 This news medium is essentially a random creation since it depends on us being prompted by people of all kinds to plonk things on this page..... on the other hand everything comes under editorial supervision to ensure that there is no misrepresentation or unsuitable content. If people send in something which is unsuitable we will tell them! Please send your inputs to: info@apeurope.org Irish Referendum Posted: 13th June, 2008. APE media group were one of the only groups to state that the outcome of the Irish referendum would be a win for the Nos. This was presented some 5 days before the vote at which time CybaCity and The Irish Observer stopped polling. The Dalriada Group organised Donegal workshops based upon the CybaCity forum model developed under the previous European Constitutional reviews (some 2 years ago) whereby better information was made available to the public. According to observers this pushed up the No vote from around 42% to around 64% based on Yes voters changing their freely formed opinion. The prediction of the result can be found here. David Davis to address fundamental freedoms in by-election Posted: 13th June, 2008. Already the media and even political parties have misread what David Davis is doing. David Davis has made it clear that the 42 day detention vote in Parliament went one step too far. The 42 days detention is therefore not the only issue he wishes to bring to everyone's attention but rather a sequence of incremental reductions in the basic freedoms of the people of Britain which have greately accelerated under the Labour government. David Davis has correctly pointed to the armtwisting used to get this inappropriate policy through so he will need to come up with proposals on how the whip system can be moderated. APE media have often advocated the banning of the whip so as to enhance the need for mutual trust between politicians who happen to adhere to the general platform of a political party Besides abusing the West Lothian dimension using Scottish Labout MPs to help push this illiberal act through, Gordon Brown invented another dimension in the form of a previously little-used "Ulster Question" making use of payoffs to non-Labour DUP MPs - a corruption directly designed to undermine the freedom of the people of Britain. It is notable that recently when Gordon Brown and other Labour MPs speak of Britain and the United Kingdom they spoke of England Scotland and Wales, having dropped reference to Northern Ireland. But when needed to force Labour factional minority dogma on the majority, Brown made full use of the Northern Irish politicians to assist him in his deeds. In spite of all of this, no evidence was forthcoming that the act will enhance the security of the people of Britain in any way. David Davis will apparently be facing the ex-Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie. This will be a no contest since MacKenzie does not seem to have the intellectual grasp of what Davis is about but seems to be totally focused on the 42 day detention issue. MacKenzie is unlikely to represent a formidible opponenent if his guest appearances on Question Time and other TV programmes are anything to go by - he has a very simplistic binary outlook and seems to think being offensive to people is a way to win arguments. This approach works in print in media like the Sun but it does not succeed in debates on important topics. If the Sun want to hedge their bets they would be advised to field someone who has a better grasp of the issues; this intervention could well backfire on the Sun and Rupert Murdoch. The fact that the Labour party will not field a candidate is a disgrace since Davis is addressing the single most important issue facing the people of Britain. APE media (Real News, Emancipation & Portsea Island Post will be following the debates and issues raised in this important by-election. Proposals for a change in the UK Tax System Recently (March 2008) the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) published a consultative report entitled, "UK business tax: a compelling case for change". Amongst the statements contained therein is the following, "The key principles of a reformed and competitive tax system should be simplicity, certainty, flexibility and neutrality”. Without going into the difficulties of in fact defining what is meant by a "competitive tax system", Real Incomes, a journal within the APE Group, has highlighted the desire for "neutrality" as a critical problem area facing CBI ambitions. In basic terms the Real Incomes Approach can demonstrate that it is not possible to have a neutral tax system in terms of the nature of its incidence on a diverse range of firms and even more so when political parties insist on fiscal neutrality. Fiscal neutrality is simply not changing the cash flow within the public sector i.e. goverment revenues and expenditure. Hector McNeill, Director of SEEL, says that the CBI do in fact make reference to the constraints set by "fiscal neutrality". However, he insists that this is a critical issue and it should have been analysed in more depth to demonstrate the degree to which fiscal neutrality remains a deadweight on economic performance. Recent findings to be published by SEEL on "fiscal autonomy" are relevant in explaining this issue in more depth. In addition a related tutorial section and article at Real Incomes will explain the nature of the conflict between fiscal and macroeconomic policies. Real Incomes will be posting additional articles and papers addressing the specific issues involved in understanding the interaction of the two forms of "neutrality". It is hoped that these will set out how both forms can only be achieved through a real incomes policy based upon price performance. Relevant leaders on this topic can be found on Real News Online and at the Real Incomes Coffee Shop: The CBI proposals on corporate taxation - Real News Online The CBI Consultative Report UK business tax: a compelling case for change - Real Incomes' Coffee Shop note Why economic policies don't work & the emergence of a solution - this could be inportant... People might have noticed how policy-makers are not very convincing in conveying any impresssion of confidentce in the degree to which they are predicting the outcome of their polcy-moves on the economy. The Chairman of the Fed in the USA says the current situation is not like the 1970s and the slumpflation (stagflation) crisis at that time. On the other hand this does not seem to be the case according to a tutorial section recently released at Real Incomes ("Is there a problem?" Real Incomes). Hector McNeill, Director of SEEL, describes in detail the evolution of policy up until the present date. Even although Monetarism displaced Keynesianism in the 1980s as the basis of macroeconomic policy, McNeill explains that they are basically equivalent. According to McNeill these KM (Keynesian-Monetarist) policies have no traction, that is policy-makers do not control enough relevant variables to secure a movement in the desired direction and by the desired amount. This is because, according to McNeill, KM policies do not use a prime index. A prime index is one which:
With such a prime index is is possible to shift the economy in the direction required. The prime index which achieves this objective is real incomes. However, before economists jump in and start explaining what real incomes are it is as well to review what McNeill says. Real Incomes are not what they seem since a lot of benefits people derive from the time available not working is not spent on exchangeable goods and services. In a sense each person makes of available time what they will and as a result there are very large differences in real income levels as far as each individual is concerned. The important point about real incomes is that they provide each individual with a large degree of freedom to develop themselves, the affairs of their family and whatever else they desire (within limits!!). This approach to economics is largely based on constitutional principles which do no accept the pervesity of macroeconomic policy decisions, very common under KM regimes, where decisions can cause corporate failure, unemployment and house repossession. These issues can be reviewed in several recent articles, all on media of the Agence Presse Européenne group, covering this exciting and new view of economics including:
Two important new news media The APE-Agence Presse Européenne Board decided at the end of last year to launch two new news media to fill in what they perceived to be serious gaps in existing media coverage. What they poroposed is two media called:
Emancipation Emancipation re-energises the subject of the role of constitution in the lives of each one of us and points to how we should be defending our individual freedoms at the national level. Although primarily addressing the United Kingdom, Emancipation covers topics of direct relevance to those countries who have the same source of constitutional principles including Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA as well as the Commonwealth countries. Paradoxically, and thereby hangs a tail, the constitutions of many European Union countries do not match so neatly because of their codified laws and somewhat elitist political and judicial systems. To visit Emancipation just click on the image below.
Real Incomes
Moving from Emancipation to Real Incomes, we have to apologise for overloading our readers with exciting information. We would expected on a topic with this name at least a quantum drop in level of fizz or interest to, let us say, normal people like you or me. But Real Incomes, just like, Emancipation, comes as one of those rare surprises in the media of today, daring to say what others do not. In clear English, Real Incomes analyses our economic policies and explains things like Keynesianism and why it failed as well as Monetarism and why this is failing now. There is no partizan content here, just dispassionate logical explanations. A refreshing aspect is the absence of those assertions we have come to associated with murky and confusing discussions conerning economics. Here you will find a logical description of the issues and even more rare today, pretty practical solutions largely founded in what is referred to as A Real Incomes Approach. This is an exciting and somewhat unique combination of the serious combined with the entertaining. These guys are trying to communicate and they succeed. You can certainly pick up leading issues here to throw at your chums in the pub, your mates at the next barbie or even better, try slinging a few at a politician. But please note we have been shown the launch content and this is how we know all this but Real Incomes will go live during the week-end of 15th/16th March 2008. If you visit the site now you will see an empty shell but seriously try and pay the site a visit next week. Some skinny on the MicroSoft case It looks as if the European Union case against MicroSoft Corporation was in large part misdirected because the Commission fined MicroSoft for carrying out what was stated European Commission policy during the 1980s and before the time of Mario Monti and Nellie Kroes. CybaCity have an interview with Hector McNeill of SEEL on this issue where he recounts what was going on at the Commission at that time. The potentially embarrassing point is that because the Commission's case was misdirected, so was MicroSoft's defence. MicroSoft, it would seem, still have a basis for appeal because the even more embarrassing misdirection of the European Court of the First Instance which did not seem to be aware of the precedents in policy which were orientating European IT policy in Europe in the 1980s. A View of the European Amending Treaty We stole the little dynamic PR movie below from the Real News homepage at http://www.realnews-onine.com since we thought it was interesting and would like to ask people's opinions about the message....
This movie is cunning on the technical side since it will not run without a Navatrac security code so it isn't that easy to use without Real News authorization which we hasten to add that we have ... ! ;-) Please send comments to: info@apeurope.org |
