The AngloSaxon ruling class, together with a few Saudi princes, owns the world. Anyone who attempts to buy back the world is bad - unless the AngloSaxon ruling class can make a sharp profit on the deal, in which case they're good.
Human rights is a non-issue. Aside from some awkward political traditions and the threat of violence if things are pushed too far, all populations are considered disposable.
That there could be other rules does not enter their minds - or rather, should not be allowed to enter anybody else' minds. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
But Chinese, Russian and Indian billionaires are only tolerated, not welcomed.
That's very much the point of the rhetoric. The parvenu wannabes are getting uppity and demanding a bigger slice of the pie, and the artisocracy is responding with outrage and tutting.
There's no problem with something like the Barclays buy-out, because that's just paper money chasing more paper money with a High Street front for the peasants.
But when it comes to energy policy, energy is power and national security, and that's a very different board game.
It's an oddly autistic world view based very much on traditional notions of an empire with solid borders. The borders may be notional ones that slice down the middle of the trading floor - this kind of trade is allowed and welcomed, that kind of trade isn't - but empire still seems to be underlying metaphor.
No, the enemy is Gazprom, which uses minor formal offenses to turn earlier written contracts to its advantage via crude blackmail - all the more annoying when such blackmail works... and when it is a State entity that beats a private player, because it creates a dangeorus precedent. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
I'm not so sure that Mittal is accepted completely. But even if he is, the difference between him and Gazprom is that Gazprom is jostling directly for turf with Big Oil, and that's not acceptable.
It's a strategic issue being framed as a betrayal of laissez faire economic principles.
Which is of course ridiculous, because the Russians are never going to say 'Yes, of course we realise I have betrayed the spirit of Adam Smith. We will hand over whatever gas and oil you want at knock-down prices because you have shamed us into it.'
What's bizarre is that the City seems to believe that if it shouts loudly about protectionism, etc, etc, this might actually happen.
That's where the tribalism comes in. Like the US, the City seems to have no ability to understand that it may not be the only game in town, and that it won't necessarily always get its own way.
you are the media you consume.
