The stock market is thoroughly corrupt; physical assets, especially those purchased with the assistance of debt, are overpriced; and the bond market looks like a mantrap. Yet even now there are economic commentators who are not in favour of protecting cash against inflation.
If sound money is not to be, then it seems to me that unless one is part of the elite battening on the financial system, sucking out wealth faster than it is diminished by inflation, impoverishment is certain.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Monday, June 11, 2012
Drugs: just say no to antidepressants
"The cost to the NHS of treating depression [includes] £230m for antidepressant drugs" - Nigel Morris, The Independent, 30 December 2011
"The prime purpose of prescribing antidepressants is to enable doctors to avoid being blamed for patients' suicides." - Dr Robert Lefever, Daily Mail, 8 June 2012
Protecting savers from inflation - an email to my MP
Request for Parliamentary question re NS&I index-linked savings certificates
Dear Mr XxxxAs one of your constituents, I should be grateful if you would ask questions in Parliament re the Government's intentions in respect of preserving our life savings against the ravages of inflation. This is especially a matter of concern because of continuing enormous financial support for the banking system, here and in other countries (latterly Spain) that seems destined to burst out as high inflation at some future point.
I note that Mr Cameron's private secretary has written recently to all members of the Cabinet saying, among other things:
"The Prime Minister wants to ensure that the Government as a whole is giving the highest priority to addressing the cost of living."
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2157018/Cameron-summits-quads-secrets-save-EU.html)
If this is so, why did National Savings & Investments withdraw Index-Linked Savings Certificates from sale on 19 July 2010, when they had previously been continuously available since 1975, a year in which RPI was 24.2%? Is this an indication that the Government expects RPI to be even worse than that figure in the intermediate future?
And why were these Certificates, somewhat grudgingly reintroduced (5-year term only) on 12 May 2011, withdrawn again on 7 September? Why are they not available now?
It is also worrying that the Government's 2011 Budget Plan (as given in Red Book Annexe B, page 90 - http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/documents/digitalasset/dg_196165.pdf) says "National Savings and Investments (NS&I) is expected to make a contribution to net finance of £2 billion."
Is this a sign that the Government is purely concerned about targets for government borrowing and not at all exercised about the protection of HMG's subjects' money savings, which in many cases have been built up slowly and with difficulty over many years. Why should simple savers have to accept risks to the real value of their deferred spending, as though they were speculators?
Is the Prime Minister's leaked pronouncement a misleading dog-whistle to the electorate, or is he really willing to put our money where his mouth is?
Protecting savers from inflation - an email to my MP
Request for Parliamentary question re NS&I index-linked savings certificates
Dear Mr XxxxAs one of your constituents, I should be grateful if you would ask questions in Parliament re the Government's intentions in respect of preserving our life savings against the ravages of inflation. This is especially a matter of concern because of continuing enormous financial support for the banking system, here and in other countries (latterly Spain) that seems destined to burst out as high inflation at some future point.
I note that Mr Cameron's private secretary has written recently to all members of the Cabinet saying, among other things:
"The Prime Minister wants to ensure that the Government as a whole is giving the highest priority to addressing the cost of living."
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2157018/Cameron-summits-quads-secrets-save-EU.html)
If this is so, why did National Savings & Investments withdraw Index-Linked Savings Certificates from sale on 19 July 2010, when they had previously been continuously available since 1975, a year in which RPI was 24.2%? Is this an indication that the Government expects RPI to be even worse than that figure in the intermediate future?
And why were these Certificates, somewhat grudgingly reintroduced (5-year term only) on 12 May 2011, withdrawn again on 7 September? Why are they not available now?
It is also worrying that the Government's 2011 Budget Plan (as given in Red Book Annexe B, page 90 - http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/documents/digitalasset/dg_196165.pdf) says "National Savings and Investments (NS&I) is expected to make a contribution to net finance of £2 billion."
Is this a sign that the Government is purely concerned about targets for government borrowing and not at all exercised about the protection of HMG's subjects' money savings, which in many cases have been built up slowly and with difficulty over many years. Why should simple savers have to accept risks to the real value of their deferred spending, as though they were speculators?
Is the Prime Minister's leaked pronouncement a misleading dog-whistle to the electorate, or is he really willing to put our money where his mouth is?
INVESTMENT DISCLOSURE: None. Still in cash (and index-linked National Savings Certificates), and missing all those day-trading opportunities.
DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content.
Friday, June 08, 2012
Watch out! Phony mobile roaming charges can cost you THOUSANDS!
A bad experience recounted by Henry Curteis of The Tap blog: a bill of £4,000 for emails to a switched-off mobile phone.
I've had pay-as-you-go for years, not just because I'm a low user but as a protection against those telephone scams that instantly charge you hundreds when you hit "reply".
I've had pay-as-you-go for years, not just because I'm a low user but as a protection against those telephone scams that instantly charge you hundreds when you hit "reply".
"Basket of currencies" a solution for Zimbabwe
According to this blog, stocks in the shops have improved since they have started to accept currency from the USA, South Africa and Botswana. Though there is a problem with small change...
New Olympic sport: pole dancing
Drop the louche allure and put on the whites, and this'd challenge the men on the pommel horse:
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
China's foreign farmland acquisitions
Back in March (Broad Oak Blog), I argued that the USA's future is not so bleak, when you consider her natural resources, especially farmland:
You can see that China's ratio is very low, and what with an expanding population, an improving diet, the grabbing of rural land by corrupt regional officials for speculative building projects, growing air and water pollution etc the demand for farmland is intensifying.
And China is doing something about it. In January, its Hong-Kong based Phoenix Weekly publication announced that 8,000 square kilometers of foreign arable land have been acquired so far, some recently in Australia (where cattlemen are arguing that the latest 400 sq mile project won't work) and New Zealand. As with all tussles over limited resources, this is bound to be controversial, so the next step is attempts to avoid scrutiny of the process.
Food prices and shortages are moving up from a Third World to a First World issue - see farmlandgrab.org for ongoing coverage from around the world. And if China should begin eyeing Russia's fertile soil?
Then there's the world of professional investment - one of the longer running funds being the CF Eclectica Agriculture Fund. This is yet another area fraught with moral dilemma - making money for you and yours (or your clients), but at the price of soaring food costs and ultimately, starvation for many. If we make a fuss about "blood diamonds", how much more so should we raise objections to "blood farmland"?
Greed, and suffering. The sooner we move away from the over-financialised economy and back to sound money, making things and exchanging our surpluses, the better.
Sunday, June 03, 2012
The Bilderberg Jubilee
Today marks the end of the 60th Bilderberg Conference.
The Alternative Action blog lists the attendees. Usefully, you can copy and paste into a spreadsheet and re-order, so that you can see how each country is represented.
Here's the GB contingent (I've added an indication of current or former interests in the right-hand column) - the two in red were the appointed "rapporteurs"for this conference:
Bearing in mind that Bilderberg is about European-North American dialogue and cooperation, do you think these people are the best to represent British interests here? Is there any voice you think should (or should not) have been included?
Or do you get the uneasy feeling that it's a convocation of cats to decide what to do about mice?
The Alternative Action blog lists the attendees. Usefully, you can copy and paste into a spreadsheet and re-order, so that you can see how each country is represented.
Here's the GB contingent (I've added an indication of current or former interests in the right-hand column) - the two in red were the appointed "rapporteurs"for this conference:
Bearing in mind that Bilderberg is about European-North American dialogue and cooperation, do you think these people are the best to represent British interests here? Is there any voice you think should (or should not) have been included?
Or do you get the uneasy feeling that it's a convocation of cats to decide what to do about mice?
Fruity language from Balloon Head Cameron
"... a court sentenced Hosni Mubarak [...] to life in prison for his role in the killing of more than 800 protestors..." - ABC News
On radio news yesterday, it was alternatively "protestors" and "demonstrators". But if it had been "rioters"? The choice of terms can make such a difference.
Yet ex-spin doctor David Cameron, supposedly an expert on presentation, said yesterday that hostage-takers like those raided by the SAS in Afghanistan could "expect a swift and brutal end".
"Brutal"? That leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
Well, English wasn't one of his A-level subjects, though presumably it was at 'O' level. Perhaps his judgment has been permanently clouded by his alleged school age cannabis consumption, for which he got 500 lines. Not white lines, obviously; though when I visited a friend in Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1970 he told me that the large Old Etonian contingent there was cliquey and very into cocaine, so one can only wonder where and when their predilection was allowed to develop.
Would you like to think like a Prime Minister? Play Fruit Ninja here!
On radio news yesterday, it was alternatively "protestors" and "demonstrators". But if it had been "rioters"? The choice of terms can make such a difference.
Yet ex-spin doctor David Cameron, supposedly an expert on presentation, said yesterday that hostage-takers like those raided by the SAS in Afghanistan could "expect a swift and brutal end".
"Brutal"? That leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
Well, English wasn't one of his A-level subjects, though presumably it was at 'O' level. Perhaps his judgment has been permanently clouded by his alleged school age cannabis consumption, for which he got 500 lines. Not white lines, obviously; though when I visited a friend in Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1970 he told me that the large Old Etonian contingent there was cliquey and very into cocaine, so one can only wonder where and when their predilection was allowed to develop.
Would you like to think like a Prime Minister? Play Fruit Ninja here!
Means and ends
1941:
"A Hauptmann (captain) with the 73rd Infantry Division reflected that peace would come even to the Balkans with a New European Order ‘so that our children would experience no more war’."
- Quoted in Anthony Beevor's "The Second World War" (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2012)
There is always this regrettable thing to do, then the lasting good will come. But it can't:
"... our personal experience and the study of history make it abundantly clear that the means whereby we try to achieve something are at least as important as the end we wish to attain. Indeed, they are even more important. For the means employed inevitably determine the nature of the result achieved, whereas, however good the end aimed at may be, its goodness is powerless to counteract the effects of the bad means we use to reach it. Similarly, a reform may be in the highest degree desirable; but if the contexts in which that reform is effected are undesirable, the results will inevitably be disappointing. These are simple and obvious truths. Nevertheless they are almost universally neglected."
- Aldous Huxley, "Ends and Means" (Chatto & Windus, 1941)
The European Project, the wholesale reordering of the British constitution (Supreme Court, House of Lords, the coming sinister National Crime Agency and so on), the international assault on Iraq - all undertaken without truthfully informed democratic consent.
The alliance with Franco against Communism, the support of the Taliban against the Russians; all these clever, disastrous calculations balancing evils. Stalin teaming up with Hitler's National Socialists against the wicked West, then ten silent, shocked days in a forest cabin when Hitler turned on him.
Procedure matters, after all. We can't guarantee a successful end, but at least we can choose what means we employ.
"A Hauptmann (captain) with the 73rd Infantry Division reflected that peace would come even to the Balkans with a New European Order ‘so that our children would experience no more war’."
- Quoted in Anthony Beevor's "The Second World War" (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2012)
There is always this regrettable thing to do, then the lasting good will come. But it can't:
"... our personal experience and the study of history make it abundantly clear that the means whereby we try to achieve something are at least as important as the end we wish to attain. Indeed, they are even more important. For the means employed inevitably determine the nature of the result achieved, whereas, however good the end aimed at may be, its goodness is powerless to counteract the effects of the bad means we use to reach it. Similarly, a reform may be in the highest degree desirable; but if the contexts in which that reform is effected are undesirable, the results will inevitably be disappointing. These are simple and obvious truths. Nevertheless they are almost universally neglected."
- Aldous Huxley, "Ends and Means" (Chatto & Windus, 1941)
The European Project, the wholesale reordering of the British constitution (Supreme Court, House of Lords, the coming sinister National Crime Agency and so on), the international assault on Iraq - all undertaken without truthfully informed democratic consent.
The alliance with Franco against Communism, the support of the Taliban against the Russians; all these clever, disastrous calculations balancing evils. Stalin teaming up with Hitler's National Socialists against the wicked West, then ten silent, shocked days in a forest cabin when Hitler turned on him.
Procedure matters, after all. We can't guarantee a successful end, but at least we can choose what means we employ.
Saturday, June 02, 2012
Derby wager
The race is to start in five minutes. I'm rooting for Minimise Risk for a place; I think it's an appropriate name, like Party Politics in the 1992 Grand National.
Update: placed last, of course. Camelot wins - is this a favourable augur for the Conservative PM?
Update: placed last, of course. Camelot wins - is this a favourable augur for the Conservative PM?
Dow 1,000 or less? Quote of the week (or century)
"If I am correct, I expect the Dow to be trading well under 1,000 by 2016. I am nailing that to my mast – and computer screen."
John Burford, Financial Trading Strategies website
John Burford, Financial Trading Strategies website
Friday, June 01, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
UK debt far worse than USA's
Reading Richard Murphy's Tax Research website, I see that Paul Krugman has graphed UK public debt since 1900 and really, it's implied, we're not in that bad a situation right now.
But you have to look at the total weight of debt in the economy, not just the government part. McKinsey did this in January and as of Q2 last year, the UK's total debt-to-GDP exceeded 500%, putting us pretty much on a par with Japan and far above eight other major economies:
And we don't have an industrial - and industrious - base like Japan's.
INVESTMENT DISCLOSURE: None. Still in cash (and index-linked National Savings Certificates), and missing all those day-trading opportunities. DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content.
But you have to look at the total weight of debt in the economy, not just the government part. McKinsey did this in January and as of Q2 last year, the UK's total debt-to-GDP exceeded 500%, putting us pretty much on a par with Japan and far above eight other major economies:
INVESTMENT DISCLOSURE: None. Still in cash (and index-linked National Savings Certificates), and missing all those day-trading opportunities. DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content.
UK debt far worse than USA's
Reading Richard Murphy's Tax Research website, I see that Paul Krugman has graphed UK public debt since 1900 and really, it's implied, we're not in that bad a situation right now.
But you have to look at the total weight of debt in the economy, not just the government part. McKinsey did this in January and as of Q2 last year, the UK's total debt-to-GDP exceeded 500%, putting us pretty much on a par with Japan and far above eight other major economies:
And we don't have an industrial - and industrious - base like Japan's.
But you have to look at the total weight of debt in the economy, not just the government part. McKinsey did this in January and as of Q2 last year, the UK's total debt-to-GDP exceeded 500%, putting us pretty much on a par with Japan and far above eight other major economies:
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