Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems

Culled from Guardian Imagine if the people of the Soviet Union had never heard of communism. The ideology that dominates our lives has, for most of us, no name. Mention it in conversation and you’ll be rewarded with a shrug. Even if your listeners have heard the term before, they will struggle to define it. Neoliberalism: do you know what it is? Its anonymity is both a symptom and cause of its power. It has played a major role in a remarkable variety of crises: the financial meltdown of 2007‑8, the offshoring of wealth and power, of which the Panama Papers offer us merely a glimpse, the slow collapse of public health and education, resurgent child poverty, the epidemic of loneliness, the collapse of ecosystems, the rise of Donald Trump. But we respond to these crises as if they emerge in isolation, apparently unaware that they have all been either catalysed or exacerbated by the same coherent philosophy; a philosophy that has – or had – a name. What greater power can there be than to operate namelessly? Inequality is recast as virtuous. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve. So pervasive has neoliberalism become that we seldom even recognise it as an ideology. We appear to accept the proposition that this utopian, millenarian faith describes a neutral force; a kind of biological law, like Darwin’s theory of evolution. But the philosophy arose as a conscious attempt to reshape human life and shift the locus of power. Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that “the market” delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning. Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve. We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages – such as education, inheritance and class – that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances. Never mind structural unemployment: if you don’t have a job it’s because you are unenterprising. Never mind the impossible costs of housing: if your credit card is maxed out, you’re feckless and improvident. Never mind that your children no longer have a school playing field: if they get fat, it’s your fault. In a world governed by competition, those who fall behind become defined and self-defined as losers. Among the results, as Paul Verhaeghe documents in his book What About Me? are epidemics of self-harm, eating disorders, depression, loneliness, performance anxiety and social phobia. Perhaps it’s unsurprising that Britain, in which neoliberal ideology has been most rigorously applied, is the loneliness capital of Europe. We are all neoliberals now. The term neoliberalism was coined at a meeting in Paris in 1938. Among the delegates were two men who came to define the ideology, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. Both exiles from Austria, they saw social democracy, exemplified by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and the gradual development of Britain’s welfare state, as manifestations of a collectivism that occupied the same spectrum as nazism and communism. In The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944, Hayek argued that government planning, by crushing individualism, would lead inexorably to totalitarian control. Like Mises’s book Bureaucracy, The Road to Serfdom was widely read. It came to the attention of some very wealthy people, who saw in the philosophy an opportunity to free themselves from regulation and tax. When, in 1947, Hayek founded the first organisation that would spread the doctrine of neoliberalism – the Mont Pelerin Society – it was supported financially by millionaires and their foundations. With their help, he began to create what Daniel Stedman Jones describes in Masters of the Universe as “a kind of neoliberal international”: a transatlantic network of academics, businessmen, journalists and activists. The movement’s rich backers funded a series of thinktanks which would refine and promote the ideology. Among them were the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Centre for Policy Studies and the Adam Smith Institute. They also financed academic positions and departments, particularly at the universities of Chicago and Virginia. As it evolved, neoliberalism became more strident. Hayek’s view that governments should regulate competition to prevent monopolies from forming gave way – among American apostles such as Milton Friedman – to the belief that monopoly power could be seen as a reward for efficiency. Something else happened during this transition: the movement lost its name. In 1951, Friedman was happy to describe himself as a neoliberal. But soon after that, the term began to disappear. Stranger still, even as the ideology became crisper and the movement more coherent, the lost name was not replaced by any common alternative. At first, despite its lavish funding, neoliberalism remained at the margins. The postwar consensus was almost universal: John Maynard Keynes’s economic prescriptions were widely applied, full employment and the relief of poverty were common goals in the US and much of western Europe, top rates of tax were high and governments sought social outcomes without embarrassment, developing new public services and safety nets. But in the 1970s, when Keynesian policies began to fall apart and economic crises struck on both sides of the Atlantic, neoliberal ideas began to enter the mainstream. As Friedman remarked, “when the time came that you had to change ... there was an alternative ready there to be picked up”. With the help of sympathetic journalists and political advisers, elements of neoliberalism, especially its prescriptions for monetary policy, were adopted by Jimmy Carter’s administration in the US and Jim Callaghan’s government in Britain. It may seem strange that a doctrine promising choice should have been promoted with the slogan 'there is no alternative' After Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan took power, the rest of the package soon followed: massive tax cuts for the rich, the crushing of trade unions, deregulation, privatisation, outsourcing and competition in public services. Through the IMF, the World Bank, the Maastricht treaty and the World Trade Organisation, neoliberal policies were imposed – often without democratic consent – on much of the world. Most remarkable was its adoption among parties that once belonged to the left: Labour and the Democrats, for example. As Stedman Jones notes, “it is hard to think of another utopia to have been as fully realised.” It may seem strange that a doctrine promising choice and freedom should have been promoted with the slogan “there is no alternative”. But, as Hayek remarked on a visit to Pinochet’s Chile – one of the first nations in which the programme was comprehensively applied – “my personal preference leans toward a liberal dictatorship rather than toward a democratic government devoid of liberalism”. The freedom that neoliberalism offers, which sounds so beguiling when expressed in general terms, turns out to mean freedom for the pike, not for the minnows. Freedom from trade unions and collective bargaining means the freedom to suppress wages. Freedom from regulation means the freedom to poison rivers, endanger workers, charge iniquitous rates of interest and design exotic financial instruments. Freedom from tax means freedom from the distribution of wealth that lifts people out of poverty. Naomi Klein documented that neoliberals advocated the use of crises to impose unpopular policies while people were distracted. As Naomi Klein documents in The Shock Doctrine, neoliberal theorists advocated the use of crises to impose unpopular policies while people were distracted: for example, in the aftermath of Pinochet’s coup, the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina, which Friedman described as “an opportunity to radically reform the educational system” in New Orleans. Where neoliberal policies cannot be imposed domestically, they are imposed internationally, through trade treaties incorporating “investor-state dispute settlement”: offshore tribunals in which corporations can press for the removal of social and environmental protections. When parliaments have voted to restrict sales of cigarettes, protect water supplies from mining companies, freeze energy bills or prevent pharmaceutical firms from ripping off the state, corporations have sued, often successfully. Democracy is reduced to theatre. Neoliberalism was not conceived as a self-serving racket, but it rapidly became one. Another paradox of neoliberalism is that universal competition relies upon universal quantification and comparison. The result is that workers, job-seekers and public services of every kind are subject to a pettifogging, stifling regime of assessment and monitoring, designed to identify the winners and punish the losers. The doctrine that Von Mises proposed would free us from the bureaucratic nightmare of central planning has instead created one. Neoliberalism was not conceived as a self-serving racket, but it rapidly became one. Economic growth has been markedly slower in the neoliberal era (since 1980 in Britain and the US) than it was in the preceding decades; but not for the very rich. Inequality in the distribution of both income and wealth, after 60 years of decline, rose rapidly in this era, due to the smashing of trade unions, tax reductions, rising rents, privatisation and deregulation. The privatisation or marketisation of public services such as energy, water, trains, health, education, roads and prisons has enabled corporations to set up tollbooths in front of essential assets and charge rent, either to citizens or to government, for their use. Rent is another term for unearned income. When you pay an inflated price for a train ticket, only part of the fare compensates the operators for the money they spend on fuel, wages, rolling stock and other outlays. The rest reflects the fact that they have you over a barrel. Those who own and run the UK’s privatised or semi-privatised services make stupendous fortunes by investing little and charging much. In Russia and India, oligarchs acquired state assets through firesales. In Mexico, Carlos Slim was granted control of almost all landline and mobile phone services and soon became the world’s richest man. Financialisation, as Andrew Sayer notes in Why We Can’t Afford the Rich, has had a similar impact. “Like rent,” he argues, “interest is ... unearned income that accrues without any effort”. As the poor become poorer and the rich become richer, the rich acquire increasing control over another crucial asset: money. Interest payments, overwhelmingly, are a transfer of money from the poor to the rich. As property prices and the withdrawal of state funding load people with debt (think of the switch from student grants to student loans), the banks and their executives clean up. Sayer argues that the past four decades have been characterised by a transfer of wealth not only from the poor to the rich, but within the ranks of the wealthy: from those who make their money by producing new goods or services to those who make their money by controlling existing assets and harvesting rent, interest or capital gains. Earned income has been supplanted by unearned income. Neoliberal policies are everywhere beset by market failures. Not only are the banks too big to fail, but so are the corporations now charged with delivering public services. As Tony Judt pointed out in Ill Fares the Land, Hayek forgot that vital national services cannot be allowed to collapse, which means that competition cannot run its course. Business takes the profits, the state keeps the risk. The greater the failure, the more extreme the ideology becomes. Governments use neoliberal crises as both excuse and opportunity to cut taxes, privatise remaining public services, rip holes in the social safety net, deregulate corporations and re-regulate citizens. The self-hating state now sinks its teeth into every organ of the public sector. Perhaps the most dangerous impact of neoliberalism is not the economic crises it has caused, but the political crisis. As the domain of the state is reduced, our ability to change the course of our lives through voting also contracts. Instead, neoliberal theory asserts, people can exercise choice through spending. But some have more to spend than others: in the great consumer or shareholder democracy, votes are not equally distributed. The result is a disempowerment of the poor and middle. As parties of the right and former left adopt similar neoliberal policies, disempowerment turns to disenfranchisement. Large numbers of people have been shed from politics. Chris Hedges remarks that “fascist movements build their base not from the politically active but the politically inactive, the ‘losers’ who feel, often correctly, they have no voice or role to play in the political establishment”. When political debate no longer speaks to us, people become responsive instead to slogans, symbols and sensation. To the admirers of Trump, for example, facts and arguments appear irrelevant. Advertisement Report this ad Judt explained that when the thick mesh of interactions between people and the state has been reduced to nothing but authority and obedience, the only remaining force that binds us is state power. The totalitarianism Hayek feared is more likely to emerge when governments, having lost the moral authority that arises from the delivery of public services, are reduced to “cajoling, threatening and ultimately coercing people to obey them”. Like communism, neoliberalism is the God that failed. But the zombie doctrine staggers on, and one of the reasons is its anonymity. Or rather, a cluster of anonymities. The invisible doctrine of the invisible hand is promoted by invisible backers. Slowly, very slowly, we have begun to discover the names of a few of them. We find that the Institute of Economic Affairs, which has argued forcefully in the media against the further regulation of the tobacco industry, has been secretly funded by British American Tobacco since 1963. We discover that Charles and David Koch, two of the richest men in the world, founded the institute that set up the Tea Party movement. We find that Charles Koch, in establishing one of his thinktanks, noted that “in order to avoid undesirable criticism, how the organisation is controlled and directed should not be widely advertised”. The nouveau riche were once disparaged by those who had inherited their money. Today, the relationship has been reversed The words used by neoliberalism often conceal more than they elucidate. “The market” sounds like a natural system that might bear upon us equally, like gravity or atmospheric pressure. But it is fraught with power relations. What “the market wants” tends to mean what corporations and their bosses want. “Investment”, as Sayer notes, means two quite different things. One is the funding of productive and socially useful activities, the other is the purchase of existing assets to milk them for rent, interest, dividends and capital gains. Using the same word for different activities “camouflages the sources of wealth”, leading us to confuse wealth extraction with wealth creation. A century ago, the nouveau riche were disparaged by those who had inherited their money. Entrepreneurs sought social acceptance by passing themselves off as rentiers. Today, the relationship has been reversed: the rentiers and inheritors style themselves entre preneurs. They claim to have earned their unearned income. These anonymities and confusions mesh with the namelessness and placelessness of modern capitalism: the franchise model which ensures that workers do not know for whom they toil; the companies registered through a network of offshore secrecy regimes so complex that even the police cannot discover the beneficial owners; the tax arrangements that bamboozle governments; the financial products no one understands. The anonymity of neoliberalism is fiercely guarded. Those who are influenced by Hayek, Mises and Friedman tend to reject the term, maintaining – with some justice – that it is used today only pejoratively. But they offer us no substitute. Some describe themselves as classical liberals or libertarians, but these descriptions are both misleading and curiously self-effacing, as they suggest that there is nothing novel about The Road to Serfdom, Bureaucracy or Friedman’s classic work, Capitalism and Freedom. For all that, there is something admirable about the neoliberal project, at least in its early stages. It was a distinctive, innovative philosophy promoted by a coherent network of thinkers and activists with a clear plan of action. It was patient and persistent. The Road to Serfdom became the path to power. Neoliberalism, Locke and the Green party Letters: For neoliberals to claim that their view supports the current distribution of property and power is almost as bonkers as the Lockean theory of property itself Neoliberalism’s triumph also reflects the failure of the left. When laissez-faire economics led to catastrophe in 1929, Keynes devised a comprehensive economic theory to replace it. When Keynesian demand management hit the buffers in the 70s, there was an alternative ready. But when neoliberalism fell apart in 2008 there was ... nothing. This is why the zombie walks. The left and centre have produced no new general framework of economic thought for 80 years. Every invocation of Lord Keynes is an admission of failure. To propose Keynesian solutions to the crises of the 21st century is to ignore three obvious problems. It is hard to mobilise people around old ideas; the flaws exposed in the 70s have not gone away; and, most importantly, they have nothing to say about our gravest predicament: the environmental crisis. Keynesianism works by stimulating consumer demand to promote economic growth. Consumer demand and economic growth are the motors of environmental destruction. What the history of both Keynesianism and neoliberalism show is that it’s not enough to oppose a broken system. A coherent alternative has to be proposed. For Labour, the Democrats and the wider left, the central task should be to develop an economic Apollo programme, a conscious attempt to design a new system, tailored to the demands of the 21st century. • George Monbiot’s How Did We Get into This Mess? is published this month by Verso. To order a copy for £12.99 (RRP £16.99) ) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.

A priceless reaction of deaf baby boy hearing his mom's voice for first time

A priceless reaction of deaf baby boy hearing his mom's voice for first time pic.twitter.com/RIRkf14ypN

— Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) August 27, 2016

Carl Lewis raises doubts over Usain Bolt's record-setting performance

Culled from Telegraph...

Usain Bolt's reign as the Olympic champion and world record holder in both the 100m and 200m has lasted a mere few weeks before questions over the veracity of his achievements overtook the fleet-footed Jamaican.

Asking questions: Retired American sprinter Carl Lewis says the absence of stringent drug-testing programmes in Usain Bolt's native Jamaica raises questions about his performances Photo: Getty Images

By Robert Galster and agencies

6:03PM BST 12 Sep 2008

And while behind-the-scenes whispers have featured in the wake of all record-setting performances on the track in recent years, few insiders would give voice to these without a positive drugs test to back up the doubts.

However, the absence of a positive test has not stopped Carl Lewis, the retired American sprinter who dominated the sport through much of the 1980s, from expressing strong doubts over Bolt's mesmerising performances in Beijing. Speaking to US magazine Sports Illustarted, Lewis based his statements on the relative absence of stringent drug-testing programmes in Bolt's native Jamaica.

"No one is accusing anyone. But don't live by a different rule and expect the same kind of respect. They (Jamaican track officials) say, "Oh, we've been great for the sport." No, you have not. No country has had that kind of dominance. I'm not saying they've done anything for certain. I don't know. But how dare anybody feel that there shouldn't be scrutiny, especially in our sport?

"The reality is that if I were running now, and had the performances I had in my past, I would expect them to say something. I wouldn't even be offended at the question. So when people ask me about Bolt, I say he could be the greatest athlete of all-time. But for someone to run 10.03 one year and 9.69 the next, if you don't question that in a sport that has the reputation it has right now, you're a fool. Period."

Lewis, who was cleared of positive tests for stimulants ahead of the 1988 Olympics, added that sprinting's recent past should automatically raise doubts over any extarordinary performance on the track. And Bolt's runs in Beijing were certainly that.

"Let's be real. Let me go through the list: Ben Johnson, Justin Gatlin, Tim Montgomery, Tyson Gay and the two Jamaicans. Six people have run under 9.80 legally, three have tested positive, and one had a year out," Lewis said.

"Not to say [Bolt] is doing anything, but he's not going to have me saying he's great and then two years later he gets popped. If I don't trust it, what does the public think?"

For their part, the IOC ensured that Jamaican sprinters were chosen for blood-testing in Beijing, but none returned positive tests.

Lewis also questioned the performances of Jamaica's female sprinters who like their male compatriots also train in the absence of a random drug-teasting programme.

"I'm proud of America right now because we have the best random and most comprehensive drug testing program. Countries like Jamaica do not have a random program, so they can go months without being tested. I'm not saying anyone is on anything, but everyone needs to be on a level playing field.

“Veronica Campbell-Brown lives in the United States and has been transparent and consistent. She won the worlds last year in the 100 metres and this year can’t even make the (Jamaican) team. Are you going to tell me that shouldn’t be questioned?”

Lewis' comments are likely to case a stir in Jamaica as well as much of the athletics world but the winner of nine Olympic gold medals is unrepentant.

"People forget that I was the first one to speak out about Ben [Johnson], and I got crucified," Lewis said. "A year later, I was a prophet. The athletes have to say, 'No, this isn't right.' They know who's on it. They need to step up."

Thus far, no one has leaving Lewis on his own.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/athletics/2826070/Carl-Lewis-questions-Usain-Bolts-record-setting-performances.html

Recommended steps President Muhammadu Buhari must take to revive the Nigerian economy.

Muhammad Sanusi II, emir of Kano and former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has recommended steps President Muhammadu Buhari must take to revive the Nigerian economy.

In a document acquired by TheCable, as presented at the meetings of the Joint Planning Board (JPB) and National Council on Development Planning (NCDP), Sanusi highlighted the problems with economy, proffering solutions for the Buhari-led admin.

ELIMINATE WASTEFUL AND ABUSE-PRONE SUBSIDIES

Sanusi highlighted the abuse of subsidies in Nigeria and the need to totally put an end to subsidy regimes. He applauded Buhari for the steps taken so far on subsidy, which has become visible in Nigeria’s consumption pattern.

“The Buhari administration has already made great progress in stopping the fraud associated with the subsidy regime,” Sanusi said.

“PMS import volumes have fallen from an average of 57 million litres/day in 2011 to 35 million litres/day in 2016. This is an achievement. The next step should be a full and unequivocal elimination of subsidy regime.”

Source: NBS

FIX FAILURES IN THE POWER SECTOR VALUE CHAIN, STARTING WITH DISCOs

Sanusi said the president’s team must “petition for a specific debt raising programme to address unpaid arrears. Until this happens no new investment can take place”.

“Raise public awareness about the necessity of cost-reflective tariffs, including the hike in 2016. Raise fresh capital to pay off arrears to Gencos. These are N235bn and building. The higher the tariffs go (as they are bound to do) the more quickly they will build,” he said.

“Until these backlogs are paid, no one is going to invest in new generation capacity. Force Disco owners to make stipulated investments in metering. What I’m told is that many disco owners have failed to honour their terms of the agreement, both in investing in metering and upgrading the old infrastructure.

“Until this failure in the value chain is addressed, collection rates will never be good enough to achieve cost recovery, and the government/NBET will always be on the hook for the shortfall.”

He also called for a resolution of gas supply issues.

DIGITISE STATE LAND REGISTRIES, STREAMLINE RELEVANT LEGISLATION

Quoting World Bank’s Doing Business index, Sanusi said: “Nigeria remains one of the most difficult countries in which to register property. State governments can do something about this.

“In fact, Lagos State has already taken great strides towards simplifying the procedure of registering land by merging all relevant laws into a single piece of legislation.”

He asked that land registries be taken online and made easier for businesses in Nigeria.

RE-PRIORITISE PUBLIC SPENDING TOWARDS INVESTMENT IN HUMAN CAPITAL

“In Nigeria, the public sector wage bill went up from N443bn in 2005 to N1.659 trillion in 2012, driven by a 53% increase in civil servants’ wages in 2010,” he said.

“The government has consistently prioritised recurrent expenditure over investment – all the more so in times of economic difficulty and leading up to elections.”

He called for investment in human capital if Nigeria must make its way out of this economic quagmire.

PRIVATE SECTOR INVESTMENT IN CAPITAL EXPENDITURE

“The economy has quadrupled in nominal terms since 2005, and the population has grown by over 40 million, but capex has barely changed.

“The major problem for Nigeria is revenue. Across all 3 levels of government, it collected just US$117 per person in 2015, and invested US$17. Kenya, with half of Nigeria’s level of wealth on paper, collected almost twice as much in taxes.

“If Nigeria is going to adopt an investment-driven model, it cannot rely on the public sector alone.”

Sanusi urged Buhari’s men to let the private sector also drive investment.

SET FX RATE TO INCENTIVISE CAPITAL INFLOWS, CATALYSE FDI

“Nigeria has made dramatic changes to its FX regime, moving from a hard peg to a free float. These bold steps have gone a long way to restoring its credibility.

“On a trade and inflation weighted basis, the naira has gone from one of the most over-valued currencies in the world to one that is now under-valued.

“A major barrier to bringing capital in from abroad has been removed; a major incentive to take capital out has also been removed.”

He said such incentives must be maintained as government set interest rates at levels that deter capital flight, dollarization.

BEWARE OF CHINA… PROTECT INFANT INDUSTRIES

“Beyond fixing the basic supply side issues, Nigeria also needs to take measures to protect its infant industries.

“Large surplus countries like China have been using the promise of investment and cheap debt to gain unfettered access to Africa’s local markets.

“But the relationship has become imbalanced. Without manufacturing capacity of its own, Africa can never provide meaningful employment for its youth.

“Successful policies in cement and auto assembly should be replicated for petro-chemicals and agro-processing.”

He concluded that government must get the appropriate macro policies in place and create a supportive business environment.

Follow us on twitter @thecableng

Copyright 2016 TheCable. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.thecable.ng as the source.

Sir Richard Branson told today of how he feared he would die when he was involved in a horrific bicycle crash.

The Virgin tycoon and entrepreneur, 66, crashed head first onto a road while he was on a training cycle run with his two adult children Holly and Sam on Monday. 

Sir Richard was cycling on the British Virgin Islands when the incident happened on Monday (Virgin.Com/PA Wire)

He was left with a badly damaged cheek and suffered severe cuts to his knee, chin, shoulder and body in the accident on Virgin Gorda, one of the British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean.

Sir Richard said: "I was heading down a hill towards Leverick Bay when it suddenly got really dark and I managed to hit a sleeping policeman hump in the road head on.

"The next thing I knew, I was being hurled over the handlebars and my life was literally flashing before my eyes.

"I really thought I was going to die. I went flying head-first towards the concrete road, but fortunately my shoulder and cheek took the brunt of the impact, and I was wearing a helmet that saved my life.

"My bike went flying off the cliff and disappeared. We've since recovered the crumpled bicycle, completely destroyed. 

“My cheek has been badly damaged and my knee, chin, shoulder and body severely cut." 

He said the first person to arrive on the scene after the crash was his assistant Helen Clarke, who he claimed to have told: “I’m alive! At least you’ve still got a job.”

He added: “She was wondering who was lying prostrate on the road. I was so glad to be alive that I quickly was able to summon my sense of humour."

He travelled to Miami, USA for x-rays and scans, and described himself as "extremely fortunate" to have only suffered a cracked cheek and torn ligaments.

Sir Richard said: "My biggest hardship is having to drink tea out of a straw."

He was cycling with his children as part of his training for next month's Virgin Strive Challenge, an endurance event from the base of the Matterhorn in the Alps to the summit of Mount Etna in Sicily, Italy.

He still hopes to take part in the event.

The crash happened on Monday, the day before Sir Richard's Twitter account posted CCTV images appearing to show Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn walking past empty unreserved train seats before he was filmed sitting on the floor complaining about "ram-packed" carriages on a Virgin Trains service.

It was also the fifth anniversary of the fire which destroyed his luxury home on Necker Island.

Sir Richard joked: "What a way to mark it!"

Happy Birthday, Mr Speaker, Adeniyi Adewumi

Words feel inadequate to convey my thoughts on this day. I was not the closest of your friends, in fact I was an opponent but that never masked my respect for your intellectual agility which enabled you to own many a space where arguments were proferred.  You laced your articulation, dynamism and consistency in battle, with kindness and compassion. Your rimmed frame of glasses cloaked your determination but never deterred it, your smile conveyed assurance and not weaknesss. From the rising of the day to its going down we will remember you. Happy birthday to a worthy opponent, a gallant friend and a great man..

Trump’s ‘Unlimited’ Wealth May Not Be Enough To Fund His Campaign

“There is a real question about how much he has in terms of liquid assets.”

 06/23/2016 09:34 am ET | Updated Jun 23, 2016

SPENCER PLATT VIA GETTY IMAGES

New York real estate developer Donald Trump says he has “unlimited”
personal wealth to fund his White House run, but a Reuters review of his
financial disclosures suggests he does not have enough cash to see his
campaign through to Election Day.

Trump this week dismissed concerns about his campaign finances
after electoral filings showed he raised just $3 million in individual
contributions in May and had a war chest of only $1 million at the end
of the month. His Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, raised $26 million
and ended May with a war chest of $42 million.

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee who says he is worth
about $10 billion, said in a statement on Tuesday that “if need be, t
here could be unlimited ‘cash on hand’ as I would put up my own money.”

Trump had cash and other liquid investments - money in funds, equities
and cash - worth $60 million to $180 million in May, according to his filings
with the Office of Government Ethics. The form does not require
candidates to give precise values for their assets, only ranges.

If President Barack Obama’s spending in his successful re-election
bid in 2012 election is any guide, then Trump is a few hundred million dollars
short. Obama spent almost $600 million between June and November 2012,
according to Federal Election Commission filings.

Trump’s campaign declined to comment for this story but referred to
his earlier statement, in which he said his White House bid costs less than
a traditional one because it is “leaner and more efficient.”

If Trump did decide to self-finance his campaign, he could, in theory,
tap the hundreds of millions dollars of revenue he says is generated
annually by his businesses.

But it’s not clear how much of this revenue he could use.
Business owners can take money out of a business only after
deducting operating costs and taxes. Even then, much of an
entrepreneur’s corporate earnings are often used to invest in
building their businesses and maintaining their property assets.

Trump’s liquid assets stood at $80 million to $230 million in July last year,
according to an earlier electoral filing. Using the midpoint of the ranges,
Trump’s liquid assets have fallen $35 million in the past year.

The drop shows his campaign spending so far has already been
funded in part by dipping into savings, rather than solely from his income.

“There is a real question about how much he has in terms of liquid
assets,” said Norman Ornstein, a political scholar and expert in
political finance at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative
think tank in Washington, citing the regulatory filings, which do
not give a precise picture of Trump’s wealth.

“It’s quite possible that he doesn’t have anywhere near what
he suggests he has and what he does have is tied up in real estate,
and selling that is no easy task,” he said.

As a result, a more likely scenario would be Trump trying to
borrow the funds, which could be probably done more quickly than
trying to sell one of his buildings, he added.

Jan Baran, a former general counsel with the Republican National Committee,
said Trump may not need as much money as people think.

“He’s breaking the mold on everything ... he has proven that spending
large sums of money does not guarantee success,” Baran said, referring
to how Trump defeated well-funded Republican rivals such as former
Florida Governor Jeb Bush in the early nominating contests, or primaries.

If Trump does not use his own money, he can seek donations, the traditional fund-raising route. Individual donors can contribute $2,700 each to his general election campaign.

Trump has also signed a joint fundraising agreement with the Republican National Committee. The RNC currently has $20 million in cash, money that will be used to help elect Trump and Republican lawmakers across the country.

Trump could also benefit if external groups like Super PACs raise
money to campaign on his behalf. However, Trump has not yet blessed
a Super PAC.

THE GROUND GAME

Trump has spent around $63 million so far in his presidential bid, including $46 million in loans he made to his campaign, FERC data shows.

Typically, television advertising and creating infrastructure at a state and local level to mobilize voters are the most expensive aspects of a U.S. presidential campaign. TV networks charge high fees for prime time slots and many ground troops needed to bring out the voters must be paid.

So far Trump has not needed to spend much on television advertising - his fiery rhetoric on illegal immigrants and what he says are the security risks posed by refugees from the Middle East have guaranteed him blanket media coverage.

Daniel Weiner, a campaign finance expert at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice said you can get only so far with free media in an election.

“TV advertising has been decreasing in importance for a long time, but the get-out-the vote stuff is crucial, particularly in an election that people perceive as being more about motivating their core voters, as opposed to winning over swing voters. And what we call ‘the ground game’ is quite expensive,” he said.

Trump has said he plans to outsource some of that ground game to the RNC, for example relying on their field staff in battleground states to help get out the vote.

BANKING ON BUILDINGS

Trump has significant real estate holdings, which he says have low debt on them. With Election Day on Nov. 8 now just four months away, some real estate experts say selling them to generate cash would be a challenge.

But several bankers say Trump could conceivably borrow hundreds of millions against them, despite his history of business bankruptcies and litigation with lenders.

Exactly how much he could borrow, how easily and at what interest rates depends on how much Trump owns of the buildings that he cites as his own and how much debt he has.

“You have years of prosperity and you have all of these alternative lenders and you have banks that are hungry for loans,” said one veteran banking executive, who was not permitted to speak on the record.”

If Trump needs to borrow tens of millions of dollars, he probably can, the executive said. “If it is hundreds of millions, that’s another matter.”

(Additional reporting by David Henry and Grant Smith in New York, Ginger Gibson in Washington; Editing by Ross Colvin)