Devolved or Independent Thinking?

Scotland braced for winter of discontent

So says The Herald as if we are to be surprised. What's predictable is their manipulative tool of posting a picture of John Swinney beside the headline. Oh yeh, you know when Labour are going to pass the buck when The Herald is in the vanguard with this type of crass propaganda exercise.

Yes folks we are about to see just exactly how Labour destroyed the UK economy but it's all going to be the SNP's fault.

Certain political facts come into play here. Firstly, Scotland is in surplus and doesn't need cuts and secondly, Swinney can only spend what he's given under the devolution settlement. That's right, Scotland is taking the medicine for a disease it doesn't have - ever heard that one before? More importantly it's going to be administered and we can do nothing about it. Even more importantly than that, Scotland is going to be made to think it administered the medicine itself.

Yes, we are heading for years of unionist doublespeak ala Orwell. The unions are on side - they are activating in Scotland seperately - that never happened when Labour were in power North and South of the border. The Herald and other Labour mouthpieces are planting the seeds of blame-shifting before the massive unrest to come - and they know full well that it's coming. They backed Brown's 'stimlus' and 'quantative easing' (money printing) policies after all i.e. more debt. That was right after they portrayed him as the best chancellor ever who had 'abolished boom and bust'!

How do they get away with it? Well, you see - the SNP are doing their bit to help the unionist cause.

You see, had the SNP came out fighting long before the last general election with a 'Britain is Bankrupt' campaign, there would be no doubt about who to blame for the mess we are in. That would have taken vision though and political guts. Right now their campaign could have shifted focus to 'Prosperity with Independence or Austerity with Union'. Still nothing. There's to be no coherent campaign on what is the worst economic climate faced by the UK since The Great Depression. This is political negligence on a monumental scale. Once the SNP ridiculed Blair for comparing Holyrood to a parish council - now they're playing the part.

Without a 'Bankrupt Britain' campaign the SNP can't defend itself against the coming onslaught of unionist propaganda. If they thought losing the agenda before the London election was bad just wait and see how people will react when the blame for the New Great Depression is placed at their door. Voters ain't gonnie listen to bankers' platitudes - that will ingrain the idea that they are culpable. Swinney is being forced to make decisions about spending cuts, everyone with a gripe is going to be angry at him and the unionist press is going to have a field day.

Swinney is going to be Mr. Cuts. The SNP are going to be associated with those nasty Tories who just love slashing public services. People, this is a PR disaster for the SNP who are now on course for a mauling at the next Holyrood elections. Make no mistake, Britain is nose-diving as an economic power and that means a massive change in living standards. People are not going to be happy about this and they will want to blame those in power now.

Had there been a 'Bankrupt Britain' campaign while Labour was in power, people would have known who was to blame. Labour MSP's would be laughed at for blaming Swinney and The Herald would be short of propaganda angles. Now the unionists in Scotland are going to run amok. That massive political opportunity has been missed by a feckless election campaign and a leadership posted missing.

By not wanting to talk about independence they've been kiboshed. Now they splutter and stutter about how the cuts are Westminster imposed. Without a coherent and slick political campaign about 'Bankrupt Britain' no-one is going to listen. As Britain heads South we need to sear that message into the minds of the Scottish electorate.

It must be clear who is to blame, it must be clear that Britain is the basket-case not Scotland, it must be clear that Scotland's only lifeboat is independence.

It's not clear. And in the smoke of confusion the electorate will be conned into distrusting the SNP. Consequently, the movement towards independence will be put back generations. A future independent Scotland will be associated with financial decline. That is the legacy that Salmond will leave behind unless he finds the political animal within and fast.

I've heard SNP apparatchiks parrot the same thing over and over that the agenda comes and goes and you just have to sit tight and wait till it comes back again. That is an apparatchik speaking and nothing to do with political vision. A party positions itself according to circumstances, sees what's coming and makes the agenda their own.

The former is the mentality of the devolved thinker, the latter the mentality of the independent thinker. We need to know what kind of thinking the SNP is doing: devolved or independent?

Scotland's Choice: Prosperity or Austerity

Last year when Brown and the entire captured mainstream media were hooting about 'green shoots of recovery' I told you they were smoking them.

In Scotland's press today the truth (after two years of their propaganda) emerges:

50,000 public sector jobs in the firing line

Confesses The Herald

Scots face five years of spending slaughter

the supposedly astonished Scotsman opines.

Now, bragging is unseemly but the reason I'm telling you 'I told you so' is because that if an English teacher in Spain knew Britain was bankrupt, that there was no economic recovery and that the financial sector was robbing the citizenry then surely our media could flag up said problems? No!

And still they lie. Everyone is talking about the 'economic crisis' as though it had no authors. It does but that doesn't get talked about. The most important criminals in what was and is monumental wealth confiscation is Britain's banking cartel and Gordon Brown. You do have to include war mongerer and profiteer Tony Blair (but he's busy consulting for JP Morgan and various Middle-East states on all things oil). Yeh, the guy who did triple-back somersaults to get Britain into war is now making tens of millions as an oil consultant - funny that. And, I suppose we have to go as far back as Thatcher and how she sold off public assets on the cheap to buddies in Texas just so they could reduce quality, cut the work force and dramatically rob household wealth by increasing their bills. Britain has been a corporatocracy for two generations now.

Brown took it all to dizzying heights. Oh, how he sucked in the approval of his buddies in The City.

In return for their influence and money he deregulated The City. That allowed them to turn financial services into a global con game that got out of control. The result - 'The Crisis'. Yep, they sold products to everyone that would eventually go bust - financial products to pension funds, to other banks (Iceland), to local governments in Italy and to governments like Greece etc. This all required a large amount of collusion and Brown showed where his loyalty lay. They knew the products they sold would imperil not just the buyers but the sellers. But you see, they don't own the banks, they simply run them and so they get huge bonuses (worth many billions) while share-holders take the hit. The shareholders didn't really need to bother because if they panicked and sold off the whole financial system would be openly broke for all to see. Labour's John McFall admitted as much last year. I blogged on it on my first week blogging but somehow our entire 'independent' media missed the story out.

Yes, the financial sector is insolvent.

To terrorise the politicians they spoke of the need for bail-outs lest the economy disintegrate. Brown leapt to the rescue. He bailed them out. He could have let them collapse, let the share-holders and bond-holders take the hit, protected the depositors and sold the banking sector off to entrepreneurs who had not been selling fraudulant derivatives to anyone who believed those lying scumbags at the captured ratings agencies who rated their derivatives as AAA investments.

Yes, Brown pawned the future of unborn British citizens to keep corrupt banking executives in a custom they were used to. He beleived them when they told him that they just had to get back to the way things were before 2008 and then the whole economy would be back on track. He wanted that badly. He wanted to "Save the World" with his towering intellect. The Church of Scotland has a lot to answer for..

Gordon Brown was inducted into the dark side by Tony Blair - his moral compass had a magnet placed inside it. Corporate Britain and corporate America wanted wars, derivatives, currency manipulation, war on terror and Brown did whatever he could for his core constituency. The people could be brainwashed into accepting it all and still vote for him.

History will show that Brown bankrupted Britain and he never won an election.

So, where did the money come from to bail-out the banks? It was borrowed from banks. So, Brown guaranteed repayments from oil and future taxes. He also had the Bank of England print lots more money and give it to the banks. This has brought down the value of the pound sterling which means the wealth of every British citizen has been diluted and used to prop up the financial sector or at least hide its insolvency for a while. Brits, like the slowly boiled frog, have been deliberately fooled.

The result is that Brits have been sold into bank-serfdom. Britons were encouraged to get into more and more debt by Brown and they did. They have more household debt than the rest of the EU together. Now, they will have to pay whilst services are cut and taxes raised. And all because of corrupt bankers. Now you might counter that the wars and Trident cost the taxpayers a huge amount too but who do you think are behind these policies? Those who profit from war and those who know that nothing gets a country into debt to banks better than wars..

Ladies and gentlemen, Britain no longer exists. It was once a state of sorts where politicians answered to the people, where there was cabinet government, where ministers resigned over relatively minor matters of impropriety, where the media would ask difficult questions, where monopolies were broken up, where individuals had privacy, where there were manufacturing jobs. It's all gone.

Cameron is in office and Labour is out. Are there any signs of change? Nope.

There could have been investigations into fraud in The City. Bankers could be jailed, The insolvent financial sector could be put down and the bail-out money taken back. The quantative easing money returned to the Bank of England. The debt to international speculating thieves repudiated.

Instead, you are going to get austerity. Your money has been diluted and given away - it will take generations to repay it. Now, you are going to lose jobs, services and have taxes hiked up. Make no mistake, this is all to appease the same people Brown was appeasing. The bankers needed a new face for a new policy and now you have Cameron. They voted Tory and the electorate did what they were told. It was all Labour's fault and now strong actions need to be taken to rectify the economy is the line. The banking oligarchs play left off against right and laugh all the way to the bank. That's how it works. Obama was brought in to appease the left while the robbery continued. Britain is the other way round.

So, here we are. Massive cuts heading Britain's way. It ain't gonnie be pretty being a bank-serf. Britain is now completely run by and for big business. This is the definition of fascism. Orwell's predictions are playing out in front of your eyes. But because it's Orwellian you don't notice it unless you think but you're actively discouraged from that. Have you noticed how macabre the news is? Hard to miss, for those not hypnotised enough to watch it.

So, stands Scotland where it did?

The country that is currently producing a surplus has to take deep austerity cuts..

One proposal is to privatise Scottish water. If you want a poorer service, a lack of investment in infrastructure and people getting laid off then fine. There will be a price to this eventually. People getting laid off don't pay taxes but need to eat. What about when the bills skyrocket? They always do. They'll try to talk about 10% cuts in bills and efficiencies but the reality is always massive rises. That money will come out of consumers' pockets and out of communities.

You see austerity cripples countries. The IMF forced countries to take loans and then when they couldn't afford the debts the IMF forced these countries to sell of their state assets cheaply to international investors or banks. That included hospitals, schools, roads, ports - everything. Greece is now selling islands to international merchant banks. The people who run these banks run the US Treasury department which is a 51% shareholder in the World Bank which works hand in glove with the IMF. The IMF awards contracts to their coporate buddies who do no invest in infrastructure, who lay large amounts of people off, who hike up utility bills massively. They are the same people who encourage house price speculation and deficit finance knowing full well that when it all crashed they would be the first out, the first to get bailed out and then the first back in to pick off cheap assets at fire-sale prices. If you want to see how the system works ask the former chief economist of the World Bank -Joe Stiglitz here. No, Cameron is not your guy. He is simply a new face there to usher in the next phase of Britain being looted and asset stripped.

So Scotland. Are you going to go along with the new propaganda? How are people going to eat when benefits are slashed? I mean Glasgow already has people dying of malnutrician. When the council jobs go and the benefits cut how are people going to pay for the rise in prescription charges? Or care for the elderly? When people are desperate they will steal but just when you need law and order the police will be getting laid off. Are we going to bring in the army to keep order? Will this be fascism properly? I mean they already have the cctv cameras, all they need now is a citizens' police force. Scotland has a large number of prisoners. Will they be released to save money like they have in California?

When the kids can't get jobs they can go to university, no? Well, we're going to see an increase in tuition fees and let's face it, those debts (to the banks) will never be paid off so where is the incentive to go? Or if you do decide to study why would you stay in your country? No, uni numbers are going to fall off a cliff and that means academics will be heading for Asia. There is going to be a dramatic collapse in higher and further education.

And when interest rates finally go up to stop inflation (caused by money printing) how are you going to afford your mortgage payments when you've lost your job, have more taxes, pay more for services and those credit card interest payments are mounting up?

The banks own you.

With all this in mind, does the media ask why Trident and war which cost an absolute fortune are not being halted? The anwer is that the Tories are just another subsidiary of the banksters - the same as Labour was.

Debt is the name of the game. Government, business and people all owe huge amounts to the banks. That's the way they like it. You'll feed your kids junk food to save money and try for decades to pay off your debts. They'll get health problems and you won't be able to have them treated because the NHS has been scaled back.

You see, bankers don't care about your health, your education or your happiness (despite all those adverts). They sell debt and that is what you're in and if you're not yet you soon will be. Oh yes, what they haven't told you is that when they cut all those public sector jobs and the private sector ones which depend on the public sector the tax-take will shrink further. Fewer people will be able to support the government and government debt will increase. Within a few years half of all tax will be on interest payments alone, then 70%.. The government will look around for any pockets of wealth left and tax that. When it gets too bad they'll simply print even more money to pay the debts and the currency will collapse. Your money will be worth a lot less and you'll sell the house to pay for health, food or whatever. When a currency collapses it means imports are expensive and that means no foreign food so you'll have to buy local - farmers will suddenly be back on top.

The templates are there. They practiced on Argentina - if you want to know what lies ahead look there. A country which no longer allows JP Morgan or Goldman Sachs to do business. Similarly now Greece, France, Germany but not Britain. Wonder why? You are being shepherded into this future deliberately.

Right now Scotland has a surplus. We could make it as an independent country no problem. For some reason people prefer austerity, war and Trident. They like being robbed because the Daily Retard tells them there's no option, because the media never asks difficult questions and because unionists are bought and paid for just like the Squadrone Volante were when they changed their vote to usher in union in 1706 against the wishes of the entire Scottish population.

The choice facing Scots now is independence or grim austerity which will enslave the people. The unionists will try to infect your mind and brainwash you with myths and ideological con-tricks. The international financial system is reforming itself week by week yet Scotland has to wait 5 years for some tax powers. Are Scots really going to take this? We are told that the economy is so important we shouldn't be thinking about the constitution. Folks, the constitution and the economy are inseperable. That's the message the SNP must hammer home.

The campaign:

Prosperity or Austerity
Independence or Union.

From Stimulus To Austerity: The Banks Own Britain!

And so the cuts come.

I started this blog because I knew that 'recovery' was a lie and because bankers were bleeding Britain dry.

The bail-outs were given to banks to cover-up fraud. Those bail-outs have indebted tax-payers who now will face 40% cuts in public spending.

Why? The investors and shareholders were given tax-payers money. The banks should have been allowed to fail and the investors (who made bad investments) allowed to take the hit. No, the super rich get looked after and now their wild speculations have to be paid for by ordinary citizens.

When Brown was bailing out his banking buddies and borrowing money like a drunken sailor to do it, that was the future of Britain he was throwing away. He, Labour has destroyed Britain PLC.

Bailing out was economic illiteracy but everyone went along with it. The press talked about more 'stimulus' being needed which meant more debt. It was a theology which almost no-one challenged.

The stimulus was never going to work (If you read my blog going back to November you'll know I predicted it.) That money was borrowed and put Britain into more debt. Debt has caused the crippling of the credit market which underpins the economy and more debt was never going to fix it - it was economic insanity.

You see big banks like people and nations to be in debt because they sell debt. That's why they encourage expensive wars and nuclear weapon's systems. Have you noticed that Cameron is not going to cancel Trident or stop the wars? No, he's going to throttle the tax-paying public.

He, like Brown is in the pocket of big business.

And so more economic insanity is about to ensue. Now we have austerity. The ordinary citizen is going to get robbed again. When you take more money from the working and unemployed population you kill the real economy. People won't be able to spend and so shops will close, people will buy less cars, TVs, Ipods etc. And then unemployment will burden the taxpayer even more. This will crush manufacturing even further.

So, what should the government do. Well, yes get out of the people's way and that includes the economy. Don't do anything. Cut back on war, weapons's systems and lastly repudiate the debt. Send the bankers packing and take our money back.

When you let the banks go insolvent then a new generation of entrepreneurs will pick up the pieces and start again. Right now you have a financial system which will never get out of debt nomatter how much you screw out the taxpayer. They must be allowed to go under and the debt cleared before any economic recovery can ensue.

The next phase of the crisis is going to be economic and financial collapse. Austerity is madness just like stimulus was. This time, when the banks come looking for a bail-out Britain will be looking for a bail-out.

You will be entirely sold to bankers by that time. They will own you as the government sells off schools, roads, bridges and so on. The government stole from you to give money to bankers and now they are going to gut you to pay off bankers.

It's time to stop the madness. These cuts should be opposed tooth and nail and the financial terrorists in The City jailed.

It is time to decide whether or not you value democracy or if you will succumb to bank-serfdom.

Well?

Looting of Scotland Continues Unabated

The money given to Scotland from London last year was £33 Billion. The latest find of oil in the North Sea will rake in £73 Billion and the treasury's take in tax will be around a year's Scottish expenditure. That means this find would pay all Scotland's bills for a year and no-one need pay any taxes.

Check out the story which has low profle status on the BBC:

'Exceptional' oil find made in North Sea by EnCore

You won't find this story splashed in Scotland's press. I found out about it via Subrosa's blog. Oil is the big economic powerhouse that no-one is allowed to discuss. Britain has been a petro-economy since the 70's thanks to the oil off Scotland's coast. In that time Scotland has got poorer, more die of alcohal related illness, more teenage pregnancies, more infant mortality, more depression, worse life expectancy, low paid jobs, more unemployment, more suicides, more emigration, more prisoners, more wars and more Labour MPs.

People, this is a single oil find and there are more to come. The price of oil will likely go up and especially if Iran is attacked by the US/Ukanian empire on the pretext of 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' - where did we hear lies like that before? Eh, Labour. And millions dead into the bargain.

Again we see another reason for a 'Bankrupt Britain, Surplus Scotland' campaign by the SNP but they seem content with impending opposition at Holyrood and MSP's salaries just like Labour always has been.

Oil bank-rolled The City of London for decades. Now that London is bust oil is all that Britain has left. And what thanks does Scotland get for her generosity? None, we are branded subsidy junkies and our living standards continue to plummet owing to the state of the UK's finances and thanks to Labour's (Brown's) economic illiteracy or was it selling us off to banking buddies? Things are set to get worse as the oil keeps flowing.

Meanwhile don't expect to hear about oil in our captured media. Their job is simply to keep their own population servile. And Scots quickly get into line for our next kicking.

How shameful.

Scottish Elections and British Referendums

The joke that is political union with England is typified by this story in today´s Scotsman:

'Disrespect' row flares over vote referendum

So, the idea is to try and drown out the Scottish election in a London-centric information blitz. Isn't it amazing that even those who want to push for a referendum on a new form of voting will undermine the democratic process in Scotland? People like Mike Rumbles are arguing that it will save money and people will know the difference between both votes when they get to the voting both.

What Mike and the LibDems with more interest in party gain than democracy are trying to get you to forget is that an election is about having a period where issues are considered and then decided upon by the electorate. In Scotland though there would be two debates simultatiously. The first is about deciding who is best to run the Scottish government and the second is about whether or not people want a new voting system for Westminster. One is a referedum on a single issue for the London institution and the other is an election to meditate on an array of issues and decide upon who the government will be in a Scottish institution. Both these issues demand space for debate and reflection and definately should not be run simultaniously.

Yes, having a seperate election will benefit the SNP but that's no reason to ditch another democratic process. And let's face it, it is often the case that the interests of the SNP and Scotland are one and the same.

No doubt the London parties are salivating over the prospects of squeezing the SNP in terms of media volume. Just like what happened when the BBC marginalised the governing party of Scotland at the recent London elections. All the unionist parties stand to gain and Scottish democracy is yet again a distant second in terms of priority.

Well folks, that's life in the union: Second-class citizenship! Asides from ignoring the fact that devolving power to an 'equal partner' in union is constitutional idiocy anyway.

They get away with this because the SNP are playing nice. The unionists will have their wicked way with Scotland because our national party does not like bare-knuckle politics! Where is the 'Britain is Bankrupt, Scotland is Solvent' campaign? Managing devolution and forgetting all about campaigning is costing Scotland dearly. Every day in the union means more poverty, less jobs and poorer healthcare and education. And what do we get instead? A building society power-point presentation on 'fiscal responsibility'. You see that sounds nice and board-roomy but 'independence' is a bit direct and we don´t want to frighten the children..

The unionists think they can get away with anything now and they can. The SNP is diminishing as a force which can lead public opinion let alone protect our national dignity and interest. They were given a chance and power at Holyrood went to their collective heads. Those ministerial mondeos, eh? Or whatever the trappings are these days.

And then we hear about a 'respect agenda'. Oh purleez, I never heard such patronising guff in all my life. We'll get plenty respect when we threaten to take away the oil that keeps the bankrupt British state's life support machine running. In the end, that's what politics and the union comes down to - money. In the process our nation is reduced in status and our culture trashed by big business.

Continued union means Scotland is a second-rate, tourist museum economy where our young sell short-bread to Chinese businessmen on the Royal Mile. Independence means we have a national culture supported by an economy underpinned by excellent natural resources.

That's the message the SNP needs to get out instead of pimping out Scots in return for plush Holyrood office furniture.

Where is our national movement for independence?

Independence Disruption

War of independence erupts within ranks of SNP

So says The Scotsman.

The 'newspaper' always tries to frame the debate in a way that suits unionism and this latest piece of propaganda is no different. Tom Peterkin's key point though is moot: DevoNats are causing disharmony in the independence ranks.

Many nationalists are not just questioning the strategy of the leadership but are angry about it. Jim Sillars is quoted attacking the party leadership. It's true that Jim has lost a lot of respect for venting his prejudices in public over the years but no-one can doubt that he is the political animal that Salmond never was. His strategic sense is second only to his oratory brilliance. With the Tories in power, with the British state insolvent and with no Scottish PM around anymore the time to go for the jugular, as Sillars argues, has truly arrived.

Yet, Salmond is stepping back. Why? The leadership reckons that the agenda has moved away from it. That's because leaders seize the agenda. That's what real politians do. Not the SNP apparently.

What platform does the SNP have now? None. They have had to dump key manifesto pledges because the British economy has been willfully destroyed and so they couldn't afford them. Instead of that being shown to be a failure of Britain it has been easily portrayed as a failure of the SNP and Salmond. The party is being presented as having cheated the electorate. Why? The leadership has no stomach for visceral politics. It's that simple.

Well, the unionist machine is going to be all out against the SNP between now and the next Holyrood election so it's going to be bloody. The SNP must now replace the feather duster with the nuckle duster. The strategy of presenting the party simply as the natural party of Holyrood ain't gonnie cut it. Arguing for independence is about consolidating previous gains and building momentum. Instead people are having second thoughts.

Now, apologists for the leadership will bleat on about the need to remain positive and not get involved in negative campaigning. I'm sorry but that is complete nonsense. For a start pointing out that Britain has failed is telling people the truth. The Bank of England has been printing new money and that means Britain is bankrupt. At the same time Scotland has a surplus. These are truths which simply must be pointed out. Arguing for independence is also arguing against union and that is a fact of life - the birds and the bees. There's no need to be constantly negative but a balance must be established. Independence is a positive message and especially so when the manifest failures of union are highlighted. As the British economy moves into its death throws (and it is) a 'Bankrupt Britain - Surplus Scotland' campaign would resonate and develop into a platform for an independence referendum.

It is a crime that Labour has not been imprisoned for killing the British economy. This is the enemy that the SNP must defeat and destroying jobs is their legacy - one which is not being capitalised on by a leadership lacking political nous.

At the very time where the environment for changing ideas and using the 2007 Holyrood platform to move towards the core aim of the movement, it is instead badly injured and limping towards defeat at Holyrood. Instead of having supporters geared up for a final push we now see division and demotivation emerging.

Another annoying cliché that you hear from DevoNats is about whether independence is about economics or if it is cultural. The truth is that it is both and there's no need for such meandering blether disrupting business. The only difference is in campaigning strategy. Debating the cultural aspects of independence is about laying foundations but that debate can happen any time. Economics is about jobs, health and education and explains why we need the referendum as soon as possible. Both arguments together confer the logic and the urgency.

And the talk about realistic ambition? It was the threat of political independence that got us this far and without it there will be no 'concessions'.

The movement must force this debate because clearly the leadership is wrong. Over the years the party has been loyal to the leadership and in some ways unity is strength. On the other hand it causes weaknesses when said leadership indulges in its own comfort zone. It needs to be woken up from its Holyrood tea-room slumber and ordered to come out fighting. If not the movement will be set back a generation and it has suffered long enough. If the leadership doesn't make a move now there will be another Disruption.








The Disruption of 1843


On our previous path to independence Scotland sent out a message about her compromised leadership in the Declaration of Arbroath, to the world and future generations:

..we will immediately endeavour to expel him, as our enemy and as the subverter both of his own and our rights, and we will make another king, who will defend our liberties

History has given us a surplus of opportunities. What the movement needs is a leadership capable of taking them.

Money Wars & Scottish Independence

The Euro is fast losing prestige.

Only a couple of months ago it was starting to rival the dollar as a reserve currency. However Greece and now Spain have shown how difficult it is to have monetary union without political union. Is the whole experiment falling apart? According to the Telegraph things are getting desperado:

Germany and France examine 'two-tier' euro

You know those rating agencies? Fitch, S&P and Moody´s are the principle ones. These are the institutions which tell investors if investments are of good quality or not. They rate businesses, banks and countries and have recently downgraded Spain and some Spanish banks.

The problem with all this is that they haven't downgraded the US and the UK. The debt situation in both countries is as bad as Spain if not worse. So, why not?

The answer is that they are no longer independent rating agencies. These are the same agencies that put AAA ratings to sub-prime mortgages and other investments which has brought us to the point of drowning under fraud and debt.

Europe has no rating agencies of such callibre. These agencies, just like the president, then take their orders from the big US merchant banks: Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley etc. These guys are desperately trying to hold up the value of the dollar so that they can print more of it. So much so that they need wars to steal resources so that they can pay interest on existing loans from China and the Saudis for example. If the ratings agencies downgraded the US the US would pay higher interest and would be immediately bankrupt causing a global financial meltdown.

So, the ratings agencies have a political master. Another way to encourage people to buy dollars is by attacking the Euro. The drip drip drip of bad news about European banks and nations from ratings agencies has seen investors move their Euros into Dollars.

No-one should be in any doubt that the big powers in the world are conducting currency wars. Indeed, you can now do a course in 'economic warfare' in Paris. The Euro has began to bounce back a little given that investors have taken comfort from the actions taken by the EU a ECB (European Central Bank). I don´t think that confidence will last long.

So, which currencies to hold? Well, the US can bomb and plunder as many countries as it wants but the dollar is a total basket case. Britain will soon find it difficult to stay in the G20. The truth is that in the short term some currencies will perform better than others. If a country has natural resources with which to pay debts then they will be less likely to print more money and devalue. Ultimately though there are no safe paper currencies. Countries are devaluing so they can export and the race is to the bottom. Who loses? The man and woman in the street.

So, when the currencies are going down, bonds are worthless, derivatives imploding like last time and countries going bankrupt and conducting economic (for now) warfare, how do you keep your wealth?

Well, as banks suck money out of the economy to pay themselves bonuses and the govenments take more in taxes to pay for the bail-outs to the banks the ordinary punter will be able to spend a lot less. So, for a while things will be cheaper. So spend it on things you can use over the next few years while things are cheap and before inflation hits.

That aside many are seeking refuge in gold and silver. It´s difficult to know how to buy it but I would recommend www.goldmoney.com

That aside if you want to invest then some commodities do well in times of geo-political tension like oil and sugar.

Most of all though, I would recommend Scottish independence. It´s that or rearranging the deck chairs on the Lusitania. Oil in Scottish water has bankrolled the British state for nearly 40 years. It can´t save Britain now but it can save Scotland.

Without the label of Britain, England would tone down her ambitions and live within her means. Scotland would become relatively rich which would be a nice change. It makes sense all round as Britain can no longer sustain her role of imperial poodle. That´s all the union means and all it ever did mean. It´s over. Britain is a goner. Remember cabinet government? Gone. Remember parliamentary parties and real political conferences? Gone. Britain has the same name but we are no longer citizens, merely bank-slaves and that is going to get a whole lot worse.

Independence or bank-serfdom. That´s the only real electoral choice you have.