Sunday, June 07, 2009
Selling off the family... gold?
A disturbing piece by Rob Kirby argues that the supposed reduction in the US trade deficit is partly accounted for by surreptitious exports of gold. Worrying on two fronts: first, that the real economic situation is worse than reported, and secondly, that when the gold market takes off, there won't be much left in the US. What will happen to the dollar?
It's not going to be over by Christmas
Charles Hugh Smith thinks the current crisis will turn into a worse depression that the one of the Thirties. Citing Galbraith's study of the latter, he thinks inequality is a driving factor:
...the proximate cause was a vast income disparity which placed much of the prosperous era's profits in the hands of a small wealthy class, who then mal-invested the profits...
- in the "non-real" economy:
The financial Plutocracy, observing that actually producing goods is not very profitable unless you can fix prices [...] sinks its capital into the FIRE economy (finance, insurance and real estate), eschewing real-world investments as comparatively unprofitable.
Though rarely noted, this is a longstanding trait of capitalism stretching back to 1400-era Venice. When trade became less profitable than mainland farmimg, the Venetian Elite stopped funding trading and bought farms on the mainland. As a side effect, Venice ceased to be a military and trading power. But the Elite remained immensely wealthy.
Watch that Gini coefficient rise.
...the proximate cause was a vast income disparity which placed much of the prosperous era's profits in the hands of a small wealthy class, who then mal-invested the profits...
- in the "non-real" economy:
The financial Plutocracy, observing that actually producing goods is not very profitable unless you can fix prices [...] sinks its capital into the FIRE economy (finance, insurance and real estate), eschewing real-world investments as comparatively unprofitable.
Though rarely noted, this is a longstanding trait of capitalism stretching back to 1400-era Venice. When trade became less profitable than mainland farmimg, the Venetian Elite stopped funding trading and bought farms on the mainland. As a side effect, Venice ceased to be a military and trading power. But the Elite remained immensely wealthy.
Watch that Gini coefficient rise.
Friday, June 05, 2009
Education: wha' happen'?
Gervase Phinn, retired longtime primary schools inspector and author, has admitted (I was there) that teacher lesson ratings are a lottery; Chris Woodhead, former Chief Inspector of Schools, has recently said that OFSTED is a waste of time; primary heads have this year overwhelmingy voted to get rid of SATS.
So I thought I'd revisit the notion of corporal punishment, too. Here in the UK, we had a tiny but influential pressure group called STOPP (Society of Teachers Opposed to Physical Punishment). Its spokesman was a Tom Scott*, who used to teach in London. What do I find in the Guardian online?:
One of the leading figures in the campaign to abolish corporal punishment was Tom Scott, then a teacher in Tower Hamlets, east London, who helped set up Stopp, the Society of Teachers Opposed to Physical Punishment. Scott is believed to have quit teaching since, and retrained as a theatre director.
I've watched it all happen. The replacement of CSEs and O levels by GCSEs; the move towards, then away from continuous assessment; phonics as obligatory, then phonics as career suicide, then phonics as essential again; book-burning by heads of English in secondary schools (literally) to ensure that coursebooks could never again be used, followed by the fay ce que voudras English curriculum; then the "we'll sort the teachers out" National Curriculum; then the exploitation of the need for new textbooks by commercial publishers; then the teaching of sciences coalescing into a general science, the withering of maths, combined with introduction of PC characters in the SATS assessments to mix-in multicultural social issues...
Tosspots.
___________________________________________________
*I don't know whether he's the same Tom Scott who ran the Eye Theatre and/or later joined the BBC's whizzy digital department...
So I thought I'd revisit the notion of corporal punishment, too. Here in the UK, we had a tiny but influential pressure group called STOPP (Society of Teachers Opposed to Physical Punishment). Its spokesman was a Tom Scott*, who used to teach in London. What do I find in the Guardian online?:
One of the leading figures in the campaign to abolish corporal punishment was Tom Scott, then a teacher in Tower Hamlets, east London, who helped set up Stopp, the Society of Teachers Opposed to Physical Punishment. Scott is believed to have quit teaching since, and retrained as a theatre director.
I've watched it all happen. The replacement of CSEs and O levels by GCSEs; the move towards, then away from continuous assessment; phonics as obligatory, then phonics as career suicide, then phonics as essential again; book-burning by heads of English in secondary schools (literally) to ensure that coursebooks could never again be used, followed by the fay ce que voudras English curriculum; then the "we'll sort the teachers out" National Curriculum; then the exploitation of the need for new textbooks by commercial publishers; then the teaching of sciences coalescing into a general science, the withering of maths, combined with introduction of PC characters in the SATS assessments to mix-in multicultural social issues...
Tosspots.
___________________________________________________
*I don't know whether he's the same Tom Scott who ran the Eye Theatre and/or later joined the BBC's whizzy digital department...
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Fight
James has posted on liberty recently - an issue that underlies and will outlast all the economic turmoil of the recent and soon to come years. The prophets foretold this a century and more ago - the langorous and progressively enfolding embrace of the octopus...
Would it even be possible to hold the American revolution today? The Boston Tea Party? Imagine if George III had been able to sit in his palace across the ocean, look at the security-camera footage, press a button, and freeze the bank accounts of everyone there. Oh, well, we won’t be needing another revolt, will we? But the consequence of funding the metastasization of government through the confiscation of the fruits of the citizen’s labor is the remorseless shriveling of liberty.
Read more from the excellent and usually sharply funny Mark Steyn.
Would it even be possible to hold the American revolution today? The Boston Tea Party? Imagine if George III had been able to sit in his palace across the ocean, look at the security-camera footage, press a button, and freeze the bank accounts of everyone there. Oh, well, we won’t be needing another revolt, will we? But the consequence of funding the metastasization of government through the confiscation of the fruits of the citizen’s labor is the remorseless shriveling of liberty.
Read more from the excellent and usually sharply funny Mark Steyn.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
History Revisited?
I have just finished re-watching Jacob Bronowski's wonderful 'The Ascent of Man' series, which I first saw as a teenager.
In his segment on Isaac Newton, he notes that Newton couldn't get the attention of the rich and influential in his middle years. The reason was that there was little interest in science and technology, since so many were making fortunes in the South Sea Bubble scam.
It struck me at that moment that the disinvestment in science and technology in the US and UK for the past 30 years may be due to a similar set of cicumstances, since so much money was being conjured out of thin air, first in the dotcom bubble, and then in artificial housing prices.
In his segment on Isaac Newton, he notes that Newton couldn't get the attention of the rich and influential in his middle years. The reason was that there was little interest in science and technology, since so many were making fortunes in the South Sea Bubble scam.
It struck me at that moment that the disinvestment in science and technology in the US and UK for the past 30 years may be due to a similar set of cicumstances, since so much money was being conjured out of thin air, first in the dotcom bubble, and then in artificial housing prices.
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