Civil liberties in Britain further eroded

Taking a photograph of a public servant, even if it's to record his wrongdoing, is to be illegal. That's if the photograph is 'likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism'. How could you prove it wasn't?

Nazi comparisons are horrid cliches; yet my mother watched Nazism take hold as she grew up in rural East Prussia. Tyranny advances step by step, and one of its most useful allies is a natural disinclination to believe where it is heading.

Another ally of the tyrant is woolly language used in law - the freedom of the individual is in the precision of the language that grants powers to his incomparably mightier government.

I made the Gongol list!

In at 79.

Though I'll be recommending some worthier sites and so I guess I'm going down - for now.

Shoot the B******s

A piece by the columnist and Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/opinion/02krugman.html?_r=1&em

To me, it gives a strong argument for temporary state ownership.

Shares: why bother?

The Contrarian Investor raises an issue I've been pondering recently: in today's financial climate, are stocks and shares old hat? They're only a market in what companies are willing to let the public invest.

If I were a rich entrepreneur who'd been smart enough to get into cash a year or two ago, I'd be looking to take my company back into private ownership, or buy another for a suitcaseful. Who wants to be told what to do by shareholders with bees in their bonnets, institutional investors looking to maximise profits like, NOW, and other goons? It's like being in a three-legged race with the fat kid.

Venture capital - is that the place to be?

IN- vs. DE- and an upcoming opportunity

Jesse echoes my hunch: deflation now, inflation soon-ish, with high interest rates for a bit. At that latter point, get your annuity and /or bonds, and benefits as rates subside. A guess, but it's comforting to see wise owls coming to the same conclusion.

You now have our investment gameplan for what is likely to be the rest of Jesse's life.

No, no "Jesse"; live long and prosper.

Number crunching - fractional reserve banking

Supposedly, banks lend 10 times (or more) what they have on deposit. Yet in June last year, it was estimated that total UK consumer borrowing (mortgages, loans and credit cards) stood at £1.444 trillion, and in October savings and deposits reportedly totalled £1.17 trillion - a ratio of c. 1.2 to 1.

By contrast, total U.S. household debt at the beginning of last year was estimated at $14.4 trillion, and in October the Mises Institute reckoned the True Money Supply to be $5.5 trillion, a ratio of around 2.6 to 1.

On the face of it, the American consumer is in twice as dire a state as his British counterpart.

I expect that's an oversimplification - but simplicity is in very short supply. I'd like to understand more, but I can't find reliable, user-friendly data on where all the money and debt is. There's far too much secrecy, complexity and obfuscation in this business.

Gold overpriced?

Gold's price since President Nixon closed the gold window on Aug 15, 1971 has been generally higher than in the era up to then, but still very variable. If we adjust it for inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in the USA, and take September 1971 as being a "1", the mean and median values since then are of the order of 2.8 - 2.9.

Currently the gold/CPI ratio is about 4, which is somewhat above trend, though nowhere near the spikes of the early 80s. So I'd regard gold's price as a bit high for getting in now, unless you're speculating, which is not my game. But if you got in 9 years ago, well done, and I guess you'll want to hold for some time yet.