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Breaking Media, Politicians & Celebrities Since 1995Tabloid news for broadsheet readers |
Money in the news and how you are going to pay and pay and pay
THE International Monetary Fund says “inflation concerns have resurfaced after years of quiescence”.
Why? Because food and energy is getting more expensive, that’s why.
Just look at the crude oil market shoot for the stars. The price of crude has reached a record of almost $124 a barrel – that’s a rise of 99 per cent in the past 12 months.
MONEY: “The Fine Violins Fund, which counts cellist Julian Lloyd Webber among its directors, has so far raised €16m (ÂŁ12.5m) towards what it hopes will be a €60m syndicate investing in the most precious pre-19th-century violins, mainly from Italy.”
Why not just buy them all?
OIL is shooting up faster than Pete Doherty in a jet. But:
“Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said yesterday that Indonesia was considering quitting OPEC because it is no longer a net oil exporter….The country is Southeast Asia’s only OPEC member. But it has to import oil because of decades of declining investment in exploration and extraction because of corruption and a weak legal system that makes oil companies wary of doing business there”. Source
Meanwhile, “Oil set a new record high of $122 a barrel on Tuesday, the latest spurt in an advance that has seen prices double over the past 12 months“. Source
“WHAT’S driving so many dads to kill the own children?” asks Allison Pearson on the Mail’s front page.
Below Allison’s smiling face, in “WE’VE LESS TO SPEND THAN FOR 17 YEARS”, readers learn: “Devastating price rises mean families have less to spend on themselves than at any time for 17 years.”
What to do…? What to do..?
US light sweet crude rose to a record of $120.36 a barrel in New York yesterday.
It then fell back (surely, swooned - Ed) to a record close of $119.97 - up $3.65.
Anyone who thinks it will end there can take the sell.
The rest of you worried about rising energy costs, rising fuels costs and why filling your lighter costs more than a pack of fags used to in 1950, can take the buy and try to earn enough to buy, well, oil.
You think oil is a stable market?
“Nigeria is the lingering hotspot the markets will be focusing on,” says MF Global analyst Ed Meir. Reports are that “rebels” have attacked oil wells and pipelines which lead export terminals.
Nigeria produces a lot of oil. If this oil cannot get to market, then there is less oil in the marketplace and those who have oil find that it is in greater demand and so worth more. Oil goes up in price.
And over in the exotic regions of Northern Iraq, the Turkish military is fighting the Kurdish insurgents.
Oil is a stable market? On the markets, 63.4 per cent of you are backing more rises.
But it’s not all about violence. There’s the US currency.
Says Damian Cox, of John Hall Associates, to the BBC: “Since about August, commodities appear to have been responding to movements in the currency markets. As the dollar has weakened, some people have moved into commodities.”
So oil is being used to hedge against the weak dollar. Which means that if the dollar begins to strengthen then oil will weaken. Right?
But if people see oil as strong they will be less likely to out their money in the US and so the dollar remains weak. Discuss.
At the time of writing, one pound equals $1.97229. That’s a little down from the 52-week high of $2.11610 but up on the 520-week low of $1.93340.
Most punters on Tradefair think the dollar will weaken against sterling.
British holidaymakers looking for alternatives to the costly euro may well agree…
WHAT does a poker chip look like to you?
It’s not a trick question, and, no, there’s no GSCE in Chipology for answers of between 200-300 words. Discuss.
It’s just that the Poker Anorak has just spotted a 20-year-old Canadian visiting her local bank.
In her hand she holds a roll of chips.
We should note that in Canada there exists the two-dollar coin, the Twonie.
The name is a cunning blend of the number “two” with the name of the Loonie, Canada’s one-dollar coin.
We should not mock. In the UK, the two pound coin has yet to earn a nickname.
Suggestions on a postcard as to what it should be called.
Back to the woman in the bank. She hands the teller the coins and makes off with the equivalent in cash, about $100.
Clever stuff.
Only she then tries the same trick again in the same bank and is collared.
Who has not be so defrauded by chips or tokens? Is there any gambler who has not sifted through their fruit machine winnings and found a Kenyan Schilling, a washer or a homemade piece of metal?
We can recall those halcyon days of 50pence parking meters, which could – we are told, yer honour – be triggered by wrapping a bent matchstick around a 10pence piece.
The question is not so much one of honesty but if poker chips have any intrinsic value, other than the number the casino has ascribed them.
What is a chip worth, and can a chip ever be worth as much as money?
Discuss.
RICHARD Littlejohn versue “pet” Polly Tonybee on the BBC.
Is there a third way?
TONY and Cherie Blair have purchased the former home of the late actor Sir John Gielgud.
The South Pavilion in Wotton Underwood, Buckinghamshire, is the Blairs’ sixth residence.
A Mr Mark Rimell, a director of country house sales for Strutt and Parker, which marketed the property after Sir John’s death there in May 2000, tells the Mail on Sunday:
“When I first viewed the property, Sir John Gielgud’s Oscar was still sitting on the windowsill in the bathroom.
“The house even had its own stage, but overall it was looking somewhat tired.”
It’s a fitting sixth home for the Blairs, especially since Mr Rimmell says the home suffers from a lack of privacy: “You can be standing in one of the public rooms of Wotton House and get a clear view of the whole garden and some of the interior of South Pavilion.”
What good a pile if the plebs can’t see the common man of the people standing in it? It’s what socialism is all about.
But what will the Blairs do with the house when they’re not in residence? Will it pay for itself?
The smart money is on Blair Towers, the New Labour theme park with:
John Prescott Croquet Lawn
John Prescott Merry Go Round - drive a peddle-powered jag around a desk and see if you can catch woman dressed as a leather KitKat
Cherie Blair Supermarket Sweep & Grabber
Jo Moore’s Burial Mound - a roller-coaster ride shaped like the Twin Towers…
* Gain free entry into the Blair holiday village by being Cliff Richard.
And many more…
CHARLES Ray Fuller, 21, of Crowley, Texas, walks into the Chase bank in the 8600 block of South Hulen Street, Fort Worth.
It is about 4pm.
He has in his possession a personal check. The check is not made out to Mr. Fuller. The bank clerk is unsure.
She contacts the check owner, the mother of Fuller’s girlfriend mother.
She says she did not write a check for… $360 billion.
That’s $360,000,000,000.00.
Police are called.
Mr. Fuller is accused of unlawful carrying of a weapon and possession of marijuana.
Mr Fuller tells the police his girlfriend’s mother gave him the money to start a record label.
Mr Fuller has a record…
BRING back the greasy spoon:
Starbucks, faced with a sharp drop-off in customers, reported on Wednesday that earnings declined 21 percent during the second quarter.
Starbucks reported that net income declined to $108.7 million, or 15 cents a share, from $150.8 million, or 19 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter. The company said revenue rose 12 percent, to $2.5 billion.
The report came just a week after Starbucks, the world’s largest coffee chain, warned of lower-than-expected earnings and cut its full-year forecast, citing a decline in quarterly sales and describing the economic environment as the weakest in the company’s history. Wall Street analysts had forecast 19 cents a share for the quarter.
And shit coffee. Don’t forget the shit watery coffee…
“SOARING PRICE OF FUEL HITS HOLIDAYS,” announces the Express on its cover.
Fuel is now so pricey that it is cheaper to stay at home, albeit with the heating switched off and your lounge given over to arable farming.
The alternative is to book a trip on a budget airline and hope that it behaves like one of the “several” airlines of its type that have gone bust, including three in the US.
With any luck you’ll be stranded in hotter climes, and so reduce your heating and petrol bills and qualify for a rebate on your council tax…
SAYS a spokesman for OGC: “It is true that it caused a few titters among some staff when viewed on its side, but on consideration we concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters OGC - and it is not inappropriate to an organisation that’s looking to have a firm grip on Government spend.”
Brand expert Michael Hamilton tells the Telegraph: “They’re going to get more column inches than they could ever have expected before. If I were them, I would be pretty pleased.”
Fnar…
HAS anyone notified Ann Summers, purveyors of marital aides, inflatable training sheep and other novelties, that McDonald’s has a new uniform out?
The Mirror has a picture of the outfits and their designer Bruce Oldfield.
The paper says that Oldfield has “dressed Princess Diana, Catherine Zeta Jones and Jerry Hall”, and who cannot imagine any of those stars decked out in smart McDonald’s grey and beige?
Indeed, with the right latex model, wig and Little Mac Outfit, meat sandwich enthusiasts can create your own McDonald’s tableau, with Diana on chips, Hall on apple pies and Zeta Jones on pickles…
CHARLES Arthur: “The scary thing about the following is that it’s now an underestimate. So, start reading:
Imagine that we live in a world in which, owing to genetic mutation, income translates directly into height. The richer you are, the taller you are. Then imagine that the entire population of Britain marches past you, in the course of an hour, ranked in order of their income. What sort of procession would you see?
SAYS ALEX Singleton:
It is not the level of wealth that makes us happy. Instead, it is the process of betterment - the pursuit of it - that makes us happy. Whether we are twice as rich today as in 1971 has little bearing on our happiness, because it is in the past. Whether people can see their lives improving in the future is what counts. That is why economic growth remains a key component in happiness, despite what the happiness researchers might tell us.
DIZZY nots that DirectGov have launched a aservice that allows you to watch Government campaigns videos on your mobile:
Text ‘VIDEO’ to 64746 to download and share Directgov videos on your mobile. Standard network rates apply
Apparently you will be able to get videos such as “DVLA – Car Tax Evasion Campaign”. Honestly, I’m deadly serious.
Now tell me this. What sort of person is going to pay to text the Government and then pay network rates on top to watch a video telling them that is naughty to evade paying road tax?
“RATE cut demand as property prices slide,” says the Times’ front-page warning.
Little need to refurbish that rundown two-bed flat to sell or rent, especially now that everyone’s got one. But what else to do with the DIY money?
Says the Mail’s headline: “Woman took out £4,500 home improvement loan to pay for a hitman to kill husband.”
In Assassination, Assassination, Assassination, Phil and Kirsty catch up with Zoe Kenealy, who is looking at ways to spend the cash she was loaned by a finance firm to install a new bathroom.
The money instead went to her lover Lee Waite - who lived next door with his wife Marie (more on his home later). Mr Waite may well be a dab hand at grouting, but the money was to arrange her husband Timothy’s murder for ÂŁ10,000.
CORPORATE lawyers are not drones - well, not just drones:
You want to help make society a better place? You want to eliminate poverty? Become a corporate lawyer. Help businesses grow, so that they can create jobs and provide goods and services that make people’s lives better.
A corporate lawyer not only serves the public interest by helping to create new wealth, we also help defend an important social institution from statism. . . . Those whose livelihood depends on corporate enterprise cannot be neutral about political systems. Only democratic capitalist societies permit voluntary formation of private corporations and allot them a sphere of economic liberty within which to function, which gives those who value such enterprises a powerful incentive to resist both statism and socialism. Because tyranny is far more likely to come from the public sector than the private, those who for selfish reasons strive to maintain both a democratic capitalist society and, of particular relevance to the present argument, a substantial sphere of economic liberty therein serve the public interest.
Makes sense…