Who is Shanker Singham

[simvastatin]

Who is Shanker Singham and what is his impact on brexit?

[happyguy]

not more brexit zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[juvenal]

Shanker?   Could be a woman...

[Arpeggio]

An Indian Brexiter.

[OnionTerror]

He's the apparent brains of the ERG, and their cobblers of a strategy.  Employed by the IEA, was of Legatum (notable for their disaster capitalist credentials)..

 

[Kosmin]

12 hours ago, prozac said:

Who is Shanker Singham and what is his impact on brexit?

Who is John Gault?

[Cosmic Lunatic Asylum]

IEA?

ERG?

I thought I was in the UK?

not the acronym infested US of A

[Fromage Frais]

I find it so tiring all this ad hominem shady crap.

Everyone has an angle that is democracy every self interest choosing an option to get a result.

As I posted in the other thread remain have money launderers, international bribers, financial crisis instigators and politicians who have caused the death of thousands who are on the payroll of foreign banks.

I however do not bother trying to disrespect people who want to stay.

More time wasted on trying to smear/frustrate brexit and trump than trying to understand why they won.

The key to influencing people is to listen and provide a compelling solution.  

Edited December 14, 2018 by Fromage Frais

[Fromage Frais]

17 hours ago, Dave Beans said:

He's the apparent brains of the ERG, and their cobblers of a strategy.  Employed by the IEA, was of Legatum (notable for their disaster capitalist credentials)..

 

I love that term again "disaster capitalist"

What is a disaster capitalism?

Is is when you disagree with Mark Carney?

Is it when you want house prices to fall?

Is it betting against over inflated currencies, companies or governments?

Is it me wanting to pay 300k for a currently priced 450,000 house with a person who has borrowed a stupid amount of money to do so?  My happiness would be built on a reduction of their wealth. 

It's a ******** term capitalism without disaster is not capitalism as no creative destruction can take place.

I counter that theme that anti "disaster capitalists" = the ***** who got us in this mess

Nobody allowed to lose money on property = bubble blown screwing over the market and the young

Don't buy gold or other currencies = You should morally hold £ so we can print them to dust.

Banks not allowed to fail = debasement of the money and bubbles all over the place = financial crisis

Evil short sellers prevented taking down bloated zombie companies = suppression of productivity and creating a bigger crisis down the road.

Rates must not rise = fiddling with inflation measures screwing over the poorest.

Brexit must not happen = Status quo which upholds the temple of debt must stay in place.

So in essence if you use the term "disaster capitalism" as a pejorative to an opponent you logically should be

a)  Someone with financial interests/objectives contrary to theirs (your disaster is their blessing) and without a sense of hypocrisy

b) A socialist who believes under their superior management nobody would ever fail and you would decree who the winners and losers are.

 

 

Edited December 14, 2018 by Fromage Frais

[Cosmic Lunatic Asylum]

23 minutes ago, Fromage Frais said:

I find it so tiring all this ad hominem shady crap.

Everyone has an angle that is democracy every self interest choosing an option to get a result.

As I posted in the other thread remain have money launderers, international bribers, financial crisis instigators and politicians who have caused the death of thousands who are on the payroll of foreign banks.

I however do not bother trying to disrespect people who want to stay.

More time wasted on trying to smear/frustrate brexit and trump than trying to understand why they won.

The key to influencing people is to listen and provide a compelling solution.  

My respect to you Sir. Well said!

Even more so for the latest post, above.

Edited December 14, 2018 by Cosmic Lunatic Asylum

[Arpeggio]

14 hours ago, Dave Beans said:

He's the apparent brains of the ERG, and their cobblers of a strategy.  Employed by the IEA, was of Legatum (notable for their disaster capitalist credentials)..

 

 

 

So are you trying to imply that lobbyists for Remain don't meet with Remain politicians at all then?

These are facilitators, albeit that he comes across a bit cocky, but do you have any evidence on money being exchanged between lobbyists and politicians for influence of policy?

Where is the evidence that the UK would not be able to make it's own decisions regarding regulation such as hormone-reared beef mentioned in the video? The positive DEFRA statement at the end might imply the stance on this.

[Kosmin]

6 hours ago, Fromage Frais said:

I love that term again "disaster capitalist"

What is a disaster capitalism?

Disaster capitalism was coined by Naomi Klein in her book Shock Doctrine. See also Disaster Capitalism: Making a killing out of catastrophe by Antony Loewenstein.

Klein discuss the influence of Milton Friedman in Chile's economic reforms and free market policies after Hurricane Katrina. Loewenstein discusses private prisons and detention centres etc. I don't think it's got much relevance to this discussion (the most likely link would be the idea that Brexit is hastening privatisation of the NHS).

[OnionTerror]

Shanker was the sockpuppet of Legatum, and of Christopher Chandler.  Once the press got on to him, and started to realise what he was up to, he moved sideways to the IEA (another part of the Tufton St mob)....All tied into the ERG.  Most of the Brexiteers in the cabinet, and even Mrs May have been very involved with Legatum at one point...  Shanker peddles the lies within the IEA, all for the ERG to lap up.

It seems that their idea is to have a HB, which would allow the UK to deregulate, and then to have a "deep FTA" with the US...basically to become a vassal state of the US.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/brendan-montague/how-legatum-has-written-hymn-sheet-for-dirty-brexit

https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/peter-geoghegan/legatum-who-are-brexiteers-favourite-think-tank-and-who-is-behind-them

http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86556

Quote

The greatest concern, though, comes from reading the Legatum website. Having invested heavily in Russia and developing countries, the business speciality is moving into markets at times of crisis where assets are mispriced.

With an eye for emerging trends and undervalued assets, it invested heavily in the telecommunications sector in Brazil, just after the country emerged from hyperinflation. It describes its own "investment heritage" in navigating through choppy markets, following the great financial crisis. 

The company takes great pride in its investments in Hong Kong real estate, a market which investors had fled after the signing of the Sino-British Accord, an agreement that promised to give Hong Kong back to the Chinese government. It saw assets mispriced, and noted that "opportunities arise in times of crisis".

This is a business style which has been described as "disaster capitalism", which would benefit significantly from a hard Brexit. Here, a comparison could be made with Hong Kong, where a similar situation might arise in a UK under the stress of a hard Brexit, where many traditional firms have run for cover, or relocated in the EU, leaving many assets under-priced. 

Looking also for opportunities arising from deregulation and further privatisation – especially in the NHS, with Legatum having considerable healthcare interests – hard Brexit presents multiple opportunities. This, after all, is a business that openly states that it "finds value where disruptive transitions create unique opportunities".

In this, the Legatum Institute seems to be paving the way for its "parent undertakings", engineering a "disruptive transition" for Brexit, then to reap the profits from chaos. Its task is assisted by useful fools and fellow travellers on the Tory right. What we have often characterised as incompetence, therefore, may be more sinister. There is money to be made out of a hard Brexit.

Edited December 14, 2018 by Dave Beans

[Will!]

2 hours ago, Dave Beans said:

It seems that their idea is to have a HB, which would allow the UK to deregulate, and then to have a "deep FTA" with the US...basically to become a vassal state of the US.

I know that we already have a Brexit thread and don't need another, and that free trade agreements are not very interesting to many people, but I think this slightly quirky story from Richard North about eggs nicely illustrates some of the complications that may not be foreseen in free trade agreements.

http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86349

Quote

The world works in very different ways to the way it is painted by the free trade zombies. 

I got an insight into this when, for over a decade, I worked for three trade associations, covering the egg, meat and cheese industries. One of those was the UK Egg Producers' Association, representing about 20,000 small producers, some of whom were general farmers who kept poultry, and some specialists. 

Most of the eggs were produced by caged hens and a major cost at the time were the EU battery hen welfare regulations, which required considerable capital expenditure to service a market where the returns were already perilously slim. 

As such, one might have expected a considerable backlash against "EU regulation" in general, and the EU in particular. But, in fact, industry-wide, there was no great hostility, but for a complex variety of reasons. 

Firstly, in the downstream period after the Salmonella and eggs scare induced by junior health minister Edwina Currie, we had seen a torrent of UK law, much of it draconian, ill-thought-out and extraordinarily damaging. The intervention of the EU into the legislative field actually brought a degree of rationality and stability, shaving off some of the rough edges from the UK law and removing a few of the more obvious absurdities. At another level, no supermarket will buy produce that was not fully compliant with EU law

Secondly, from a purely protectionist stance, the fact that EU laws, and especially those on welfare, were stricter than US laws was welcomed. The economics of the industry were such that the US giants could produce eggs at anything up to 15p a dozen cheaper than European producers, while shipping them over in a Jumbo jet would cost about 5p per dozen. Put simply, if the UK market was opened to the US, the domestic egg industry would cease to exist. 

Then there was a third, particularly interesting element. Very few of our producers actually exported directly to Europe or anywhere else, but the industry as a whole needed to export in order to stay profitable – and for that, virtually all producers had to comply with EU law. 

The issue here was the spring flush. Although commercial laying birds are far distant from the original jungle fowl and live in completely artificial environments, they still go into high gear in the Spring (their natural laying cycle), whence egg production peaks. 

This period, though, also matches Easter, one of the periods of highest egg demand – but not exactly. Before the Easter demand takes off, the hens are already in overdrive (especially if Easter is late). Producers watch nervously as a national egg surplus build up, and prices teeter on collapse. With predatory supermarkets, they can easily end up selling at less than the cost of production. 

Fortunately, there is an answer – export. For reasons that were never clearly explained to me, the Dutch demand cycle was slightly different to that of the UK, taking off earlier in the year before the hens got going. Thus, by the early Spring, we could usually anticipate an egg shortage in Holland, driving up the prices there. 

What then would happen was a number of entrepreneurs would contact UK farmers and buy up the entire UK surplus for a few weeks, and strip the wholesale market. They would fill up a number of containers for transport to the Dutch market. Because of regulatory harmonisation and the emerging Single Market, that had become a simple operation, allowing the price to be stabilised. For many egg producers, the money they then made represented their profit for the entire year. 

The point here is that most of the time, most egg producers did not export. But they all needed to comply with EU rules, so that when market stabilisation measures were needed, their surpluses could be exported - even those bought off the wholesale market. And to add to that, the EU was keeping out the Yanks. 

Bluntly, at the time, the last thing the egg industry wanted or needed was to drop out of the Single Market. Whether things are different now, I don't know, as I've lost touch with the industry. But I do know that producers would oppose the UK signing up to a free trade deal with the US – one that gives access to our market for agricultural goods. Not only the egg industry would be wiped out. Beef and milk producers would also go, alongside poultry meat and pig producers, plus many others. Meanwhile, a trade deal with New Zealand could wipe out UK lamb production.

 

[simvastatin]

14 minutes ago, Will! said:

I know that we already have a Brexit thread and don't need another, and that free trade agreements are not very interesting to many people, but I think this slightly quirky story from Richard North about eggs nicely illustrates some of the complications that may not be foreseen in free trade agreements.

http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86349

 

Wow, that is a good explanation of why regulations keep an industry in business 

[zugzwang]

On 14/12/2018 at 20:55, Will! said:

I know that we already have a Brexit thread and don't need another, and that free trade agreements are not very interesting to many people, but I think this slightly quirky story from Richard North about eggs nicely illustrates some of the complications that may not be foreseen in free trade agreements.

http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86349

 

Fantastic post. These things need to be said again and again, and given as much prominence as possible. A thread dedicated to exploding the economically illiterate folly of the free market in all of its guises would be very welcome.

[PeanutButter]

It's our secretive friend Shankar! 

Pulling strings and buying politicians. Same as usual.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/21/us-agribusiness-lobbyists-paid-for-trip-by-david-davis

Quote

A six-day trip to the US by former Brexit secretary David Davis was partly funded by an American lobbying organisation that is alleged to favour weakening European Union regulations on environmental and food standards.

While we argue over Brexit and the 'democratic will of the people' our government has sold us out to American lobbyists. Fracking and agrichemicals. 

[jonb2]

On 14/12/2018 at 11:14, Fromage Frais said:

I love that term again "disaster capitalist"

What is a disaster capitalism?

Is is when you disagree with Mark Carney?

Is it when you want house prices to fall?

Is it betting against over inflated currencies, companies or governments?

Is it me wanting to pay 300k for a currently priced 450,000 house with a person who has borrowed a stupid amount of money to do so?  My happiness would be built on a reduction of their wealth. 

It's a ******** term capitalism without disaster is not capitalism as no creative destruction can take place.

I counter that theme that anti "disaster capitalists" = the ***** who got us in this mess

Nobody allowed to lose money on property = bubble blown screwing over the market and the young

Don't buy gold or other currencies = You should morally hold £ so we can print them to dust.

Banks not allowed to fail = debasement of the money and bubbles all over the place = financial crisis

Evil short sellers prevented taking down bloated zombie companies = suppression of productivity and creating a bigger crisis down the road.

Rates must not rise = fiddling with inflation measures screwing over the poorest.

Brexit must not happen = Status quo which upholds the temple of debt must stay in place.

So in essence if you use the term "disaster capitalism" as a pejorative to an opponent you logically should be

a)  Someone with financial interests/objectives contrary to theirs (your disaster is their blessing) and without a sense of hypocrisy

b) A socialist who believes under their superior management nobody would ever fail and you would decree who the winners and losers are.

 

 

Your argument might win if we had genuine capitalism. We don't. Otherwise the banks would be allowed to fail. We have a kleptocracy where debt for Joe Public rules all. Today, we bail out the elites. Companies do share buy-backs for their own wealth increases. The stock markets round the world are increasingly accessible by those with huge asset heaps and nobody else.

Rees-Mogg's father wrote 2 books on disaster capitalism - look them up. Warning - it's nothing to do with the myth of free markets.

[jonb2]

On 14/12/2018 at 20:55, Will! said:

I know that we already have a Brexit thread and don't need another, and that free trade agreements are not very interesting to many people, but I think this slightly quirky story from Richard North about eggs nicely illustrates some of the complications that may not be foreseen in free trade agreements.

http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86349

 

US agriculture imports is still part of the Brexit plan Will.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/21/us-agribusiness-lobbyists-paid-for-trip-by-david-davis