No2ID has put a full-page ad in The Spectator (p.47) saying that the Home Office plans to make issuing your next passport conditional on your agreeing to be on their super-database.
Wikipedia says, "All British passports are issued in the exercise of discretion by Her Majesty's Government under the Royal Prerogative. In any event, discretion must be exercised reasonably and not on a whim, and even though there is no statute governing the issue of passports, such prerogative powers are susceptible to the normal processes of judicial review (Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service [1985] AC 374)."
I've read somewhere that there was a time when the British could travel abroad without a passport. And according to "Stiggy" on the No2ID message board, it's still legal to do so - I'd be interested to know if this is so, and how it could be done.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
"Get out of the market" - RBS strategist
A caller to the excitable Max Keiser's show (htp: Nathan Martin) quotes from a statement by Bob Janjuah at Royal Bank of Scotland, warning clients to cash in and hunker down while the market tests "new lows". (And Jesse says "wealthy insiders are increasingly trying to liquidate investment positions to raise cash and diversify their holdings into cash and hard assets.")
Keiser got wide attention in July when he referred to Goldman Sachs as "scum" and (I think, not incorrectly) said that the practical results of some of their activities were worse than terrorist atrocities. Protests like this make no difference, except that they may relieve hearts clogged with helpless anger: what we've learned recently is that the shameless tenacity of politicians and bankers will outwear public indignation.
But society may change when everyone gives up looking to the the über-scum to help, and concentrates instead on personal benefit and survival. I think I may not even bother to vote in the next General Election.
Oh, and Nathan Martin also directs us to an article by Robert Kiyosaki, who compares the market to a dead frog galvanized by ever-higher charges of financial electricity until "Pretty soon the dead frog will be fried frog." Kiyosaki cites demographic change as a major threat in the long term.
Keiser got wide attention in July when he referred to Goldman Sachs as "scum" and (I think, not incorrectly) said that the practical results of some of their activities were worse than terrorist atrocities. Protests like this make no difference, except that they may relieve hearts clogged with helpless anger: what we've learned recently is that the shameless tenacity of politicians and bankers will outwear public indignation.
But society may change when everyone gives up looking to the the über-scum to help, and concentrates instead on personal benefit and survival. I think I may not even bother to vote in the next General Election.
Oh, and Nathan Martin also directs us to an article by Robert Kiyosaki, who compares the market to a dead frog galvanized by ever-higher charges of financial electricity until "Pretty soon the dead frog will be fried frog." Kiyosaki cites demographic change as a major threat in the long term.
How much does education matter?
Greg Mankiw thinks that correlating SATS scores and subsequent earned income misses the point that inherited intelligence are a factor in both. This appears to be supported by the graph in Alex Tabarrok's blog that shows "higher parental income predicts higher child income but only for biological children and not for adoptees."
David Davis points out that the £45,000 true cost of a university education is not always recouped by graduate earnings. (See also Charles Hugh Smith's piece, "Is Higher Education Worth a Lifetime of Debt?")
I have read that there is a positive correlation between shoe size and IQ. Public policy is to buy big shoes for everybody so they get smarter.
David Davis points out that the £45,000 true cost of a university education is not always recouped by graduate earnings. (See also Charles Hugh Smith's piece, "Is Higher Education Worth a Lifetime of Debt?")
I have read that there is a positive correlation between shoe size and IQ. Public policy is to buy big shoes for everybody so they get smarter.
Hitchens against war
Really fascinating article by Peter Hitchens today, on what the world might have looked like if Britain had not declared war in 1939. And a wonderful three-paragraph (in the print edition) pudding of complaints about our present condition:
... if we won it, how come we look back on the Second World War from conditions we might normally associate with defeat and occupation? We are a second-rate power, rapidly slipping into third-rate status. We have a weak currency and shrunken armed forces, deployed as auxiliaries in wars that are not in our interest, and we are largely governed from abroad.
Our Parliament is a bought and paid-for puppet chamber. Our culture and customs have been debauched and our younger generations corrupted, as subject populations are, with drink, drugs and promiscuity.
We are compelled, like an occupied people, to use foreign measures to buy butter or meat, and our history is largely forgotten or deliberately distorted in the schools to suit anti-British dogma. Those schools are unable to educate most of our children up to the levels of our main rivals, so ensuring that we provide no challenge to them. Our country has been Balkanised into provinces and regions. Our language is invaded by foreign words and expressions. Our food and most of our consumer goods are imported, along with our TV programmes and films.
The remaining veterans of the supposedly glorious struggle, far from being gratefully honoured, often live in pinched poverty, scared of feral youths, or die neglected in squalid hospitals in a country many of them no longer recognise as their own.
A little over-egged, but still tremendously good.
... if we won it, how come we look back on the Second World War from conditions we might normally associate with defeat and occupation? We are a second-rate power, rapidly slipping into third-rate status. We have a weak currency and shrunken armed forces, deployed as auxiliaries in wars that are not in our interest, and we are largely governed from abroad.
Our Parliament is a bought and paid-for puppet chamber. Our culture and customs have been debauched and our younger generations corrupted, as subject populations are, with drink, drugs and promiscuity.
We are compelled, like an occupied people, to use foreign measures to buy butter or meat, and our history is largely forgotten or deliberately distorted in the schools to suit anti-British dogma. Those schools are unable to educate most of our children up to the levels of our main rivals, so ensuring that we provide no challenge to them. Our country has been Balkanised into provinces and regions. Our language is invaded by foreign words and expressions. Our food and most of our consumer goods are imported, along with our TV programmes and films.
The remaining veterans of the supposedly glorious struggle, far from being gratefully honoured, often live in pinched poverty, scared of feral youths, or die neglected in squalid hospitals in a country many of them no longer recognise as their own.
A little over-egged, but still tremendously good.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
HSBC: Britain's safest bank
... at number 18 in the worldwide list. 4 of the top 10 are German; the safest US bank (Bank of New York Mellon Corp) is at #32.
Meanwhile, the Daily Finance is sanguine about the US banking system, reporting the view of several analysts that the total number of failures will merely be in the hundreds, as opposed to Nouriel Roubini's "much too high" 2008 prediction of 1,200.
Meanwhile, the Daily Finance is sanguine about the US banking system, reporting the view of several analysts that the total number of failures will merely be in the hundreds, as opposed to Nouriel Roubini's "much too high" 2008 prediction of 1,200.
Cold turkey would kill the US debt junkie
Reading Jim from San Marcos' latest, it occurs to me that debt default looks like a seriously bad idea - cutting off your nose to spite your face doesn't come into it.
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