supports this genocide by Nazi battalions willingly providing arms and training to these factions in an open grossly insulting affront to the memory of Britons who died in the Second World War fighting Nazism.

06/05/2022: A considerable number of regular Ukrainian army personnel and some nationalists have been captured in the South East of Ukraine. Unlike the prompted interviews of some Russians captured by Ukraine where they are prompted to criticize their own service and country, those captured by Russia do not appear to be prompted but are simply recounting their experience in their own words. Sometime rambling but containing important information. Although we have no means of verification some common and important issues have become apparent. Much of the hyped equipment supplied by the UK, USA and others has turned out to be relatively ineffective in practice. Anti-tank systems quite often do not work or they explode before reaching their targets. The overall operational effectiveness of NLAWS ans Javelin ATGMS appears to be around 20%-25%. Training on these devices seems to have been completely theoretical so when the systems do not work, few have any idea how to fix the issue. In many cases batteries supplied were flat and many items beyond their stated replacement dates. The promotional explanation of these devices being "out of the box ready" has not proven to be the case. This has caused a widespread deception on the part of men concerned whose lives depended on these systems working. Some questioned the value of assistance provided by members of NATO and there is an apparent deeply cynical view of the practical utility, and therefore value, of the West's assistance. The reality that the Ukrainian efforts will continue until they run out of people. A recently arrived British Brimstone missile was deployed by Ukrainian troops near Zaporizhzhia but it did not reach its target and flopped to the ground. It was picked up in perfect undamaged condition by Russian scouts; it has been sent to the MOD RF for systems analysis.

In terms of Russian tactics, Russian tanks now remain beyond range but are now picking off infantry armed with anti-tank weapons with large calibre and explosive munitions. In several cases captives note that the Russian tank anti-personnel systems, in practice, turned out to be extremely accurate and lethal. The experience with the shoulder-launched anti-tank systems leading to direct lethal hits on those trying to use them was the cause of the foreign volunteers (mercendaries) returning to their countries. In spite of the propaganda concerning the efficiency of the nationalist battalions, foreign mercenaries who have since left Ukraine have stated that the corruption and disorganization is excessive, equipment deficient and in reality there is a lack of effective coordinastion and supply logistics. As a result, people are expected to fight with insufficient body armour, ammunition and quality of arms.

In some instances, civilians with white arm bands were rounded up by neo-Nazi nationalists who then ordered regular army personnel to shoot them.

In some scenarios nationalists were shooting "anything that moves". There is an obvious animosity between regular Ukrainian army personnel and neo-Nazi nationalists and there have been examples of one party shooting the other.

All of those who were wounded have stated that they received prompt medical treatment and the fact that Russians have not left wounded Ukrainians to die in the field but have rescued them. These men had been told the Russians would torture and kill them if captured. In separate reports it is apparent that there are cases of Ukrainians torturing and executing Russian captives.

The most effective tactic deployed by the Russians since the beginning of the campaign include holding tactics designed to dilute the ability of Ukrainian forces to concentrate effort. The most obvious example was the "invasion of Kiev" which Western strategists misinterpreted as a failed attempt to occupy Kiev. This misinterpretation is still broadcast in Western corporate media. The same tactic is being applied at the moment in Kharkiv, again with success. Having destroyed most Ukrainian hardware, the Russians have introduced an effective support to rapidly advancing infantry in the Donbass using KA 50 series gun ships which report on what is ahead as well as eliminating hardware and Ukrainian troop concentrations as they advance, leaving the infantry to do essentially a mopping up operation, leading to a rout. This is why the rate at which tanks and vehicles are being taken out has risen significantly during the last 2 weeks.

An odd observation confirmed by Russian medics is that nationalists quite often have narcotics in their kits designed to incite rage and dulling of any pain. One name mentioned as a drug used is Ephedrine. This explains that their "bravery" is more linked to fanaticism induced by drugs. This situation is very similar to the Fallujah onslaught in Iraq when NATO and US tank crews were on drugs and playing loud heavy metal music while attacking civilian zones leading to Fallujah suffering one of the highest tolls of civilian casualties including the alleged use of white phosphorous.

This goes a long way to explain the situation in the Astoval plant where nationalists, in a completely hapless situation continue to resist surrendering and threaten the lives of those who might consider laying down their arms. These nationalists are making increasingly bizaar demands. The Ukrainian government insistence that they do not surrender is a cruel indictment of the inhumanity of those in control of these troops who knowing that they are on drugs they can therefore promote these people, in such an impossiblre situation, as being brave national patriots. Clearly the Russian command cannot negotiate with people in this state of derangement. It would appear that this is the reason that Vladimir Putin prevented a wholesale onslaught because of the risks to Russian personnel. An observation was made that once the Astoval plant nationalists run out of drugs they will then realize their predicament and lay down their arms.

It is worth noting that in an interview with Oliver Stone, which features in the documentary, "Ukraine on Fire", Vladimir Putin referred to the danger of neo-Nazi drug addicts; he seems to have been better-informed than most. To access this documentary click on the image on the right.



06/05/2022: The predictable outcome of the local elections points to a more fundamental issue. With all parties, including Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats and Greens not having distinct economic policies that represent alternatives to monetarism, which has failed this country, it is impossible for any to provide and inspirational leadership. Inspiration comes not from Johnsonian assertions or Starmer's questions about partygate, the sometimes nice sounding combinations of words from Davey or the often sound logic of Lucas. Inspiration comes from demonstrable practical propositions that are likely to improve the real incomes and wellbeing of constituents.

Monetarism the totem pole of all British parties since 1975 has delivered a disaster for the majority of constituents of this country in terms of rising levels of income disparity, a declining manufacturing sector and skilled employment, rising balance of payments deficit and a cost of living crisis. However, no one in these parties questions the failed logic of monetarism sustained by the clerics employed by the Bank of England, the monetarists' temple. Just as in the religious reformation of the past, economics as a whole needs a reformation arising from what are errors, abuses, and discrepancies in monetary theory and derived policies. This process needs to be taken from economists, academics and politicians who remain committed to a false logic and whose prophesies have constantly failed to deliver constituent wellbeing. These issues have to be reviewed by non-economists and those who live with the consequences of economic poor policy outcomes. By opening up analyses amongst the constituents of this country in a participatory manner it will become possible to trace gaps and needs to constraints and thereby identify the determinants and mechanisms able to satisfy the needs by correcting distortions.

All of our political parties together have memberships that do not surpass 1.25% of the total electorate and this is why these parties lack the intellectual critial mass and exposure to the people of this country to come up with anything practical. By becoming more participatory, acknowledging that alternatives are required and permitting people to come up with practical suggestions, such a process in itself would be inspiring and would lead to existing policy alternatives being considered more seriously. The current bunch of political parties are clearly not fit for purpose largely because the current separation of economic theory and practice from the real economy where the increasingly impoverished constituents of this country dwell.

.... No way out for the Bank ....

05/05/2022: In a short presentation to analyse the recent Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England decision to rise interest rates to 1% at a short SDAC-Strategic Decision Analysis Group workshop, provided a clearer picture of the current UK predicament.

The cost of living crisis in the United Kingdom is a function of the purchasing power of the pound and the real incomes of wage earners. Wages have a purchasing power to obtain real goods and services according to the prices of these items. Inflation, the rise in unit prices of goods and services results in less being able to be purchased for a given nominal income. Therefore, the purchasing power of the currency and of specific wage levels declines. For example a 10% inflation rate is equivalent to a loss in purchasing power of the currency and wages of 65% over a 10 year period. 5% inflation would involve a loss of around 40% and 2% a 18% loss in real incomes, in rounded percentages.

Currently the United Kingdom is heading for a 10% inflation linked to four issues:

Rises in prices in international commodity markets for gas, petroleum, food, fibres, feedstocks and minerals largely linked to inappropriate strategic policies related to imposing sanctions on Russia; Rises in domestic prices and rents of land and real estate and financial assets as a result of inappropriate macroeconomic policies; Constraints imposed labour force remuneration as a result of inappropriate national corporate accounting norms; Constraints imposed on corporations as a result of an inappropriate national taxation regime.

These four effects result in an economy incapable of responding to rising costs in a swift and effective manner by raising productivity to lower unit costs, raise wages and set unit prices at a compensatory level.

Russia offers gas and petroleum on the basis of long term contracts and unit prices set currently at around 10%-15% of the so-called free market spot prices. The British government could lower the price of imports by accepting Russian gas but refuses to do so. Therefore the United Kingdom government has taken a conscious decision to rely on more expensive energy resources leading to a cost of living rise in these particular products and derivatives such a agricultural commodities requiring petroleum derived fertilizer.

Source: McNeill, H. W., "British economic prospects", Introduction to Real Incomes Policy, SDAC-SEEL, 8th January, 2022.

The other part of this story is a misunderstanding amongst many economists concerning the origins of inflation. To understand this misunderstanding let us consider the question raised initially concerning the value of the currency. If the productivity of suppliers of goods and services rise and they are therefore able to lower their unit prices, the purchasing power or real incomes of wages rises. In terms of gaining market penetration under competitive conditions companies have to trade off their unit price setting against productivity and the distribution of funds to profit and wages. The countries that are committed to this approach as a result of a developed productivity culture are Germany, Japan, China, Netherlands, Switzerland, Russia, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea. This productivity culture is intimately linked to the process model of constant product and process productivity improvement as illustrated on the left. The process model which results in a flow of incremental innovations is also combined with a better understanding of the need to pay compensatory wages to maintain national demand levels to drive learning curves through higher throughput. All of these countries come at the top of the international balance of payments league table. Germany, for example has over 1,400 SMEs that are leading exporters staffed by people with several generations of dedication to the state of the advancing art. Britain, on the other hand, together with the USA is at the bottom of the international balance of payments league table. The UK, in particular, has allowed the question of the complementarity between physical technical productivity, labour force learning and acquisition of tacit knowledge or skill be lost as a result of undermining the contribution of labour to corporate productivity agreements to maintain a stable growth in demand through compensatory wage settlements. This is only possible if there has been sufficient targeted investment in productivity enhancing changes or innovation.

Note 3: Why the Bank of England cannot solve the cost of living crisis

Any serious accounting for these essential relationships were abandoned in the UK in 1975 in the stagflation period created by the rises in international petroleum prices. In spite of stagflation being obviously caused by cost-push inflation and inadequate technologies to secure petroleum substitution and avoid a rapid decline in currency values and purchasing power, an academic economics approach called monetarism was heralded as the saviour of stagflation. Monetarists consider inflation to be a purely money volume matter by equating the volume of money in the economy to "demand". They consider "demand" to be manageable through the policy instruments of base interest rates and managing the volume of money injections to the economy. This of course ignores the essential role of compensatory wages and productivity as the main determinant of real demand with productivity-based price setting being the unit price moderator. As a result the raising of interest rates depressed the economy and prejudiced thousands of families who lost their homes because nothing was done to increase the wages of home owners and many more lost their employment. This misunderstanding of the origins of inflation has persisted now for some 45 years and has been accompanied by a fall of investment in supply side production productivity and as a result real wages have been depleted manufacturing competitivity has declined; thus the disastrous balance of payments.

Monetarism is counter-productive in the sense that exactly when business requires low interest rates to counter inflation through incremental productivity investments, monetarists raise interest rates, making access to finance more difficult. Corporate taxation and accountancy norms place labour in a costs category resulting in a tension between shareholder dividends, profits and wages. Since the principal decisions are made by management the corporate taxation and accountancy code provided a negative incentive to marginalize investment and wage payments. After 45 years of monetarism UK manufacturing has been hollowed out, productivity is low and largely uncompetitive and we import most goods and services.

Just as we need to invest in higher productivity initiatives, the Bank of England, on cue, will undermine this process by raising interest rates and probably cause a further depression in economic activity. This illogical action is typical of monetarism and is damaging. The industrial cultural productivity deficit in the British economy can, however, be compensated through a Real Incomes Policy which can accelerate the process of manufacturing catch-up to generate well-paid employment and thereby real economic growth in consumption, as opposed to money volumes which do nothing but enhance speculative asset purchases which benefit few but which exacerbate the costs structure of the whole economy.



05/05/2022: In spite of increasing numbers of sanctions being leveled at the Russian economy the strength of the ruble against all major currencies has risen.

Year on year the ruble quotations show a 16% gain in value against the British pound whose quotation is falling. The British pound is failing along with the balance of payments as a result lack of investment and productivity. The current cost of living crisis caused by inflation is, in part, due to the backfiring of inappropriate anti-Russian sanctions. This economic decline in the UK is also due to serious structural issues in the British economy created by inappropriate macroeconomic policies implemented by Labour, Conservative and coalition governments over the last 50 years. The most prejudice was inflicted on the wage-earning segment by the Bank of England's policy of quantitative easing during the last 12 years which drove injected money into assets such as land and real estate, offshore investment, stocks and shares, objects of art and an explosive financial assets sector (derivatives) and drained money away from much needed investment and growth in the supply side manufacturing sectors.



05/05/2022: [Source: Time; RT] Lula, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil's president from 2003 to 2010, has returned to Brazilian politics just over a year ago after the Latin American country's supreme court cleared him of corruption and money laundering charges, allowing him to run for president once again.

In an interview with Time he expressed the opinion that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky really did want a war with Russia, otherwise he would have negotiated long before the Kremlin's special military operation started.

Lula drew attention to Zelensky's constant broadcasts around the world, addressing almost any audience and regularly receiving standing ovations. Lula said, "..sometimes I sit and watch the president of Ukraine speaking on television, being applauded, getting a standing ovation by all the [European] parliamentarians. This guy is as responsible as Putin for the war. Because in the war, there’s not just one person guilty. This president of Ukraine could have said,

'Come on, let's stop talking about this NATO business, about joining the EU for a while. Let’s discuss a bit more first.'"

"It seems like he's part of the spectacle. He is on television morning, noon, and night. He is in the UK parliament, the German parliament, the French parliament, the Italian parliament, as if he were waging a political campaign. He should be at the negotiating table," Lula explained. "Nobody s trying to help create peace."

Lula also noted that people are inciting hatred towards Russian President Vladimir Putin, but "that won't solve things! We need to reach an agreement," he stated. "But people are encouraging [the war]. You are encouraging this guy [Zelensky], and then he thinks he is the cherry on your cake. We should be having a serious conversation: 'OK, you were a nice comedian. But let us not make war for you to show up on TV.'

And we should say to Putin: 'You have a lot of weapons, but you don't need to use them on Ukraine. Let’s talk!'"

Notably, speaking of US President Joe Biden, Lula admitted that he respected him for his economic policy proposals, although

"it’s not enough to announce the program, you've got to execute it."

And Biden is reportedly having a "difficult moment" with that. Moreover, Lula believes the American president has not demonstrated leadership with respect to the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

"The US has a lot of political clout," he explained. "And Biden could have avoided [the war], not incited it. He could have talked more, participated more. Biden could have taken a plane to Moscow to talk to Putin. This is the kind of attitude you expect from a leader. To intervene so that things don't go off the rails. I don't think he did that."

Moreover, Lula expressed the view that Biden would not have been required to make any "concessions" to Russia if he had made an effort to negotiate. In the same way that the Americans persuaded the Russians not to put missiles in Cuba in 1961, Biden could have said:

'We're going to speak a bit more. We don't want Ukraine in NATO, full stop.

' That’s not a concession,"

the former president said. According to Lula,

"we politicians reap what we sow."

"it’s not just Putin who is guilty. The US and the EU are also guilty. What was the reason for the Ukraine invasion? NATO? Then the US and Europe should have said: 'Ukraine won't join NATO." That would have solved the problem," he stressed.

Furthermore, he blasted European politicians for inciting the current volatile situation.

"The Europeans could have said: 'No, now is not the moment for Ukraine to join the EU, we'll wait.' They didn't have to encourage the confrontation," he offered.

Lula's comments come as Brazil is gearing up for a showdown in the October 2022 presidential election between the Workers Party politician and current Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. In relation to the presdential election, recent polling gives Lula a 14-Point Poll Lead Over Bolsonaro.




04/05/2022: Tomorrow the constituents of the United Kingdom are expected to cast their votes in local elections throughout the country. Most people are feeling the cost of energy and realizing that other prices such as housing and food continue to increase. Many suggest that the local elections are more about community charges than about national politics.

The disgraceful influence of this government has been the suppression of free expression of Russians as a result of a Fascist-like policy of blind cancellation. They are advocating only allowing individuals to carry out their normal activities and who have no connection with politics, who have signed a shoddy document that states that they do not agree with the actions of their government. This Stazi-like small-minded and disgraceful finger pointing has created an intimidating inquisitional environment where no one can protest against this injustice for fear of becoming conspicuous by rebelling against it - this is how low our government has stooped to succeed in manipulating society. Vanquishing participation and ruling by dictat and intimidation is a denial of all things the people of this country uphold as essential for freedom expression and liberty. Such feeble minded organizations as Wimbledom are examples of submissions to a tyranny in their cowardly banning of Russian tennis players. This unforgivable participation in intimidation is a justification for boycotting Wimbledon by all who value freedom.

This is not a particularly logical position. The ease with which local authorities can manage budgets is directly related to the effectiveness of macroeconomic policies "managed" by central government and it is these that create a cost of living crisis. Local authorities might be able to economize but the main culprit is central government.

Since the last energy crisis in 1973, Labour, Conservative and coalition governments have deployed monetarism ever since. Rather than encouraging investment in British industry and manufacturing through petroleum substitution and sustainable processes, all major parties supported increasing financialization, globalization and, as a result, British manufacturing was undermined by lower cost imports. The ability of manufacturing to pay skilled workers compensatory wages declined as did investment in manufacturing. As a result, productivity declined and income disparity rose. The inevitable outcome of a lack of investment in the real economy and over indulgence in financialization, led to the 2008 financial crisis. Rather than steer policy towards real economy investment to raise productivity, the government opted for an intensification of financialization by applying quantitative easing. This resulted in most funds injected into the economy going into assets and not manufacturing investment. By the time Covid turned up we had achieved the status of being the country with the second worst negative balance of payments behind the USA which has the worst balance of payments. As a result, even before Covid, we continued on the downward spiral of falling productivity and falling real wages. By contrast, Germany, paying higher wages and in the same geographic European zone as the UK has the highest balance of payments in the world.

Over this same 50 year period the British parliament demonstrated its ability enter wholly useless and costly military campaigns to support NATO and the USA and all of which were lost. These poorly executed and failed military ventures helped to spread ISIS and its many variants throughout the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The cost has added up to over 1 million innocent people being slaughtered and the creation of the worst refugee crisis made up of people still fleeing the violence our governments helped create in these countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. However, the government avoiding the responsibility of having created the refugee crisis are openly proposing to send such people to Rwanda a country with one of the highest poverty indices in the world. The UK government has a good deal of responsibility for the creation of these refugees but openly avoids facing up to this responsibility in a shabby manner.

In 1973 the International Monetary Fund under a Moslem Managing Director did not attempt to prevent Arab countries from raising their prices but cynically made use of petrodollars to "finance" petroleum imports by low income countries using petrodollars supplied by the Arab nations concerned. Petroleum prices therefore rose seven-fold within a decade. Paradoxically, the "price of energy" vanished from the political agenda because political parties and selected politicians were benefiting from the generosity of petroleum supplier and industry lobbies. The corruption associated with over-priced arms deals started under the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher and continued under Tony Blair. Blair closed down the Serious Fraud Office investigation into this affair. As a result of this generalised corruption the idea of green energy and petroleum substitution was placed on the back burner for 35 years.

Six years ago the European Referendum resulted in a decision for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. The processes and procedures adopted by the government since have transformed British politics into a landscape characterized by intolerance and abandonment of values once held dear to a large proportion of the British population. The intolerance is associated with an import from last century Europe as a variants of Fascism made up of economic policies shaped by corporations and politicians who support such policies because of personal and party interest in financial support, on the one hand, and a close to fanatical intolerance of individuals who disagree with this way of managing policy, on the other. Just as Mussolini regarded this arrangement as common sense the post-war period witnessed this intolerance of diverse opinions under the shameful period of McCarthyism in the USA. This process of attacking individuals for actual or perceived contrary views was made possible by cowardly informants and finger pointers. In central Europe such a system was managed secret police and the Stazi whose work involved surveillance, torture and assassination. Weak governments and assorted politicians who resort to or collude with, the use of intimidation to promote their own causes, fear the truth. Goebbels explained this concisely. They therefore conspire to hide the truth or "cancel" those who would expose the truth. The most shameful and blatant example of this is the case of Julian Assange who has been tortured by a weak British government fearful of the intolerant USA authorities. This government demonstrates a subservience to those who carried out horrendous acts that were exposed in the documents, images and videos which came into the possession of Wikileaks and were published as information of public interest. In a process similar to the Nazi German "People's Courts" the judges have slanted and ignored evidence, passed judgement and pronounced the sentence by agreeing to extradition of Assange to the USA. This is an open demonstration of the objective of this government to intensify the regime of fear in this country in order to dissuade others from exposing the truth of government excesses and corruption. At the same time the "opposition" says nothing in an act of denial of the importance of truth, no matter how inconvenient. This government and the main oppositions parties expect the people of this country to support those in the local council elections who are members of these same parties that make up this corrupted government and parliament.

The failed military ventures that have created the massive refugee crisis is the result of a too-eager notion by our parliamentarians of regarding militarism as the solution to problems. Following the poor orientation of the USA and NATO there has been an attempt to replace our lowest cost and most reliable source of gas in Europe, Russia, by USA Liquefied Petroleum Gas that is around 35% more expensive. Following a bloody coup against a democratically elected Ukrainian government coordinated by the US State Department, in the middle of Europe, our government did not question this overt destruction of democracy. The UK and NATO countries began arming Ukraine in supporting a civil war against two Ukrainian states (Donetsk and Luhansk) who had declared independence because of fears of the likely outcome of neo-Nazi elements gaining influence in the following Ukrainian puppet governments. The fear was the open declarations by neo-Nazi elements in the puppet government to eliminate Russian-speakers and dual passport holders. The Ukrainian government proceeded to imprison opposition politicians, banned the use of the Russian language, closed down independent TV and radio stations and lately has published a list of individuals who have written or spoken against this government. Several of the politicians and journalists on this list have since been assassinated. This government was and is in no way democratic and it has continued its creeping genocidal attacks on the civilian population of the areas of Ukraine that declared independence. All the way through this horror the UK government has continued to train Ukrainian military and supply arms.

The promise of a peaceful resolution to this conflict, under terms of the Minsk Agreement, was the main hope expressed by the President of Russia as the way to terminate the military intervention. However, the Minsk agreement was abandoned by the Ukrainian government under the direction of the US State Department in early February 2022 after 8 years of warfare. Clearly the intent of the government was to continue to kill Russian-speaking civilians and dual nationality (Ukrainian/Russian) individuals in the Ukraine’s East. The areas that were coming under an impending major invasion from the Ukrainian army, trained and armed by NATO, appealed to Russia for help to avoid a wholesale slaughter of civilians at the hands of the Ukrainian army and neo-Nazi battalions. Therefore, Russia joined this ongoing war, it did not start this war. The fact that the Ukraine openly declared its intention to become a member of NATO while at the same time murdering Russian-speakers and Russian passport holders in former Ukrainian states reflected badly on NATO's declaration of being a "defensive" alliance. Therefore, this affront and associated danger was justification enough for Russia read this as an intent on continued violence supported proactively by NATO. Russia was left with no choice oher than to push back militarily.

Russia, in the second world war did the bulk of the heavy-lifting in overcoming the European suffering from the German Nazi regime. Russia lost over 25 million citizens in this effort. Russians understand that the Nazi threat starts with small fanatical groups who were hardly noticed by West Europeans. Leon Trotsky saw this danger early on when Joseph Stalin also appeased Hitler in an agreement which, like the Minsk agreement, was abandoned by the Nazis. Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler is an example of the type of naive and costly mistake being made today by the British government and parliament in appeasing Ukraine through declarations and by training Ukrainian military, supplying arms and encouraging it to fight rather than negotiate for peace.

This irresponsible attitude and the additional promotion of, and participation in, sanctions against Russia has exacerbated the international prices, not only of energy but also food and other commodities. The "benefits" of this trail of government decisions and a complicit parliament, for the people of this country, in addition to the problems of rising Middle eastern and African refugees, is an unsustainable rise in the cost of living. This aspect of the cost of living has combined with the policy-induced rising prices and rents of housing and commercial premises resulting from asset speculation taking place as a direct consequene of Bank of England's quantitative easing.

And yet the bulk of MPs in parliament expect the constituents of this country to support the candidates of their parties in the local elections. The central government has removed any effective capabilities for local authorities to have any relevance under such a social and macroeconomic disaster they have created. If one observes with care the antics of the government in handling BREXIT it is clear that the power of decision making in Westminster, especially with this latest government relies heavily on a "Little Englander" mentality, particularly apparent in the prime minister and current set of cabinet members in their failure to have run the government and parliament in a truly participatory manner. They largely ignored the wishes of the people of Scotland, Wales and Ireland. To compensate for this inept bias, it would seem that it is best for constituents to vote for those representatives in the devolved regions who look to a politics that is more independent of the Westminster bubble. The people in England are left with a choice. Vote for those parties who have together created the social and macroeconomic mess we are witnessing, and all feel in our pockets, or vote for those who represent an alternative to these main parties. This should not be just as protest vote, but rather be the first steps in bringing about change to shun militaristic violence and campaigns that are always lost, and getting rid of those who implement poor macroeconomic policies. Britons need to take the initiative to begin to shape a future to bring us back to the sanity of a peaceful and sustainable participatory future as a worthy legacy for our children.



02/05/2022: There is an excess of unjustified assumptions in most of the media reports on the performance of the Russian military units operating in Ukraine. This week's Economist Newspaper has a coverage which is a typical example of an inadequate and biased analysis.

The Russian President declared the objectives of the exercise precisely at the time it was launched and these included:

Assisting the self-declared republics in the Donbass to defend themselves to put an end to 8 years of creeping genocide and the killing of civilians by the Ukrainian government forces - this involved ending the Ukrainian occupation of th formal administrative areas these republics; To demilitarize Ukraine; To de-Nazify Ukraine. To carry out this excerise while minimizing the harm to civilians and supportive infrastructures; There is no intent to occupy Ukrainian territory;

One of the most misleading common statements in strategic analyses of the Russian performance has been to assume that Russia had intended to take over or occupy Kiev. Looking at the objectives, that was never an intent. This move was to pull a proportion of the Ukrainian forces from their concentration along the Donbass border by advancing on and appearing to surround Kiev to attack the city. This tactic worked but it might have been costly in terms of some equipment and lives of personnel. The focus on Kiev permitted the Russian units to discover a good deal concerning the location of military assets and personnel helping initiate a rapid completion of the liquidation of most of Ukrainian military hardware assets. Once, these backup assets which could compromise Russian effectiveness in the Donbass were eliminated the Russians withdrew from Kiev. The withdrawal had nothing to do with brave Ukrainians standing up to Russian units.

Redacted is a medium created by Natali & Clayton Morris, independent journalists. To find out more about the truth concerning what is going on in the Donbass, click on the video link above...

The other commentary relates to the fact that observers are not taking into account Russia's undertaking not to harm civilians and supportive infrastructures. Although this relates as much to non-Donbass residents as it applies to Donbass residents, this means the tactics used are more exacting and involve more time to complete. There is an obvious need to avoid air and missile attacks on civilian areas and making use of these assets on mainly military targets. The fact that Ukrainian military and nationalist battalions place artillery and missile launchers in the middle of civilian areas is an issue but the Donbass forces are learning how to handle this. This contrasts greatly with the indiscriminate killing of civilians carried out NATO and the US forces who carpet bombed whole towns in Iraq and Syria where the main victims were something of the order to one million civilians. Similarly, in Afghanistan, Libya civilian casualties rose to unacceptably obscene levels.

The Russians have opened countless humanitarian corridors a technique developed in Syria. However, as in Syria, Ukrainian nationalists either prevented civilians using them or fired on people using them in the same way as ISIS did in Syria. By far the greatest civilian residential damage has been wrought by Ukrainian forces in the Donbass, especially in Mariupol, and there is no doubt that their principal targets remain civilians. Their tactic is to map out areas they occupy, then to withdraw and then shell the towns and villages they have left targeting areas where they know there

To learn about the Nazi cover up in Ukraine click on the video link above.

are normally concentrations of people during the day such as railway and bus stations and markets. It is now evident that the Mariupol theatre and maternity hospital attacks given so much publicity were Ukrainian nationalist stunts. A so-called mass grave of 9,000 people outside Mariupol has now been visited by independent journalists only to find that this area is a normal cemetery and there is no mass grave. Some graves are occupied by Ukrainian soldiers buried in separate lots and in coffins. The Bucha story has now lost most of its credibility.

Such propaganda and false flag events do not win wars although they do gain a social media coverage and headlines for corporate media they also titillate and pad out poor strategic analyses. The current state of Ukrainian demilitarization achieved by Russia can be assessed from the data in the table above left.

As the Ukrainian government has not engaged in serious negotiations and does not seem to be independent of US State Department instructions, the Russian government has stated that this will result in changes in the original objectives. It is not clear what these changes entail but they could be taking precautions to strengthen the long term future defence of Crimea region of Russia and the Donbass republics.



02/05/2022: At an Agence Presse Européenne workshop this weekend the issue of appropriate economic policies for the United Kingdom were reviewed. According to the economist Hector McNeill the country is already in recession with a high real incomes deflator associated with inflation heading for 10%. He stated that,

"At this level recession cannot be avoided. The default monetarist response to rising inflation is invariably to do the wrong thing such as raising interest rates.

McNeill explained that all of the policy eggs are in the same Aggregate Demand Model "basket" which cannot tackle cost-push inflation gracefully because they have no handle on productivity. The culprits are monetarism, Keynesianism, supply side economics and modern monetary theory whose theories and works cover the relationship between real incomes and productivity in blank pages. As a result there are no relevant policy instruments.

"Under similar circumstances, this is what the Thatcher government did only exacerbating the depression and forcing many people with sound mortgages to be forced into a sub-prime mortgage status and losing their homes. Attempting to impose any of the existing policy instruments will only exacerbate the state of affairs since there are no conventional policy instruments to tackle the issue of cost-push inflation."

McNeill carried out extensive research into the conditions giving rise to the last global stagflation crisis starting in 1973.

"Monetary theory, in reality, does not contain any explanation of the mechanisms creating inflation and therefore can offer no effective solutions. Prices are not set by interest rates or money volumes, they are set by business managers. The rising prices and rents of housing and prices of mineral, energy and food commodities are a result of a considerable amount of quantitative easing funds flowing into price speculative moves in land, real estate and commodities, managed by banks, their clients and hedge funds. This has created a cost of living crisis and the need for managers to increase output prices to remain viable. Thus the price rises were already built in to the system before the Ukrainian crisis. Collaborating in sanctions against Russia are only making things worse."

McNeill considers the current economic crisis to be a result of a too long a run of inappropriate monetary policies which have run down productivity and essential investment.

He said that the way to initiate a reversal of these trends it to introduce a Real Incomes Policy to encourage companies to reset prices and encourage stepwise investments in productivity enhancing initiatives to raise the productivity of companies to absorb cost-push inflation through effective incentives.

"Being outside the EU it is easier to create Real Income Policy incentives while not involving any subsidies from the state and thereby avoiding WTO litigation. By removing corporate taxation and changing the corporate tax code to remove labour from the costs category, it is possible to revolutionize the rate of real growth in the values of profits and wages while moderating and even reducing output prices. This system can achieve a constant real growth in excess of 2% and most investment would come from reinvested margins rather than loans. This is completely counter-intuitive for monetarists and even Keynesians and this solution is more rational than what so-called supply side economics or modern monetary theory, have to offer."

29/04/2022: The latter day pugnacious efforts at diplomacy by the current occupant of the post of Foreign Secretary reflects a corrupted intellect which is almost a carbon copy of that of the Secretary of State of the United States of America. No doubt this cloning of thought processes is to the satisfaction of the Conservative government and the Labour opposition on the vain assumption that ".. we are on the right side". But this is not so. The United Kingdom obviously does not have an independent foreign policy and since the USA has no interest in the prospects of the population of this country, this is a serious state of affairs. Having relied on the NATO arms bazaar for "security" to give an impression of a strategic "defensive" alliance, the reality is that NATO members have a complement of arms that are a couple of generations behind that developed by Russia on 10% of the defence budget of the USA. Clearly a 2% GNP assignment for defence has not resulted in an effective strategic defensive framework, but rather, a wholly exposed membership. Since 1949 NATO members have been involved in bloody conflicts that were uncalled for and certainly not defensive. Since NATO did not honour the promise not to expand Eastwards beyond Germany and its willingness to initiate very high human cost warfare at the request of the USA, Russia was left to draw its own conclusions as to the significance of the USA's manipulation events to expand NATO Eastwards towards the Russian border. The President of Russia did attempt in 2007 to lay out Russia's concerns proposing a mutual strategic security framework which would include Russia. The USA and, of course, the UK, ignored these measured and balanced proposals. There have been 8 years of a war initiated by the Ukrainian government against Ukrainian citizens who did not want to be governed by a government set up as a result of a US State Department coordinated bloody coup in 2014. This puppet regime introduced a series of constitutional acts to marginalize Russian speakers and then in February, the current Ukrainian president declared that Ukraine would not implement the only negotiated and peaceful settlement agreement to this warfare, the Minks agreement. Russia had relied upon this agreement to solve the Donbass violence. This failure was the direct result of the USA State Department officials dissuading all involved from implementing the Minsk agreement. As a result of appeals from the people of the Donbass for protection, Russia initiated the current campaign.

The United Kingdom, rather than encourage the Ukrainian government to resuscitate the Minsk agreement and a more rapid route to peace, has done quite the reverse, following the lead of the USA to ply Ukraine with armaments and encourage the Ukrainians to fight to the last Ukrainian. This reaction only confirms that Russia had good reason to initiate its campaign because the USA and UK have not responded in any way that corresponds to a defensive but in fact have transgressed the very first Article of the NATO Treaty which requires efforts to seek peaceful resolutions. No, the USA and the UK have simply continued the slightly fanatical process of using the population of Ukraine and the armed forces to attempt to weaken Russia. Why is it that the United Kingdom is working to sustain a puppet Ukrainian government established through violence by the USA in the heart of Europe, by continued violence? From the standpoint of Britain, this is a foolish bravado which is bound to prolong this crisis, raise the number killed and destablilize yet further international prices of energy, food and other essential resources, thereby causing immense suffering in the rest of the world and exacerbating our own cost of living crisis. This government has been keen to prevent relief for British constituents facing financial difficulties on the basis of the excuse of "affordability". This same government thinks it can afford to participate in a wholesale waste of public money on a corrupt regime and augmentation in unjustified violence and death in a wholly irresponsblle act.

The recent set of statements uttered by the Foreign Secretary at a Mansion House dinner, simply confirm to the world the true nature of NATO members and a wish to expand this failed system to South East Asia. Saying China needs the West because it is 50% of the world market is slightly absurd when, in real terms, this economy is shrinking and the rest of the word's economy is expanding rapidly. All of the main growth in demand for energy resources, capital goods and development finance are in those countries who have refused to participate in sanctioning Russia. Most have recognized the link between NATO's willingness to attack countries who wish to follow an independent pathway or for the USA attempt to sanction countries based on dollar dependency for transactions. The reaction of Russia to refuse to refusal to submit to this form of intimidation and its demonstration on how to neutralize sanctions, has been an amazing demonstration of resilience and independence that most countries seek. As a result, the rate of transition towards barter credits and own-currency-paired trading is beginning to marginalize, dollars, pounds and Euros. This is already resulting in a decline in the purchasing power of these currencies while the Chinese currency and the rouble rise in value as preferred currencies. This is occurring just as the refusal of several NATO members to use Russian energy resources in the future is resulting in rises in the international prices of gas and petroleum.

It is easy to appreciate why the corrupted intellect referred to above is defective because it does not understand the connection between a country's belligerence and the decline in acceptance of that country by those who have no respect for this type of irresponsibility. They look on and observe the rising costs of living in NATO countries created in good measure by the aggression of NATO inviting a forceful reaction. The so-called defensive alliance has created a strategic instability arising from social and economic stress. The government seeks to blame Russia who still offer gas at 8% of current market prices to anyone who is willing to sign longer term contracts. Russia will not supply gas that has not been paid for. Russia so far, has maintained an established tradition of being the most reliable long term gas and petroleum supplier in the world. Of course, the government refers to all the inflation in our economy as Putin's inflation when in reality if is a result of a failed so-called "alliance" called NATO. The government needs to revaluate what is in the interests of the nation. It is not to alienate the majority of the world's population where the main global markets are evolving or to become a promotional agency for a defunct NATO as an example to follow.



27/04/2022: Nicholas Kaldor's inaugural lecture as Professor of Economics at Cambridge University in 1966 set out the reasons why the United Kingdom's apriori emphasis of economic policies needed to be geared to the maintenance of strong industrial and manufacturing sectors. His reasoning was sound. However, with the stagflation crisis starting in 1973 a Labour Chancellor, Denis Healey, abandoned Keynesian policies and a wages policy and did not introduce an industrial policy in 1975. He in fact introduced a monetarist approach which was intensified by stringent conditions of an IMF loan to the country in 1977. Nicholas Kaldor, who has been an adviser to the Labour government, withdrew his services in 1976 as a result of Healey's decisions.

The following Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher adopted monetarism with enthusiasm but this government represented a significant change in Conservate governance by moving away from what had been a more pragmatic conservativism with a small 'c'.

Nicholas Kaldor became one of the leading critics of the policies introduced by Thatcher, especially in relation to the decline in the UK's manufacturing sectors, declining manufacturing exports and collapse in the balance of payments. He made use of his position as a member of the House of Lords to present coherent criticisms of the economic policies of the Thatcher government.

Some of Nicholas Kaldor's criticisms of the Thatcher government economic decisions between 1979 and 1982 were made into a collection entitled, "The economic consequences if Mrs. Thatcher" and published by Gerald Duckworth & Company in 1983. This has a short introduction by Nick Butler. The cover is shown on the right, we have added the observation within the red bars. The book consists of 19 short but devastating speeches which in their detail demonstrate how, under Thatcher, the somewhat faulty logic of Healey's monetarism created a foundation for a combination of strands of a particular view of society.

Note 3: Why the Bank of England cannot solve the cost of living crisis

Although some refer to this as an ideology it did not pass beyond being a particularly visceral view of human relations based on instinct and with the economic components being without a sound theoretical and therefore practical utility. Weighing up Kaldor's arguments one is left with an impression of a soulless macroeconomic policy environment reflecting well the sense that these people did not believe that there is something which others refer to as "society". Although Boris Johnson expelled most of those Conservative MPs which the people of this country could recognize and admire as "one nation Conservatives" it is very apparent that they had become an issue for Thatcher who referred to them as "wets". At the margins one does sense a whiff of fanaticism attached to some extremely negative views or fixations on social class-related motivations of society. This attitude is alive and well in the current administration and occasionally flickers to the surface in the pronouncemnts made by the current Chancellor. The notable point is that this decline has continued ever since under Labour, Coalition and Conservative governments all of whom deployed monetarism as the main policy drive. The point of particular interest is that while the current government continues this creed and we now face the very same predicament faced by the Thatcher government in the form of rising inflation caused by external resource prices and a cost of living crisis exacerbated by the very same errors made by the Thatcher government.

Lessons have very definitely not been learned as the economic trends initiated under Thatcher continue as a failure to resuscitate our almost nonexistant manufacturing sector to reverse the decline in the balance of payments and a government presiding over the continual decline in the real incomes of wage-earners and continuing to place higher tax burdens on the sections of the constituency least able to afford such payments as the cost of living rises. Unfortunately, this government does not appear to be aware of the magnitude of the current extent of the country's economic decadence in a performance that repeats the Thatcher years with policy justifications, as Kaldor explained, being assertions devoid of sound theoretical and practical coherence. Whereas the Bank of England and the government wheel out monetarists to explain their policies, they seem to remain unaware that the axioms and general theory of monetarism were shown to be groundless as a result of detailed analysis completed by the Strategic Decision Analysis Group at SEEL in 2021. This major advance in economic theory and explanation of its implications for the United Kingdom were set out in some detail in the 2022 edition of the British Strategic Review.






26/04/2022: Loose talk has serious implications and sometimes consequences, when the subject matter is a military action.

The inappropriate statements of Liz Truss caused Russia to move into a full strategic systems alert, and now, James Heappey, Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces is adding fuel to the fire. It is reported that he has expressed the opinion that the use of British supplied weapons for strikes on logistics sites in Russia would be fair game, or words to that effect. The problem with this, although semantic, is that this is seeing the UK becoming involved in decisions, or modes of thinking, in their support for Ukraine that shifts the perspective from "defence" to "attack". The school boy logic applied by Heappey is simply naive. It is quite normal for strategic military decisions to consist of constant reciprocations of locational states as campaigns progress. This signifies that Heappey's statements place at risk the whole of the British supply line to Ukraine including transport, warehouses and even the factories producing the weapons supplied on British soil. Since the country is not under a war regime and state of emergency our supply lines within the country are a more than easy target and any follow up in response to Heappey's ill-judged statements could result in the deaths of people in this country. Relying on NATO's article 5 is plain idiocy when the UK government is transgressing Article 1 of NATO which reads:

"Article 1: The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations."

Heappey recently responded in a TV interview during which he was asked why public funds were being spent on armaments for Ukraine when people were facing a serious cost of living crisis. Heappey's response was quite dishonest. He stated that Russia's use of energy as a political weapon and starting this war threatens our "freedoms" and that he hoped that the people of this country understand that. This is just a repetition of misleading USA State Department propaganda.

Russia has never used its supply of gas and petroleum as a political weapon and has always observed, since Soviet times, their contractual obligations which have involved the supply of gas at a very low price. The only time there was a contractual problem was when it was discovered that Ukraine was stealing gas from transit gas. Also, Russia did not start this war, it joined a war that has been running for 8 years since 2014 when the USA State Department promoted a bloody coup to overthrow a democratically elected government. Since that time national honours have been bestowed on past Ukrainian Nazi collaborators, the Zelensky government has closed down opposition TV stations and imprisoned opposition MPs as well as making no comment on the assassination of a leading opposition politician which occurred after Russian forces left Bucha. The threat to European freedom and the safety of the people of this country is the rise of neo-Nazi power in Ukraine. The UK government did not question the violent overthrow of the Ukrainian government in 2014 or question the antics of the Ukrainian governments ever since. This government is repeating the naive appeasement by Neville Chamberlain of Nazis in 1938. What is worse, however, is that while Chamberlain referred to "Peace in our time" our own government, not only has ignored the 14,000 citizens murdered in the Donbass region at the hands of the Ukrainian government, but has now joined in to help this Ukrainian government. Russia entered this fray at the request of those under threat in the Donbass and who have suffered atrocities for over 8 years.

On balance, whereas Heappey satisfies himself of his own naive logic, the government's actions in supporting sanctions have created problems for the British population with some 20% now facing extreme difficulties with the cost of living and paying for essentials. Heappey, of course, has a salary which means all of this is of no particular concern to him but the people of this country have a justifiable concern as to why the government is spending money to support such a dreadful regime in the name of "freedom". On top of this, the government is raising taxes. In reality, there is no freedom to defend in the Ukraine while the cost of living crisis is constraining the freedom of the people of this country. With a government that refers to "affordability" in setting priorities, it would seem that helping the Ukrainian neo-Nazi battalions murder people in the Donbass is a priority while seeking to serve the interests of the people of this country, is not.

23/04/2022: A recent Economist Newspaper (see cover on right) ran a series of leaders and articles on inflation and a Special Report on Central Banks related to their taking on an array of concerns. Unfortunately everything cited in these dissertations was statements by economists who consider inflation to be a purely monetary phenomenon. In 1976 it was well-established that money supply is just a part of the story. The main issue is the evolution of manufacturing productivity over which monetary and fiscal policies have no means of direct influence because the appropriate policy instruments have not been developed. To explain this in a simple way we use a graph presented by the Economist in the article "Hawks take flight" on page 68 (see far right).

For now approaching 50 years, monetarism has distorted the direction of monetary growth by raising asset prices which created cost-push inflation caused by rising prices and rents of land, housing and commercial real estate. Under quantitative easing prices of commodities including energy resources and food have also risen. The Ukrainian situation has exacerbated this state if affairs. The failure to balance monetary growth with increases in physical productivity is a significant gap in macroeconomic theory and practice. This separation of monetary concerns from economic physical productivity has reduced the adpatability and therefore the resilience of the supply side, slowing down productivity responses to policy-induced rises in prices of inputs. Just when interest rates need to be lowered to faciitate productive investment to tackle inflation, central banks raise interest rates. Interest rates could be raised if effective productivity incentives were in place.

This is a version of the Phillips curve showing the relationship between unemployment levels and inflation. We have added the dashed curve b-b. Below is a diagram produced by the Real Incomes School showing the impact of productivity on the Phillips curve. As can be seen the b-b curve is just one of three with low productivity resulting in higher inflation, a-a and higher productivity resulting in lower inflation c-c. Because macroeconomic policy has ignored the application of incentives for productivity and have confused this with incentives for investment - not the same thing - we have witnessed monetarism hollow out manufacturing and general productivity because finance has been redirected into assets.