World facing worst financial crisis in history, Bank of England Governor says

The world is facing the worst financial crisis since at least the 1930s “if not ever”, the Governor of the Bank of England said last night.

Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England Photo: PAUL GROVER

Sir Mervyn King was speaking after the decision by the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee to put £75billion of newly created money into the economy in a desperate effort to stave off a new credit crisis and a UK recession.

Economists said the Bank’s decision to resume its quantitative easing [QE], or asset purchase programme, showed it was increasingly fearful for the economy, and predicted more such moves ahead.

Sir Mervyn said the Bank had been driven by growing signs of a global economic disaster.

“This is the most serious financial crisis we’ve seen, at least since the 1930s, if not ever. We’re having to deal with very unusual circumstances, but to act calmly to this and to do the right thing.”

Related Articles

• Printing more money won’t work this time
  06 Oct 2011
• A desperate measure for desperate times
  06 Oct 2011
• Jeremy Warner: Bank of England hits the panic button
  06 Oct 2011
• Obama urges EU leaders to 'move fast' on debt crisis.
  06 Oct 2011
• FTSE: market report live
  07 Oct 2011
• BoE increases stimulus: full text of statement
  06 Oct 2011

Announcing its decision, the Bank said that the eurozone debt crisis was creating “severe strains in bank funding markets and financial markets”.
The Monetary Policy Committee [MPC] also said that the inflation-driven “squeeze on households’ real incomes” and the Government’s programme of spending cuts will “continue to weigh on domestic spending” for some time to come.
The “deterioration in the outlook” meant more QE was justified, the Bank said.
Financial experts said the committee’s actions would be a “Titanic” disaster for pensioners, savers and workers approaching retirement. Sir Mervyn suggested that was a price worth paying to save the economy from recession.
Under QE, the Bank electronically creates new money which it then uses to buy assets such as government bonds, or gilts, from banks. In theory, the banks then use the cash they gain to increase their lending to businesses and individuals.
By increasing the demand for gilts, QE pushes down the interest rate yields paid to holders of these and other bonds. Critics of the policy say it pushes up inflation and drives down sterling.
The National Association of Pension Funds yesterday called for urgent talks with ministers to address the negative impact of lower gilt yields on pension funds. Joanne Segars, its chief executive, said QE makes it more expensive for employers to provide pensions and will weaken the funding of schemes as their deficits increase. “All this will put additional pressure on employers at a time when they are facing a bleak economic situation,” she said.
Ros Altman, of Saga, said the latest round of QE was “a Titanic disaster” that would increase pensioner poverty. As well as fuelling inflation, she said, falling bond yields would make annuities more expensive, “giving new retirees much less pension income for their money and leaving them permanently poorer in retirement”.
The MPC also voted to keep the Bank Rate at its historic low of 0.5 per cent, another decision that hurts savers. Yesterday, protesters outside the Bank’s headquarters smashed a giant piggy bank to symbolise the situation of pensioners and others forced to raid savings to keep up with the rising cost of living.
Asked about the plight of savers, Sir Mervyn said it was more important to support the wider economy than to support them. He suggested that savers would not be helped by deliberately pushing the British economy into recession. Yesterday’s decision was the first move on QE since 2009, during the global credit crisis, when the Bank injected £200 billion into the economy.
Some analysts believe that this round of QE could be less effective than the previous one, forcing the Bank to create even more money this time.
Michael Saunders of Citigroup, forecast that there could be as much as £225 billion more QE by next year. “I think they will do lots more QE,” he said. “It’s both that the economy is weak but also that the MPC’s view is that QE is not a very powerful tool, or rather it takes a large amount of QE to have much effect on the economy.”
The Bank is supposed to keep inflation near a target of 2 per cent. Inflation now stands at 4.5 per cent, and the Bank admitted it is likely to hit 5 per cent as soon as this month. The Bank’s own research shows that as well as stimulating the economy, QE pushes up prices.
Sir Mervyn insisted that yesterday’s move was still consistent with the 2 per cent inflation target, saying that the slowing economy means inflation could actually fall below that mark “by the end of next year or in 2013”.
The Governor insisted that the MPC’s decisions had been the correct response to events. “The world economy has slowed, America has slowed, China has slowed, and of course particularly the European economy has slowed,” he said. “The world has changed and so has the right policy response.”
City traders took heart from the Bank’s move to boost growth, with the FTSE 100 rising 3.7 per cent to 5,29, its biggest two-day gain since 2008.
The Bank’s decision came after mounting political pressure from ministers worried that Sir Mervyn was not reacting urgently enough to the darkening global economic outlook.
George Osborne, the Chancellor, welcomed the Bank’s move, saying: “The evidence shows that it [QE] will help keep interest rates down and boost demand and that will be a help for British families.”

20 Signs That The World Could Be Headed For An Economic Apocalypse In 2012

If you thought that 2011 was a bad year for the world economy, just wait until you see what happens in 2012.  The U.S. and Europe are both dealing with unprecedented debt problems, the financial markets are flailing about wildly, austerity programs are being implemented all over the globe, prices on basics such as food are soaring and a lot of consumers are flat out scared right now.  Many analysts now fear that a "perfect storm" could be brewing and that we could actually be headed for an economic apocalypse in 2012.  Hopefully that will not happen.  Hopefully our leaders can keep the global economy from completely falling apart.  But right now, things don't look good.  After a period of relative stability, things are starting to become unglued once again.  The next major financial panic could literally happen at any time.  Sadly, if we do see an economic apocalypse in 2012, it won't be the wealthy that suffer the most.  It will be the poor, the unemployed, the homeless and the hungry that feel the most pain.
The following are 20 signs that we could be headed for an economic apocalypse in 2012....
#1 Back in 2008 we saw major rioting around the world due to soaring food prices, and now global food prices are on the rise again.  Global food prices in July were 33 percent higher than they were one year ago.  Price increases for staples such as maize (up 84 percent), sugar (up 62 percent) and wheat (up 55 percent) are absolutely devastating poverty-stricken communities all over the planet.  For example, one expert is warning that 800,000 children living in the Horn of Africa could die during this current famine.
#2 The producer price index in the U.S. has increased at an annual rate of at least 7.0% for the last three months in a row.  We are starting to see huge price increases all over the place.  For example, Starbucks recently jacked up the price of a bag of coffee by 17 percent.  If inflation keeps accelerating like this we could be facing some very serious problems by the time 2012 rolls around.
#3 The U.S. "Misery Index" (unemployment plus inflation) recently hit a 28 year high and many believe that it is going to go much, much higher.
#4 Jared Bernstein, the former chief economist for Vice President Joe Biden, says that the unemployment rate in this country will not go below 8% before the 2012 election.  In fact, Bernstein says that "the most optimistic forecast would be for about eight-and-a-half percent."
#5 Working class jobs in the United States continue to disappear at an alarming rate.  Back in 1967, 97 percent of men with a high school degree between the ages of 30 and 50 had jobs.  Today, that figure is 76 percent.
#6 There are all kinds of indications that U.S. economic growth is about to slow down even further.  For example, pre-orders for Christmas toys from China are way down this year.
#7 One recent survey found that 9 out of 10 U.S. workers do not expect their wages to keep up with the rising cost of basics such as food and gasoline over the next year.
#8 U.S. consumer confidence is now at its lowest level in 30 years.
#9 Today, an all-time record 45.8 million Americans are on food stamps.  It is almost inconceivable that the largest economy on earth could have so many people dependent on the government for food.
#10 As the economy crumbles, we are also witnessing the fabric of society beginning to come apart.  The recent flash mob crimes that we are starting to see all over America are just one example of this.
#11 Some desperate Americans are already stealing anything that they can get their hands on.  For example, according to the American Kennel Club, dog thefts are up 32 percent this year.
#12 Small businesses all over the United States are having a really difficult time getting loans right now.  Perhaps if the Federal Reserve was not paying banks not to make loans things would be different.
#13 The U.S. national debt is like a giant boulder that our economy must constantly carry around on its back, and it is growing by billions of dollars every single day.  Right now the debt of the federal government is $14,592,242,215,641.90.  It has gone up by nearly 4 trillion dollars since Barack Obama took office.  S&P has already stripped the U.S. of its AAA credit rating, and more downgrades are certain to come if the U.S. does not get its act together.
#14 Tensions between the United States and China are rising again.  A new opinion piece on chinadaily.com is calling for the Chinese government to use its holdings of U.S. debt as a "financial weapon" against the United States if the U.S. follows through with a plan to sell more arms to Taiwan.  The U.S. and China are the two biggest economies in the world, so any trouble between them would mean economic trouble for the rest of the globe as well.
#15 Most state and local governments in the U.S. are deep in debt and flat broke.  Many of them are slashing jobs at a feverish pace.  According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, state and local governments have eliminated more than half a million jobs since August 2008.  UBS Investment Research is projecting that state and local governments in the U.S. will cut 450,000 more jobs by the end of 2012.  How those jobs will be replaced is anyone's guess.
#16 The U.S. dollar continues to get weaker and weaker.  This is renewing calls for a new global currency to be created to replace the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency of the world.
#17 The European sovereign debt crisis continues to get worse.  Countries like Portugal, Italy and Greece are on the verge of an economic apocalypse.  All of the financial problems in Europe are even beginning to affect the core European nations.  For example, German industrial production declined by 1.1% in June.  There are all kinds of signs that the economy of Europe is slowing down and is heading for a recession.  French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are proposing that a new "economic government" for Europe be set up to oversee this debt crisis, but nothing that the Europeans have tried so far has done much to solve things.
#18 The Federal Reserve is so desperate to bring some sort of stability to financial markets that it has stated that it will likely keep interest rates near zero all the way until mid-2013.  The Federal Reserve is operating in "panic mode" almost constantly now and they are almost out of ammunition.  So what is going to happen when the real trouble starts?
#19 Central banks around the world certainly seem to be preparing for something.  According to the World Gold Council, central banks around the globe purchased more gold during the first half of 2011 than they did all of last year.
#20 Often perception very much influences reality. One recent survey found that 48 percent of Americans believe that it is likely that another great Depression will begin within the next 12 months.  If people expect that a depression is coming and they quit spending money that actually increases the chance that an economic downturn will occur.
There is already a tremendous amount of economic pain on the streets of America, but unfortunately it looks like things may get even worse in 2012.
The once great economic machine that was handed down to us by our forefathers is falling to pieces all around us and we are in debt up to our eyeballs.  The consequences of our bad economic decisions are hurting some of the most vulnerable members of our society the most.
As the following video shows, large numbers of formerly middle class Americans are now living in their cars or sleeping in the streets....

America Is 'Bankrupt Mickey Mouse Economy': CIO

America is a "Mickey Mouse economy" that is technically bankrupt, according to Jochen Wermuth, the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) and managing partner at Wermuth Asset Management.

"America today looks like Russia in 1998. Consumers, companies and the government are all highly indebted. America as a result is a bankrupt Mickey Mouse economy," Wermuth told CNBC.

The comments followed news that the Fed was extending its quantitative easing program following what the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) described as a fall in the pace of growth in output and employment.

The Fed has spent the past three years on a route of aggressive rate cuts and purchases of trillions in various securities but it is running out of measures it can take, Pimco's co-CEO Mohamed El-Erian told CNBC.

Wermuth is a fund manager heavily invested in Russia and says if the same International Monetary Fund (IMF) team that managed the financial crisis in the former super power in 1998 now turned up at the US Treasury, they would withdraw support for current US policy immediately.

RELATED LINKS

Current DateTime: 06:25:53 11 Aug 2010
LinksList Documentid: 38656457

• Only Cure for Slump Is ... Slump
• Has Doom Jumped the Shark?
• We're in Great Depression Equivalent
• Stock Market Winners and Losers
• Check Bond Prices Here
• Track the DJ Housing Index Here

"The big evil for the IMF in Russia in 1998 was the prospect of the central bank funding government debt. The Fed is now even buying mortgage-backed securities," he noted.

"Even before the (Troubled Asset Relief Program) and the expansion of the Fed's balance sheet, total US public and private debt as a percentage of GDP in the US stood at 290 percent, that figure is now far higher," Wermuth added.

"US credit risk is huge and America has two options, either default or let the currency depreciate substantially against currencies such as the yuan and the rouble," he explained.

"Last night's news from the Fed simply creates the right conditions for dollar weakness and a reduction in US liabilities to foreign investors and governments," Wermuth said.

Seeing there’s been quite a bit of interest in my recent comments on CNBC about the historical parallels between the Great Depression and the recent financial crisis, I thought it may be appropriate to elaborate further on the chart technicals behind the observation.
The causes may have been different, but the collapse of the U.S. markets in early 2008 followed the same behavioral patterns as the collapse in 1929. The recovery pattern seen in 2010, is also very similar to that developed in 1930.

CLICK ON GRAPH TO ENLARGE Dow Monthly 1929-1930

The crash of the Dow Jones Industrials in 1929 was signaled by the development of a well defined head and shoulder pattern, seen most clearly in its monthly chart. It is a reliable pattern that captures the behavior of investors who are becoming increasingly disillusioned about the future prospects for economic growth.
The downside pattern targets in the 1929 Dow were exceeded with a fall of around 49% before the market recovered in 1930. The 2008 dow pattern targets were also exceeded with a market fall of around 52%.
In 1930, the market developed an inverted head and shoulder rebound pattern recovery that led to a 46% rise in the market.  The Dow rebound in 2009 also developed from an inverted head and shoulder pattern. This was a powerful rise of around 69%.

Bilderberg 2010: What we have learned

The lines have been drawn. Whose side are you on? Photograph: Alex Amengual

Weary and bramble-scratched, elated by the press coverage, and sick of riot vans and lukewarm Spanish omelette baguettes, we return from Bilderberg 2010 with the following thoughts uppermost in our tired mind:
• 'Global cooling' is on the cards
Check out the agenda for Bilderberg 2010: "Financial reform, security, cyber technology, energy, Pakistan, Afghanistan, world food problem, global cooling, social networking, medical science, EU-US relations." That list is a window into your future. Don't think for one minute that it isn't. And don't ignore it, because it isn't ignoring you.
I love how "social networking" must fry the Bilderbergian mind. On the one hand, as Zuckerberg of Facebook says, privacy is no longer a social norm so it's okay to milk the networking sites for information, social trends and dissident thinking; however, you can't stop the people from arranging a meet-up to discuss internet censorship or the rights and wrongs of "global cooling". Speaking of which, Bill Gates (Bilderberg 2010) is funding "cloud whitening" technology; trials start soon. Global dimming isn't just something that happens every time Big Brother starts. On the basis of this agenda, I think we can expect a lot of statements about cutting-edge cloud-technology trials in the next 12 months. If it works in Dubai, it can work in Britain too...
• You can't keep a good story down
If I had to pick the point when Bilderberg finally broke through into mainstream news, it would be when the BBC News Blog published a round-up of Bilderberg reports. Twelve months ago, this would have been barely conceivable. This year, Kissinger must be spitting chips.
• People love their 'leaders'
I know this sounds peculiar, or at least it does to me, but this year's Bilderbloggings have quite commonly been met with outrage at the idea that we should submit Bilderberg to greater scrutiny. You hear people talk about the delegates at Bilderberg as their "leaders", and you see the delegates mythologised as the greatest and the best – whose benign Olympian machinations should progress untroubled by the interference of public and press. "Leaders" like the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, and the chairman of Kissinger Associates Inc.
I'm baffled to the point of punching tree trunks to witness the determination of some folk to throw themselves in front of these heads of corporations and presidents of banks and to wave their arms protectively, yelping: "Leave them alone! Let them strategise for the good of the world in peace! How could they possibly have a frank discussion with our politicians if we were privy to it? Stop this unseemly prying!" I mean, seriously. The day that Marcus Agius, chairman of Barclays, strategises for my good is the day he repays me the hundreds of pounds of bank charges he's been levying on me since my schooldays. The day that Peter Voser, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, sits around a table with the express concern of making the world a better, more beautiful place for all of us, is the day that my arse grows teeth and eats my hat.
Do this: Look at the list of participants and ask yourself one simple question: what's their bottom line?
• I'm on a list
One afternoon, towards the end of the conference, my wife and I chanced upon some of the Bilderberg organisers out on a two-limo trip to the seafront. We recognised them from our stay at the hotel before the conference began. We went up and asked them if they could confirm the names of British delegates attending this year's meeting. In horror, they jackknifed from the promenade, back into their limos, one of them cackling weirdly and holding her handbag to her face. Another snatched a camera from the footwell, and started snapping my face as I snapped hers. You can see me give the thumbs-up in the photo. So, if I wasn't before, I'm now on Bilderberg's least wanted list. What a bore.
Bilderberg snaps back: my face is on its way to Leiden HQ. Photograph: Charlie Skelton Maybe they'll write me nice letter, asking me to cease and desist. Or maybe ... maybe it's best I state now, for the record: I'm not a communist, a fascist, a racist or a petty thief. I didn't steal that laptop, I didn't photograph those children, I don't mutilate horses. I didn't sleep with that prostitute. I don't believe in UFOs. I don't have sketchbooks filled with drawings of the Houses of Parliament on fire. I don't hate progress. I am not possessed of vile feelings towards the Dutch, the Spanish, the Jews, the Mormons, the Welsh, or anyone on earth except Peruvian folk musicians. I'm not into S&M. I've never paid anyone to hose me with custard, or tread on my testicles in six-inch heels. I don't spend Friday nights in a gimp suit. I'm not an adult baby. I *did* make a porn film once, but it wasn't a very good one. Too much plot.
I'm not manically depressed, delusional, bitter towards the world, a brooding failure, a collector of SS regalia, obsessed with one particular local weather reporter, or suicidal. I didn't raise my voice. The steps of the police station weren't slippy. I don't want to kill bankers or string up politicians. I don't want to overthrow the government. I wouldn't mind if there were fewer talent shows on TV, but it's nothing that's likely to spill over into bloodshed. I'm not wearing a bra. I haven't had sex with a turkey.
• People aren't angry enough
There were 130 people up the hill, chugging sangria and strategising. And down at the foot of the hill, on the other side of the riot vans, about 130 people with flags and cameras. My God, that's depressing. In a world that, by any estimation, is a hard, gruelling, unfair place to billions of humans, in which assets are being grabbed, wealth is being relentlessly centralised (the Bilderbank, Goldman Sachs, has just notched up its best ever quarter, in which George Osborne so kindly lets us choose our own "austerity measures" – in such a distressingly cocked-up world, 130 of us made it all the way to the Spanish seaside to say: "Maybe what you're strategising up there isn't working out for the best."
Perhaps there would have been more, but people have got other things on their mind: they're behind on their mortgage payments, saving up for a wedding, saving up for a divorce, saving up for a holiday that doesn't involve being detained by policemen, disenchanted by CamCleggian sameness, hotly engaged in local politics, knackered, sick, drunk, or Spelbound (in the Britain's Got Talent sense of the word). They're furious enough that Robert Green let that goal in, never mind anything else. Where's the headspace to be concerned about Bilderberg?
Bertrand Russell saw it coming. He saw a world in which "any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible". I'm surprised you've even got time in your day to have scrolled this far down.
• One person can make a difference
Last year, I wrote about my visit to Vouliagmeni to see what Bilderberg was all about. It wasn't a happy trip. But in my final piece I asked people to come along in 2010 and help sprinkle the "slug" of Bilderberg with the "salt" of publicity. About 10 or so people took me up on this. Of these 10, one was "Quierosaber", the brave fellow who crawled into the hills before sunrise, with leaves wrapped around his head, and took photos of the delegates (see our Spot the Delegate quiz, and our Bilderberg 2010 Power Gallery). In one of his photos appeared Gordon Campbell, the premier of British Columbia. The Canadian press started asking questions, and discovered that he'd paid for his plane ticket to Bilderberg using public money.
Sure, Campbell was on the quietly published list of attendees, but the difference between a list of names and a photo is incalculable. So there we have it: accountability, transparency, and none of it possible without people like Quierosaber packing a knapsack at 4am, wrapping laurel leaves round a borrowed camera and hiding under brambles.
• There's an awful lot of unelected 'advising' in the world
One of the participants snapped by Quierosaber is the glacial senior fellow of the Hudson Institute, Marie-Josée Kravis, (wife of Henry Kravis, head of private equity megafirm KKR). The tax-exempt Hudson Institute is a US "thinktank" which has a clearly stated aim: "We seek to guide global leaders in government and business." It's funded by good and wise people like Monsanto, DuPont, Pfizer, McDonald's, General Atomics, IBM, Proctor & Gamble, and Conrad Black (Bilderberg attendee and currently guest of Florida correctional institution).
The Hudson Institute was set up by the Rand Corporation (which had previously been set up by the Douglas Aircraft Company to advise the US military). In a nutshell, that's who Marie-Josée Kravis works for, and that's who George Osborne spent Bilderberg 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 listening to. In the words of Aretha Franklin: who's zoomin' who? And who the hell asked these foundations for their guidance in the first place? Stop issuing reports! Stop thinktanking! Stop presenting "well-timed recommendations to leaders in government". Mind your own unelected business for a change. And pay some tax while you're about it.
• There's still no answer to the big question
I'd like to quote the prime minister, David Cameron (Bilderberg, 2008): "Greater transparency is at the heart of our shared commitment to enable the public to hold politicians and public bodies to account … It's your money, your government, you should know what's going on. So we're going to rip off that cloak of secrecy and extend transparency as far and as wide as possible."
In the spirit of secret cloaks being ripped away, it seems reasonable to ask: does the secretive "private meeting" of Bilderberg, which takes "one-third" of its participants "from government and politics", have any effect at all on our domestic and international policies? Does this fantastically media-shy group that has our brand new lord chancellor, Kenneth Clarke QC MP, on its inner steering committee, does this four-day conference, with its agenda and its lanyards and its side-meeting seminar rooms, does it serve to influence the way our country is run? Or is that a bit like asking: Does Amy Winehouse like a drink?
Explicitly top of Bilderberg's agenda this year is "financial reform". Present at this year's conference: Paul Volcker, chairman of Obama's economic recovery advisory board. Just after Bilderberg, Obama warns of massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters. Also present was Portugal's finance minster, Fernando Teixeira dos Santos. Portugal has just voted through an emergency package of tax hikes and public spending cuts. Was any of this discussed in the financial reform sessions? If not, what was discussed?
If Bilderberg doesn't influence public policy, then why is it four days long, and why does it spend €10m protecting the sanctity of its discussions? Why hold it at all? What a waste of busy people's time! And if it does influence public policy, then by what twisted logic is public money being spent keeping it secret? And why, in this publicly protected secrecy, should Klaus Kleinfeld (disgraced former CEO of Siemens AG) and Dieter Zetsche (the chairman of Mercedes-Benz), and James A Johnson (board member of Goldman Sachs, member of the trilateral commission, member of the Council on Foreign Relations), have the ear of our politicians?
Cameron wants us to have the answers to these questions. As he says: "It's your money, your government, you should know what's going on." So we ask: How much British public money has been used to police Bilderberg? Who's putting the request in to MI5? Who's paying for the watermelons? Does the Bilderberg Group have an accounts book? Could we see it? Could someone ask Ken Clarke for a copy? Isn't it about time the Daily Telegraph got involved? Are taxpayers paying for the riot vans? Or are corporations hiring police forces as private armies to stand guard over a private meeting?
These questions are exactly as stupid and exactly as important as asking whether Sir Peter Viggers bought his own duck house. These are questions about political process that deserve simple and straightforward answers, not the scorn of idiots for asking them.
• It takes longer to get from Sitges to Santander than you might think
I missed the ferry home. And not even by a whisker. I was a good 100km out in my estimate. There was shouting and recrimination on a rain-sodden Basque motorway. I can't believe I didn't do what the VP of Fiat did and come by private jet.
• There are only 358 shopping days till Bilderberg 2011
Maybe you think there's nothing to worry about here. Maybe you think Bilderberg isn't a public-private travesty of secrecy and lies. Maybe you see nothing odd in Tony Blair (Bilderberg 1993) lying to parliament about going. Maybe you think this is how "important stuff" gets done, how geopolitics should be conducted. Maybe you think it's okay that a representative of the Hudson Institute, which campaigns against organic food and is funded by Monsanto, should be locked in a conference centre for four days discussing the "world food problem" with Joaquín Almunia, the EU commissioner for competition.
Marching off into the sunset: but they'll be back again for Bilderberg 2011. Photograph: Alex Amengual Maybe you look at the world and think it'll all be okay tomorrow because, for you at least, it's sort of okay today. Maybe you see "social networking" and "cyber technology" on Bilderberg's agenda and you aren't concerned. Maybe you don't think Peter Mandelson's rushed-through digital economy bill had anything to do with his attendance at Bilderberg 2009.
Maybe you don't see an irony in the individual getting screwed and screwed again by the same corporations and bailed-out banks who are so forthcoming with their advice for our politicians. Maybe you don't feel like you're getting shafted. Or maybe you've just got numb. There are plenty of other things to worry about in the world. Serious things, like health and poverty and terrorism. And anyway, the people up the hill in Bilderberg will sort it out for us. They're clever people. They're experts. They just spent four days talking about "medical science" and the "world food problem". They're on it. We can relax.
Or maybe you think it would a good thing to keep the Bilderball rolling. The massively increased coverage of this year's Bilderberg didn't just "happen". People made it happen. People emailed photos to press agencies, rang up friends who worked for newspapers, gave interviews to camera crews, and a local lawyer whose wife was giving birth to twins gave pro bono advice over the phone. So here's an idea: maybe you were given a telephoto lens three Christmases ago and you've never had cause to use it. Maybe you're not sure we should start bombing Iran just yet. Maybe you're a fan of "greater transparency", and fancy taking Cameron up on his pledge "to enable the public to hold politicians and public bodies to account". Maybe you'd like to meet some of the sharp, savvy, committed, interested people I've met this last week. Maybe you'd like to be one of them.
Borrow a tent, set up a YouTube channel, start saving now for the flight. Email us on bilderberg2011@yahoo.co.uk. Let's add a zero to the end of 130. And let's put an end to the lunatic, inappropriate, expensive and undemocratic secrecy of Bilderberg.

Poor George Soros Wants To Destroy European Currency AgaiN

George Soros, a billionaire and philanthropist, was accused of masterminding the financial plot, the goal of which is to send the European currency, the euro, down.

The scandal connected with the plot against the euro started gathering pace last week after Soros published an article in The Financial Times. The billionaire wrote that the euro may not survive the current economic crisis. He said that he was not going to take part in the affairs on the currency market and would concentrate on investments in gold instead.

The crisis, Soros believes, unveiled serious flaws in the economic structure of the European Union. The countries of the euro zone were forced to rescue their banking systems individually. Some of the EU members, like, for example, Greece, could not handle the problem well. There are also Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland, the financial problems of which may trigger another crisis in the region. Soros concluded that the euro would most likely collapse if no decisive measures were taken.

It goes without saying that European officials did not like such statements at all. Soros passed from words to deeds: Soros Fund Management and several other large investment funds started selling the European currency very aggressively. The situation raised serious concerns with the prime ministers of Greece and Spain – the countries that were in need of the EU’s support most.

Their concerns were not groundless. In 1992, Soros succeeded in organizing a major currency speculation which triggered the collapse of the British pound sterling. The Wall Street Journal wrote that the reduction of the cost of the euro to the cost level of the US dollar was like the deal of life for stock exchange operators. Such affairs make billionaires.

Alexander Osin, a chief economist with Finam Management, said that the euro does not enjoy the best time of its history at the moment.

“In the long term, it will be difficult for the European states to pay their debts. They will of course take measures to support the currency, which may eventually result in its growing rate. But the growth will not cancel the debts. Unlike the USA – many countries work for American debts – Europe is left to itself. The future of the dollar looks much more stable than that of the euro at this point,” the expert said.