Friday, April 03, 2009

Brown's Smoke And Mirrors Magic Trick

The spin over Brown's summit swindle is in overdrive. Media handlers must be feeling chuffed. But the $1 trillion masterstroke is an economic sleight of hand trick from the master conjurer of smoke and mirrors accounting. 

The G20 charade had to be a huge success and the brow-beaten public had to get used to Brown's $1 trillion sham to save the world. The big media manipulators at the White House and Downing Street would make sure of that. He may have a spring in his step now but any Brown 'bounce' will be short-lived.

The summit was a pointless and meaningless waste of time and money. The Franco-German split with the US and UK much deeper than some would wish to believe. 

Sure the beginning of a thaw between the US and Russia was tremendously significant. But that happened well away from the summit at another time and in another place. 

But this was blown up by Brown as an economic summit. That's how it was billed and that's what deluded Brown was pinning his hopes and dreams on for an election victory. 

The build up to $1 trillion has been hailed as some kind of 'victory' but it is simply not true. At best it's window dressing of old promised money, dressed up as new. 

The problem with a promise is that it can raise false hopes. There's a huge difference between what's promised and what's delivered to people worried about homes, jobs and businesses. That will be laid bare only in Darling's budget in a few weeks time. The jury will be the voters. A point made by an astute Peter Riddell over at the Times.

This is not the $1 trillion 'fiscal stimulus' Brown had been wandering around demanding over the last few months. In fact 'fiscal stimulus' barely gets a mention at all. It's a funding increase for the IMF and World Bank - something that had already been agreed by world finance ministers.

Burningourmoney  dubs it 'funny money'. Frazer Nelson over at the Spectator has also produced a detailed forensic analysis concluding: "The world is about to learn how illusory a Brown promise really is." The Orange Party reckons it's all a big fat lie.

Not a penny of cold hard cash has been pledged. The  IMF would print this money. No one has stumped up any new cash. It’s printing money for the cash-strapped countries on the verge of going bust after their borowing boom binge left them with crippling debt. All part of the "pure Brown-style fiscal conjuring."

A crack-down on tax havens is not a G20 initiative, it's been kicking around for a while. Banning trade barriers has already been agreed but most countries have actually increased trade barriers as the recession depression kicked in. Hedge funds should be regulated. We know that already but not a word on how.

Brown’s gold selling advice to the IMF is the most mischievous to get him off the hook. After all this was the man who single handedly sold the UK's gold reserves at a knock-down price.

Both Brown and Obama had staked their reputations on trying to get the world to sing to their hymn sheet and cough up new money. Both failed. No wonder it's been spun as a huge success. 

It all looked and sounded so good on the telly but it was supposed to. That's what media managers are for. And it looks good in some of the newspaper headlines. That's what the spinners are for. 

When reality kicks in, people struggling in a rotten economy will ask: Whatever happened about that G20 summit and the $1 trillion? What's in it for us?  The  Paul Daniels magicians answer is - not a lot. 

It was all a con. The $1 trillion sham won't save the world, won't save Brown's skin and won't save him from the unforgiving wrath of voters.  

As the clear-up begins and taxpayers are left to pick up the massive tab, Brown is just left facing the same old piles of trials but with more practised smiles. It's still the domestic economy, stupid. 

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