“Look, if you get in the way of my bonus one more time…”

While the mainstream media are busy with their news agendas and Government Information Service role, the experts are ignoring most of it. There are also encouraging signs this morning that the man/woman on the Clapham pc doesn’t believe much of it either.

At the weekend I posted to say that the US Labor Dept ‘jobs growth’ statistics don’t make sense. Bruce Kasting at Zero Hedge agrees: he points out that the Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) that’s been falling for a decade now (as the US multinationals moved production offshore) is still dropping – and acceleration. The fake US recovery is not creating net jobs growth – the pool of unemployables who don’t bother with welfare any more is still growing faster.

Yesterday, I put before Sloggers the staggering fact that 32.5 times more has been spent on QE than has been shaved off public expenditure since the Coalition came to power. Next month alone, Mervyn King will lob another five times the saving at propping up the banks stimulating an economy which appears to be an unresponsive dead horse. To draw attention away from the obscene cost of their continuing insanity, the banks are piling more pr monies into persuading us that night is day and rain is sun: ‘we can’t do business here’ they say, and ‘Freddie being shredded shows we aren’t open for business’.

It’s all bollocks of course, and the site poll of polls last night showed just how little of it  the average Joe believes: 72% supported snatching Hester’s bonus off him, and 63% applauded the Goodwin Knighthoodoctomy. Only 25% accept it has anything to do with views of Britain’s business environment, and a risible 17% think it would stop companies from investing here. And, um, if you can’t do business here, why did City job openings double in January, hmm? Eh?

Save your money banker guys – or try another tack. This one has been found out.

The markets in particular (or at least, the bits I speak to) are far more worried about the fact that Camerlot’s cunning plan to cut costs while increasing output isn’t working. All that QEing and bailing has meant the cutting achieved very little; but more to the point, the growing thing isn’t looking good. Signs of germination are rarer than the truth from Lord Mandelson.

This isn’t me being a smartarse: the process of reconfiguring the UK economy should’ve started around 2002 or even earlier, but the Brownshirts were, at the time, busy building the New Paradigm and abolishing bust by backing banking. And after 2004 – when, according to the memoirs of at least one Cabinet Minister, Brown knew what was coming – the Cyclopathic One should have introduced credit measures and regulation to stop the madness. The Tories were stuffed before they ever got into office, and then hauling the Cleggies on board ensured the boat would just go round in circles.

The markets don’t care a fig about Fred Goodwin, a bloke most of them wrote off as a prat the day he bought ABNAmro. But a story at Bloomberg this morning confirms my broader view: that the bond markets are on the verge of losing faith in the future of  UKplc.

Sterling has been floundering for much of January: it’s risen against the euro, but nobody at the Treasury is taking much heart from the fact that our currency is worth more than a sheet of Andrex. Credit managers I spoke to last week are becoming more bullish about the US (they’re wrong, see here for why) and considerably more concerned about Britain’s outlook.

But even with the impossible task it was handed in ay 2010, the Government hasn’t done itself any favours. Veteran Sloggers already know my view (held since 2008) about the cynical Zirp policy, and how – although yet again it helped the banks – it actually damaged consumption. The same polling source quoted above shows 23% of Brits feel better off with 0% interest rates, but 36% feel worse off. It’s the demographics, dummy: not only are there more empty nester folks over 50, they also have more money…and less need of credit. “Oh but we did it to help the housing market” bleats the Treasury. Oooh well, that worked well, didn’t it? Especially as the banks won’t give anyone below God a mortgage.

Last week, The Slog reported about panicking bankers trying to bend the Basel rules in order to pass the 9% liquidity test. What they wanted was a broader definition of ‘assets’ to be allowed. None of the UK majors touched the story. This morning, the FT leads with a piece affirming  that the European Banking Authority (EBA) is going to challenge the creative ‘asset’ definition being adopted by these twisters. OK, let’s quantify that: the EBA is likely to challenge half of all the figures. As dozens of specialist bloggers from Max Keiser to Zero Hedge have insisted for over a year now, the eurobanks are in a parlous state.

It looked for a while ten days ago like Draghi and Merkel might have got the banks into shape, and were thus happy to tell both Greece and its bondholders to shove it. But for most of last week, the bondholder talks were effectively first spannered and then ignored by Brussels, as it started another anti-Athens campaign of ‘suddenly we don’t like your economic numbers’. The obvious reply to that might be ‘well buddy, you caused them’: but the really bonkers part is that, having pointed out how bad the growth numbers are, the Troika now says Greece needs more austerity. Except for Lagarde, who thinks the EU needs austere stimulation. Or something.

I see this as a further vindication of my view. This is that all the ‘authorities’ involved in this alleged attempt to reach an agreement are simply filibustering. My suspicion is that the EBA told the key EU players last week just how flaky the banks’ 9% safety valves are. Again in an attempt to hide this, they’ve been on-message all weekend about how pissed off they are with “the Greeks messing about and not making progress”. Heads we win, tails you lose: the truth is that beyond Germany (and things aren’t that good even in Frankfurt) the key eurobanks are nowhere near the 9% number. So let’s play for time, play for time. Take the ball to the corner-kick flag, twiddle it about, pass it back and forth…..

But that can’t go on much longer. I was getting vibes first thing this morning that today’s Euro Working Group meeting in Brussels will have to be postponed, because the Greeks simply aren’t ready. How the f**k could they be? They don’t have a bondholders’ deal, and two of the Parties in the Papademos Coalition are flatly refusing to sign off yet further austerity measures. These blokes want to win votes in April: not surprisingly, they aren’t happy about being branded traitors.

So on the one hand we have eurobanks with sponge-cake for foundations, and an EU unable to proceed; and on the other, a paralysed Greek government ignoring some increasingly tetchy bondholders. Tickerty-boo, then. The truth of these statements is becoming more apparent – at roughly the same speed, in fact, that the bankers’ line about how like todally unfair this all is has been spotted for the falsehood it has always  represented.

Neither bankers nor pols will take the slightest notice of any of this. But there’s nothing new in that – and it will hasten their demise, so in a way we should be grateful.

Footnote: Barclays is about to announce profits of £6bn….or three-fifths of all the Coalition cuts achieved to date. You see, it’s just so damned hard to do banking business in Britain. That’s the problem.