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John McDonnell, the future Chancellor in a Labour administration accuses the banks of creating "grotesque levels of inequality."

"If we have to take action we will. People are offended by bonuses." 

"It's become part of the culture and so separate, distinct and isolated from the rest of the real world economy, that people are so offended by it. It's a reflection of the grotesque levels of inequality that people find so offensive."

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Thoughtful opinion by experts that the rate cut or a series of rate cuts may just not do it and the economic growth will slow to 1.5% or nearer that number next year. The housing declines, lower consumer spending, and the credit crunch won't disappear with the rate cuts. The effects on the dollar are another factor. See the article on how ewe may be entering a new period in the global economy where the US slows and the rest of the world pushes ahead in the wsj Sept 20, 2007.

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Chappell cites Virat Kohli's passion for test cricket as the reason he means so much for the game. Test cricket is under severe pressure from the one day and other formats. Yet it has some dimensions that the one day format lacks such as the excitement that goes into the Ashes contest between Australia and India. Kohli is also seen as handling the pressure from having a lot of the excitement of the hundreds of millions of fans in India  watching him and behind him without getting in any way ruffled.

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For years Peter Bernstein has watched the US markets, from the postwar recession of 1958 till today. He is now 89 years old. He sees 2 culprits one is oversecuritization and the second is years of overborrowing by financial institutions and consumers alike. He rules out a V shaped business cycle. he sees an L shaped business cycle or a a flat U. It would be a flat U because it will take a long time for the memory to recover from the excesses of recent years and the consequences. He remembers the early years after World War II, it took a very long time to get the depression out of business and banking decisions. And he says one of the things that helped people take risks was the feeling that the central bank had got things right and knew what it was doing but he says the Fed too now is going to feel what it should do now is less clear. So the feeling going forward will be to be very careful. He thinks this will take a long time to clear up, much longer than people think. Not 2009, he is sure they are wrong, there has to be a respite along the way is how he puts it. He says until credit is going up instead of down you can't have growth. And he thinks housing has to be a part of this. And then there is the uncertainty. What if, what if China goes into a recession? His point that " nothing can go in one direction forever." And China has been growing like this for twenty years since the 1990's. It just does'nt go on forever. and there has to be a respite. Again here him speak: first he goes to housing, he says somehow housing has to flatten out. Then he shifts to say "we have to underpin the consumer" and with that he shifts to saying this is why its different, and to saying this is why its like nothing we have had before. And then he turns to investment, saying its investment that made the V at the bottom of the cycle but he doesn't see the consumer in the USA coming up with a positive till he has worked out the excesses of overspending. Exports or consumer overseas? He thinks they maybe too infected by us to do it. Though Asian growth will help....

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Queen Elizabeth was more comfortable with Labour prime ministers than Conservatives. This included Harold Wilson of Labour. The Queen had a prickly relationship with Margaret Thatcher. King Charles  has strong views on social issues such as housing and migration, and on climate change. Charles 75 years and Keir Starmer 61 years are shown here to have similar views on social issues in Britain. If Starmer wins the election they will meet weekly, and have much in common. The royal historian says there is a meeting of minds in terms of the social issues at stake, the plight of the people of Britain. The national anthem was played at the beginning of the Labour Conference in 2022. Sir Keir Starmer was made Queen's Counsel in 2004 and was knighted in 2014 for his services in public prosecutions. 

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The Washington Post-ABC News poll of August 29- Sept 1, shows 60% of respondents disapprove of the way the Obama administration has handled the U.S. economy. Of these 60%, half "strongly disapprove." Two to one the respondents say they are worse off today financially than at the beginning of Obama's term in 2008. This is the response to the famous Reagan question for Jimmy Carter- "are you better off today?" On the issue of the size of government and services, only 38% of respondents say they want to see a larger government with more services, and 56% say they want to see a smaller government with less services.

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The situation in urban areas of Iran- which experienced popular protests in an earlier election- before the elections in 2013.

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This report in The Guardian includes an interview with Messi who says Barcelona's management had made it very difficult for him and his family.