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January 25th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
By
Andrew Alexander
Last updated at 12:16 AM on 25th January 2012
When it comes to excessive pay, the public immediately thinks of bankers, who thus fulfil their historic role as the hate figures of the day.
Mentioned less often though, for reasons not entirely clear, are footballers, pop stars, actors, showbiz hosts, comedians, the BBC itself, Tony Blair, etc.
Their earnings are an issue from time to time, but they are not like bankers in the ability to inspire hatred, ridicule and contempt.
Crackdown: Business Secretary Vince Cable outlines the Government’s plans to curb executive pay
However, the rest of commercial business seems anxious to catch up in the unpopularity stakes, hence Business Secretary Vince Cable’s executive pay plans.
I wish him luck. In my distant days as this paper’s City Editor, I argued that stopping managements looting their companies was a major issue. It still is.
Capitalism, in which we all have a vested interest, used to offer a simple solution. In the old days, when businessmen set up a business the rules seemed so easy. They watched the management’s earnings like hawks, both for rewards and penalties. Now the system has become too large for shareholder control.
You may be an indirect shareholder in, say, Barclays bank. Perhaps through membership of a pension fund. Its trustees invest money on your behalf, probably via more intermediaries. The link between owners and managers becomes very tenuous. Your pension fund, which owns only .00 something or other of the bank, is rarely interested in ‘shareholder activism’.
If Barclays does not perform they prefer to just sell the shares and move on to another investment.
Those of us keen on reform once thought there was a solution in bonuses being in the form of long-term share options. That gave top executives a vital incentive in their companies’ success. But many a business’s Remuneration Committee has cheekily added these options alongside rising salaries.
Cable plans greater transparency for individual earnings, a larger shareholder vote in order for company accounts to be passed and veto rights where ‘golden handshakes’ are concerned and on notice periods of more than a year.
These could help. But transparency is harder to attain than you might think. In the Mail’s City office we regularly pored over company accounts and details of top figures’ proposed/actual contracts.
They were so full of ifs and buts as to be almost incomprehensible.
Which was, of course, usually intended. To transparency, Cable needs to add comprehensibility.
He won’t find that easy.
On media behaviour, the subject of Lord Leveson’s inquiry, two axioms of Enoch Powell deserve to be remembered. ‘For politicians to complain about the Press is like sailors complaining about the sea’. And: ‘A freedom which cannot be abused is not worth having.’
Don’t worry, Scots are too canny to leave the Union
No-brainer: Most Scots know that Alex Salmond’s proposals for independence would be economically disastrous for Scotland
Alarms about Scottish independence are overdone. The numerical success of the Scottish Nationalists stems mainly from supporters assuming it would add leverage to Westminster’s generosity.
Electorates like simplicity. Hence the hopelessness of the AV referendum last year. The worrying issues (for Scots) raised by independence are numerous. If the opponents at Westminster cannot scare off the nationalist vote, they will not deserve their jobs or the label of politicians. A Scottish currency raises obvious problems.
For once we can thank the eurozone’s chaotic condition for its help. To join the euro, if it still exists then, would be like boarding the Titanic, or at least the Costa Concordia.
To keep the British pound would mean deferring to the Bank of England on interest rates and all the rest — not independence at all!
North Sea oil once got Scottish Nationalists very excited. But it is a diminishing resource. Moreover, it has been argued in international law that maritime rights should be demarcated by extending the line of a country’s border — projected in this case from west to east of the Scottish border, missing much of the North Sea resources.
Anyway, what international or indeed British businesses would want to invest in an independent Scotland, with no track record, and strongly socialist by inclination?
An open border? It sounds easy and obvious. But what if Scotland lured in a great wave of immigrants who wanted to use the open border to get straight to England?
False addresses would also become common: taxpayers using money earned in one country to pay taxes in the other, depending on the difference in rates.
The headquarters of businesses would also become an issue — most likely Scottish firms would re-register in England. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.
The vote itself will anger the Scots living in England — probably more than in Scotland — who can have no say in this decision.
And do Scots in Scotland in these difficult times want to usher in an era of uncertainty? Their famous taste for exploration will not take them that far, you may count on it.
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Yes, I think the Scots have got the measure of Alex Salmond. A “marriage value” is created by the Union that makes the whole of the U.K. greater than the sum of its parts; and I expect most Scots recognise that fact.
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If the FSA and Treasury discipline staff and managers for inattention during the great expansion of credit in the past decade I might think the government has time to consider the complex issues which it presents with such naivety on “bonuses”.
And the press should question the pay of quango chairmen, sportsmen and entertainers.
Please make shareholder power and market competition more effective, but that probably means removing regulations as much as making new ones.
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“The electorates like simplicity” Utter tosh. With the AV the politicians tried to sell a lie, they knew it was not Proportional Representation, AV was never Proportional Representation and was never intended to be.
The somewhat aggravating parasites of parliament, simply bottled it. They then schemed up the AV system and put it on a plate.
The electorate ordered steak and chips, but were served beans and mash. So typical of the type of fraudulent actions we get off our layabout politicians today.
Do get over yourselves! ~ Please!
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