Upper class crime dwarfs underclass crime

In the last two posts, I hope I've shown that the incompetence and greed of the financial sector has recently cost more in money than all the crime in the UK put together, and thousands of innocent lives to boot. I don't suppose that the deaths were intentional, but there is such a thing as criminal negligence, and if bankers and traders don't understand what they're doing they shouldn't be doing it, any more than useless paediatric surgeons.

Why are there not mass trials for corporate manslaughter, and utterly crushing fines and compensation claims against the "too-big-to-fail" banks and their senior employees and directors? And why are they too big to fail? I don't see why we couldn't set up entirely new banks to do what the old ones did well, and not do the things they shouldn't have done. It's only the hope of future employment with these moral idiots that seems to stay the hand of the politicians.

So we now turn to the politicians, who directly or indirectly have given instruction and encouragement to the banks to simulate prosperity by inflating the money supply for decades. Let's compare murder rates, shall we?

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime counted 5,096 intentional homicides in the United Kingdom for the years 2004-2009. But as Peter Hitchens has often pointed out, the murder rate would have been much higher had it not been for great improvements in emergency medical treatment since the 1960s (when the death penalty was abolished), so let's boost this figure, say, tenfold, to 50,960.

Compare that with the toll of the Iraq invasion. Wikipedia gives a range of estimates, the lowest of which is 109,032 for the same period, i.e. 2004 - 2009 (the highest is over a million). Two-thirds of them are civilian, by the way.

Who bears the responsibility?

It's tempting to spread the blame - in Britain, the Cabinet and media boxwallahs like Alastair Campbell could be tarred with the same brush - but perhaps it helps narrow down the liability when you consider what might have happened had Prime Minister Blair told President Bush that the UK was not going to support military intervention. (Instead, as Peter McKay tells us today, "25 notes from then-president George W. Bush to Blair — and some 200 Cabinet- level discussions — have been withheld by No 10", so we are forced to draw our own inferences).

It's quite possible that absent Blair's buddyship, Bush might have stayed his hand. After all, look what happened when President Obama's finger had taken the trigger on Syria to first pressure but Prime Minister Cameron "got it" when his consultation of Parliament resulted in a "no". Gosh, how quickly the world's attention turned to other things, such as Miley Cyrus' arse.

So let's argue that Blair and Bush are jointly guilty of the low-estimate six-figure deaths. That makes 54,516 corpses each (assuming you don't accept that these politicians are jointly and severally guilty, which would double their butcher's bill).

Not intentional homicide? Whoever heard of a bloodless invasion of a major, modern-equipped Middle Eastern country? If B&B had been in the UK in the 1950s and killed a householder while burgling, they'd have swung. It's why criminals used to be very hard on any of their number who brought a shooter on a blag.

And that's just overt action. I suppose we'll never find out the whole truth about the covert operations that caused Arab nations, latterly Syria, to erupt in multivarious civil wars.

Blair - whose full name anagrammatizes satisfyingly as "born actor; lethally nannyish" - is a posh boy who went to a very posh school, where he learned how to escape the consequences of his actions by enlisting guardians. Bush is a millionaire former oilman and the son of a former US President. Leaving office and an economy heading for ruin, he handed what in rugby is known a "hospital pass" to the new guy (so which of them is the dumb one?)

So when reading or re-reading "Freakonomics", ponder who does more harm, the children of the poor or the scions of the Establishment.

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Max Keiser's "financial terrorists": some statistics

Giotto: "Massacre of the Innocents" (1305)

Ever since 2008, econo shock jock Max Keiser has famously - and repeatedly - called bankers "financial terrorists". It's hard to assess the exact cost in human life because the causal chain is complex, but be assured that white-collar thieving and financial manipulation is not victimless.

For example, a study published this summer in the British Medical Journal estimates that nearly 5,000 suicides are indirectly attributable to the economic downturn.

Also this year, a paper by Friedman Schady at the World Bank looked at infant mortality in sub-Saharan Africa, and concluded that in 2009 alone there were an additional 28,000 - 50,000 infant deaths - mostly girls, by the way - because of the "bankers' global financial crisis". That's only one region, in only one year.

The Germans have a phrase: "Wehe, wehe!" - "Woe, woe!" - a lament, but also a warning.

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Abort the ruling class!

One of the more controversial chapters in "Freakonomics" (2005) suggested that abortion among the lower classes helped to reduce crime by killing off potential offenders in the womb (though pro-lifers now argue the opposite case). The authors hastened to repudiate the implication that this should influence public policy, but people do now sometimes cite that vicious factoid as a ho-ho response to the problems of our economy; if we were to take them seriously, then like King Herod, they would be prepared to kill a whole town's infants in order to nail the future threat represented by a single child.

But when considering crime and social class, we run into difficulties of definition with respect to crime. If the underlying principle of the common law is "do no harm", then whether by incompetence or callous negligence, far greater crimes have been committed by financial manipulators than by common criminals - and the former are not only unpunished, but continue to be unbelievably well-rewarded for it. Indeed during the emergency bailouts, some bankers got bumper bonuses because they included the bailout money as part of the turnover on which their payouts were based.

Looking at conventional crime, a Home Office study issued in 2000 estimated the total economic cost to the UK at £59.9 billion p.a (about £1,000 per head of population).:



http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110218135832/rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/hors217.pdf

 

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110218135832/rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/hors217.pdf

Compare that with the IMF's 2009 estimate of the cost to the UK of the 2008 banking crisis: £1,227 billion; the equivalent of some £20,500 per man, woman and child in this country - in one year! Not to mention the £375 billion p.a. "quantitative easing" still ongoing.

We can also ask, how do we define cost? John Mortimer's fictional barrister Horace Rumpole points out that criminals make a good living for professionals like himself. GDP, employment and tax revenues (though not real net wealth) are increased by all this economic "activity". But how much prosperity and employment did the financial rescue create? Not that it is actually a rescue: I suspect that disaster has merely been deferred, and possibly exacerbated to boot.

I do not support abortion; but if I did, I should rather be looking to terminate potential bankers than potential burglars.

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Great God! this is an awful place

Do Captain Scott’s words chime with you? They certainly do with me. I can’t read anything about the Antarctic without being reminded of his ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. Beryl Bainbridge wrote a fine novel about it called The Birthday Boys. Worth reading if you come across a copy.

From Wikipedia

For this and other reasons, Antarctic sea ice extent is one of the parameters I keep an eye on in my fruitless desire to anticipate the global climate’s next move.

So this chart of Antarctic sea ice extent concerns me a little, but it’s an emotional concern all concerns must be. As you see, Antarctic sea ice has been spending quite a bit of time well above the 1981-2010 average.

Is it a herald of anything? Well for me there is something awesome and scary about the Antarctic, much of it deriving from Scott’s words and what we know of that tiny tent where he finally succumbed only eleven miles short of One Ton Depot and safety. Defeated by hunger, exhaustion and the implacable cold of the Antarctic.

My head says it doesn’t mean much in terms of climate change and it probably doesn’t, but my heart says keep an eye on it all the same.

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Agribusiness: the Skynet moment...

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Another question

How come a person with a bone problem can see an osteopath, but one with an emotional problem doesn't consult a psychopath?

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Pedestrian power

Video of a driverless Nissan Leaf being tested in the UK. The stated aim is to test it on public roads if permission is granted.

Note how the car reacts when a pedestrian walks into the road. Changes the balance of power between motorist and pedestrian doesn't it? Cyclists too presumably.

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Chekhov on teaching

How can we undertake to bring up the young? In old days people were simpler and thought less, and so settled problems boldly. But we think too much, we are eaten up by logic. 

The more developed a man is, the more he reflects and gives himself up to subtleties, the more undecided and scrupulous he becomes, and the more timidity he shows in taking action. How much courage and self-confidence it needs, when one comes to look into it closely, to undertake to teach, to judge, to write a thick book.

Anton Chekhov – Home (short story published in 1887)

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Lost words

There are things we can’t say concisely and with sufficient emphasis because too many words have been softened by political familiarity.

A good word for authoritarian politics is one we could do with as a matter of some urgency. We have communist, Marxist, Stalinist, Maoist, fascist and one or two others but we already know them to be inadequate. They fail to capture the acute political danger of centralising all decisions. They fail to get behind the fluffy velvet glove.

Communist and Marxist have been shorn of their terrors by cartloads of fellow travellers infesting western politics and academia. Somehow, the human horror of killing innocent people by the millions has left no seriously indelible mark on our language. How convenient that is for modern central planners - but surely not a healthy situation for the rest of us.

As for Stalinist and Maoist I think the same problem applies. Many people of a certain age once knew self-professed Maoists and comfortable middle class faux radicals with Soviet sympathies. They were those for whom Stalin and Mao were no more than over-enthusiastic in their ruthless application of industrial scale murder.

As for fascist, it has evolved into little more than a term of abuse, although very often it is all we have. So we drift towards a kind of soft fascism because even our language has betrayal woven into its threadbare and endlessly ameliorative fabric.

What else can one say – without better words?

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BAe and Scottish independence

Is the Government leaning on BAe to threaten Scots with unemployment if they secede?

If so, let's reverse the Highland Clearances. I'll change my name to C U Jimmy and buy an Arctic sleeping bag. Portsmouth will never get independence and I'm about up to here with the dreary white man's way, where they pump house prices to win elections and turn your dwelling into the financial equivalent of an open prison.

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Chekhov on smoking



40 (packs) a day: http://news.malaysia.msn.com/photogallery.aspx?cp-documentid=4283455&page=2

“By the way, Yevgeny Petrovitch, I should like to ask you to speak to Seryozha. To-day, and the day before yesterday, I have noticed that he is smoking. When I began to expostulate with him, he put his fingers in his ears as usual, and sang loudly to drown my voice."

Yevgeny Petrovitch Bykovsky, the prosecutor of the circuit court, who had just come back from a session and was taking off his gloves in his study, looked at the governess as she made her report, and laughed. "Seryozha smoking... " he said, shrugging his shoulders. "I can picture the little cherub with a cigarette in his mouth! Why, how old is he?"

"Seven. You think it is not important, but at his age smoking is a bad and pernicious habit, and bad habits ought to be eradicated in the beginning."

"Perfectly true. And where does he get the tobacco?"

"He takes it from the drawer in your table."

"Yes? In that case, send him to me." When the governess had gone out, Bykovsky sat down in an arm-chair before his writing-table, shut his eyes, and fell to thinking. He pictured his Seryozha with a huge cigar, a yard long, in the midst of clouds of tobacco smoke, and this caricature made him smile; at the same time, the grave, troubled face of the governess called up memories of the long past, half-forgotten time when smoking aroused in his teachers and parents a strange, not quite intelligible horror.

It really was horror. Children were mercilessly flogged and expelled from school, and their lives were made a misery on account of smoking, though not a single teacher or father knew exactly what was the harm or sinfulness of smoking. Even very intelligent people did not scruple to wage war on a vice which they did not understand.

Yevgeny Petrovitch remembered the head-master of the high school, a very cultured and good-natured old man, who was so appalled when he found a high-school boy with a cigarette in his mouth that he turned pale, immediately summoned an emergency committee of the teachers, and sentenced the sinner to expulsion.

This was probably a law of social life: the less an evil was understood, the more fiercely and coarsely it was attacked.

Anton Chekhov – Home (short story published in 1887)

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Jon Holmes and Waitrose

Jon Holmes is a writer, comedian and broadcaster who features on Radio 4's Now Show. This week he was being hilarious about people who shop at Waitrose (spoilt middle-class focaccia-fanciers etc - 8 minutes into this episode).

Jon Holmes lives in Canterbury, Kent, where he went to university.

His nearest Waitrose branch is:

The average asking price for a semi-detached house in Birmingham B28 (the location of my nearest Waitrose) is £205,431 (more than mine is worth, I'm afraid). In Canterbury it's £253,333.

There is a point, is there not, when an edgy comedian becomes part of the class he satirises. It used to be that they then started writing restaurant sketches, since presumably they'd given up cooking for themselves. We can only hope that it doesn't go so far with Jon. Equally, we hope that he's lost some of his rough Warwickshire ways* and now knows what furniture is for.

Anyone seen him down the flavoured olive oil aisle recently?

* "Despite his numerous awards Holmes has been sacked from a plethora of stations including Xfm, where he allegedly defecated into fellow presenter Dermot O'Leary's desk drawer live on air.." http://www.suchsmallportions.com/person/jon-holmes

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Intelligence and smarties

Let’s concoct a new theory of intelligence. It’s about time we had a new one because the old version looks as flaky as a Lib Dem policy. Just take a look at current energy policies if you don’t believe me - Lib Dems are in favour.

Right ho - to rectify this lamentable situation I’ve spent fifteen precious minutes dreaming up the basic building block of intelligent awareness called... wait for it...

The smartie.

It’s not an original use of the word, but what do you expect for fifteen minutes? A workable energy policy?... Hmm, bad example... anyway, here is the smartie theory in all its conceptual glory.

In essence, the more smarties you have and the wider your range of smarties, the smarter you are - in a genial kind of way because I think a nod to Santayana is somehow appropriate for smarties. If you want to know why, you’ll have to read him and acquire a whole shed-load of smarties.

So throughout daily life we have the option of acquiring more smarties - vitamins of the mind. Smarties come in numerous colours, shapes, flavours, sizes, sweetness, price and brands so those who collect only one flavour or those who focus on brand are not as smart as those who collect lots of different smarties. Especially the home made smarties, of which smartie theory itself is just one example!

For example, Nick Clegg only collects Nick Clegg and EU smarties, which makes him smart on these subjects only. He knows how the EU is likely to benefit Nick Clegg and virtually nothing else. There are no Lib Dem smarties by the way.

Those eccentrics who love nuances and breadth of vision also love all kinds of smarties and collect loads of them. This gives us the Smartie Rich or SR quotient – a much needed antidote to IQ. So a person with a high SR is smarter than Nick Clegg which we now know isn’t saying much but it’s progress of a kind. Progress Nick knows nothing about of course.

The elite classes only collect elite smarties, a narrow range of all the smarties on offer. So they never become smart - because they can’t. Prince Charles is a good example. In his position, with all that travel and cultural contact he should have a huge SR, but his social position narrows the possibilities before he even gets to choose. He only likes green smarties anyway.

Prince George will have the same problem – except he won’t even know because he won’t have a sufficiently wide range of smarties to tell him it’s a problem.

So it is with the political elite who only collect the smarties offered to them by lobbyists, flunkies, and smartie advisers who are in exactly the same smartie-delimted boat.

Smartie collecting is an essentially serendipitous activity driven by the sheer joy of discovery and the substantially lesser joy of changing your mind occasionally.

Smarties are usually minor discoveries such as nuances, aspects alternative emphases or poetic insights, but they are all grist to the smartie mill and raise one’s SR to quite dizzying heights of pure fancy.

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UK Sharia Bonds - ?

As part of the government's blitz of 'look what we're doing' announcements, we now have "Britain to become first non-Muslim country to launch sharia bond: David Cameron to unveil £200m Sukuk".  So what's going on here ?


a.  Political Significance

A couple of weeks ago I posted about how the UK is kow-towing to the Chinese as part of our economic escape plan.

"This is a particularly acute risk for the UK ... In our semi-detatched euro-positioning, our vulnerability to having the City isolated by jealous continental and American financial authorities, and our commendable centuries-old willingness to roam the high seas, we will always be inclined to 'trade our way out of trouble'. Now true commercial trade is a great thing and would indeed be the ideal way forward. But increasingly what we see is a baser trade: the prostituting of our institutions to the whim of Russian and Chinese wealth. If they want to lavish their money on our libel courts or Mayfair shops, that's one thing. But it won't be ending there. Today we see the first of the mega-bargains our desperate UK politicians will enter in order to engineer short- and medium-term relief from our woes. Faustian is just one way to describe it."

There, I was writing about the nuclear deal, but of course that was part of Osborne's Sino-package that included a putatively huge and strategic banking 'n' finance deal.  These are the kind of moves that can leave green-eyed Frankfurt and New York grasping vainly at thin air, reinforcing London as "the undisputed capital of the world".  At least, that's how the dream story-line runs.  Brown hoped to do the same, but Osborne is acting more decisively.

The sharia leg of this burgeoning development causes nervous murmurs on the home political front - see this piece at ConHome.  Should it ?  Given that in technical terms the distinguishing  features of sharia finance are, to the unbeliever, quirky to the point of quaint (see below), objectively the whole thing is a bit like the 'ethical investment' industry: why not let anyone who wishes to cut themselves off from the full range products, do so if they choose?

But obviously there is a heavyweight cultural overlay to this, and maybe objectively speaking is not enough.  I am 'relaxed' about all sorts of 'alien' business influences and ownerships in the UK.  To me it is part and parcel of what I take to be a very traditional British openness to trade and cultural curiosity (which, by the way, is only one strand of British tradition as I know full well).

But I am not remotely relaxed about the rule of UK law and for me there is a simple bottom line.  Provided all this UK sharia stuff is subject to the same banking regs as everything else (and these are enforced with the full force of law, see C@W  passim), let's go for the money and leave Frankfurt and New York fuming.  This proviso is not trivial, and not just because enforcement of banking regs had become a sick joke.  It must surely be the case that hawala transfers are routinely used to dodge western banking regulations (not to mention money laundering); and bringing any such system into mainstream scrutiny must be a highly desirable goal of policy - nay, even an imperialistic power-grab!

b.  Financial Aspects

Sharia finance properly analysed is a subset of general Finance-with-a-capital-f, delineated by some strict rules around interest-payments which must not feature in the story of what A pays to B.  Recalling the informal definition of a Swap - the exchange of cash flows between consenting adults - most sharia-compliant deals are what are known in the real world as total return swaps (TRS), and there is nothing scary or alien about them per se. Of course, they are a bit more complicated than plain vanilla loans etc - but so what?  Lots of financial instruments are.

Far from scary, putting aside the political stuff I'd say the whole thing is pretty amusing.  The restrictions that make these deals sharia-compliant remind one of nothing so much as the crazy, tortuous tax regulations which make certain kinds of (e.g.) UK film investments qualify for attractive tax breaks.  In other words, they are an adventure-playground for shyster tax-lawyers, and sharia will be just the same**.  The arguments over what counts as what; the twisted convolutions required to label interest payments as anything but interest, are hair-splitting sophistry - literally theological.  There already is a service industry around this, with "Islamic scholars" getting good money for certifying individual deals.  The People of the Book know all about this stuff, too, and what a gravy-train for the City it promises to be !
______________
** Just as with 'ethical investments', one imagines there are disappointments ahead for those who place great store by what they are being sold truly complying with the advertised principles.  I suppose that in some countries, anyone caught playing fast and loose with the sharia interest rules might have their parts cut off  ... a risk that the City boys will need to factor in for themselves, eh?  


This post first appeared on the Capitalists@Work blog

 
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Doglight

Pic source: http://www.aef.com/exhibits/awards/clio_awards/2005/11

America's 80 million dogs produce 11 million (US) tons of faeces every year, according to this article from NorthJersey.com, which is about DNA-testing the waste and prosecuting non-pooper-scooping owners.

What to do with it?

In these energy conservation conscious times, conceptual artist Matthew Mazzotta suggests using it as a power source for street lighting - see his Park Spark project here.

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Quiz Night

We strolled a few yards up the damp road and into the pub. The board outside was there, advertising the competition for 8.30, but there was hardly anybody in. The gambling machine's display seemed to be keeping time with the piped music, until a man returned to it and fed in a tenner, which took several goes.

"It's full."

"I know, I'm trying to get some of it back out."

Gradually the entrants gathered: three chefs on our left, a couple of solitaries at this end of the bar, and a trio of regulars at the other end, hidden behind the pillar.

"We'll start at nine."

A man and his girlfriend dropped in to tell the owner about the funeral arrangements for a local who'd be known to others here, though he'd kept himself to himself.

Then we began. Welcome to the fourth pub quiz at the Castle. Googlers would be instantly disqualified. Prize a ten pound bar tab for the winner, and a packet of crisps for the best team name.  As Brummies, my wife said we should be the Peaky Blinders.

"Is there a picture round?"

We said it would be whoever could draw the best picture, but the barman handed us all a streakily-copied sheet of logos to identify.

A couple of years ago at the Waterman's, a big bloke had come in dressed as a Roman soldier and been thrown out for farting. The question-setter that time had been Lily, who'd escaped the dullness of Plymouth, but she's moved on again with baby and partner. Her sheets were full-colour and artistically illustrated.

Our host began squinting at his iphone and reading out questions.

"What type of monkey lives on the Rock of Gibraltar?"

"Orang-utans," said one of the chefs to his mates.

"Spaniards."

The lone wolves were comparing notes on the picture round.

"What element is needed for all forms of combustion?"

CO2 wasn't right when we came to mark a loner's sheet, but he can't have heard the barman remark "Another oxygen-related question" to the regulars round the corner.

Between rounds, the majority decamped to the pavement outside for a smoke, including Mine Host, leaving his taps vulnerable in the near-deserted bar. Stupid law.

A chef showed us a party picture on his phone, with two ghosts' heads in the group. Later, one of his mates suggested it could be done by someone changing position while the phone panned round. Post-quiz, a couple of girls turned up, one of whom had taken the pic, and she said they hadn't done that.

Next round. One of the loners left abruptly. He'd scored 5 out of 20, most questions not answered and the rest semi-legible. His response to "What do the letters RAM stand for in computing?" had been "ramofocation". (What do the letters THC stand for?)

Another chef came in and was updated on the ghosts.

"What are there twenty-six pairs of in the human body?"

We got an extra point for spelling chromosomes right. We had briefly considered "bollocks."

There was much anguish over what the C stood for in YMCA. And when asked what nuts were used in making pesto, the chefs agreed on cashews. Apparently the answer to "the butcher, the baker and the..." was not Old Mother Hubbard. The cry in fencing was what we'd put, "Touché!", not "Dun ya!" as they'd said - and there was no consolation point for correct punctuation.

Then there was the dispute with the quizmaster.

"What is the coloured part of the eve called?"

"Don't you mean eye?"

"No, there's no i in it."

"No, a y instead of a v."

"It definitely says eve," said the barman, screwing up his eyes and peering closer.

"If it's eye it's iris," said the remaining loner.

We settled for eye.

The Peaky Blinders struggled with the logos. Mercedes and Camel cigarettes were a cinch, but the double W defeated us (Wonder Woman) and the stylised R (Robin, Batman's partner). The head surrounded by a Greek wave motif turned out to be Versace.

The last question was impromptu, because of IT malfunction. "It's covered by the Google bar." "Move your thumb up." "I've done that."

So he thought and gave us, "What Spanish island did I spend a few months on when I was 21?"

"Alcatraz," said the loner.

"Majorca."

"No, it wasn't Majorca," said the barman.

We did our best.

The regulars beat us by two points, one of which I'd lost when I made my wife put yellow instead of white for the colour Wimbledon tennis balls used to be before they turned green. And we'd forgotten the candlestick in the six murder weapons in Cluedo; and it was a revolver, not a pistol (Mine Host had been very firm on that). The winners promptly left.

Best team name was between the chefs, who'd concocted something ending with a c followed by hunt, and the loner's Alone In The Dark. I gave my casting vote for the latter and the chefs accepted the justice of losing out for obscenity.

I stayed on for a half pint of lager while my wife went back to make a cheese and onion sandwich for me, but without onion as we'd used it up. The loner was a graphic designer who told me all sorts of interesting things about design, photography, maintaining copyright on the internet and making websites. He reckoned his 8-year-old child was ahead of him and you didn't need to be in London to go global any more.

A Hendrix documentary was on the screen behind us. I recalled seeing the news of his death as I walked into Newport bus station; AITD told me he'd covered it at college. Memory versus history. I told him what I'd only recently learned about how Bruce Lee had died (aspirin, the studio had spun -rubbish, it was Nepalese hash, especially dangerous if you had no body fat to absorb the toxins); he told me about his own martial arts expertise.

Home for a cheese sandwich, a shot of Chivas and the rest of Hendrix.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

ICS: Transporting the poor

Classic fm is broadcasting an advert for ICS, a government-funded scheme launched in 2011 to fund volunteer work abroad for 18-25-year-olds, who "don’t need cash, skills or qualifications", says the official website. Wikipedia (and who wrote the entry?) adds, "Following their placements ICS volunteers embark on a community project on their return to the UK."

Worthy, I expect, and interesting and fulfilling - and upskilling - for the participants. But why restricted to that age group? Anything to do with employment statistics?

Next best thing to the Thames Hulks and transportation to the colonies, I suppose.

But this doesn't go far enough. How about "Club 60 - 105" for the indigent old, to work and teach in the Third World? A few quid a week per head and they're off our hands. There is some corner of a foreign field that is forever Poundland.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Five climate arguments

The point of my recent Five climate futures post was to introduce the idea of future climate scenarios and their likelihood. To recap - how likely is each scenario and how do we know? 

1. Unambiguous warming.
2. Ambiguous warming.
3. No change.
4. Ambiguous cooling.
5. Unambiguous cooling.

The short and obvious answer is that we have no idea. I estimated percentages based on how many there are. I know the estimates are illegitimate in any scientific sense, although I received only one challenge in the comments. Ah well.

The point is this – how do you estimate the likelihood of these climate scenarios using credible arguments? As far as I can see, there are five basic climate change arguments commonly encountered in the public domain. 

1. Science with no predictive track record
2. Appeals to authority.
3. Rhetorical emotional appeals.
4. Images – ice crashing into the sea etc.
5. Abuse – overt, covert and parody

The debate is packed with nuances such the political use of exaggerated risk to control behaviour, but which of these arguments enables us to choose between the five climate scenarios do you think?

Well abuse can be fun and in my view has a useful place in the climate change debate, especially parody. If nothing else it holds before our tired eyes the absurdities of current energy policies and how we stumbled our way into this mess.

So let us humanise the whole debate and accept a more personal and emotional role in our own beliefs. Here are the crucial questions whereby I think we may get to grips with how little we know and how much we rely on authority :-

Which future climate scenario is your best guess?

Which argument supports your choice?

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Five climate futures

As I see it, there are five possible global climate temperature scenarios for the next five years. Apart from the unexpected that is! 

1. Unambiguous warming.
2. Ambiguous warming.
3. No change.
4. Ambiguous cooling.
5. Unambiguous cooling.

Scenarios 2, 3 and 4 are where various misguided enthusiasts claim we are at the moment. Climate science is too inexact in its definitions and too saturated with political exigencies for a neutral observer to distinguish between them. Not that there are any neutral observers in this debate.

Even so, what may we say about the coming five years with some degree of confidence? Obviously we have to guess, but if we are able to get over the idea that this has much to do with science, then we may get somewhere.

Commonly observed traits of human behaviour are what guide us through the climate debate which in my view is mostly driven by global political ambitions, middle class anxieties and an undue respect for authority. Even so, it is surely possible to get away from the failures of climate science and take a look at human nature.

Scenarios 1 and 2 should ensure the political and intellectual survival of mainstream pro-AGW climate narratives. The other three, namely 3, 4 and 5 will obviously cause increasingly severe problems for the mainstream narrative.

If we assume that all five narratives are equally probable, and we have no science to tell us otherwise, then there is a 60% chance that the mainstream pro-AGW narrative may fail very badly indeed. It depends of the resilience of the narrative which is undoubtedly powerful for both political and emotional reasons.

On the other hand, there is a 40% chance that it will succeed politically and intellectually, at least for that five year period.

Not that these percentages should be taken too seriously, but we have to make sense of climate change somehow and the mainstream science isn’t getting us anywhere. Most of it is far too speculative as a basis for energy policies which one way or another will end up being driven by the real world.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

John Cook's Climate Change Mythbusters 20

This is part of a series reposting material from John Cook's Skeptical Science website. Although he is a physicist rather than a specialist in climate science, he is a convinced "global warmist" and tries to rebut frequently-raised objections to the theory. However, it is always possible to question the data (e.g. this valuable note about measuring temperature) and the line of argument. Please help advance the debate - with facts and logic.

Are glaciers growing or retreating?

What The Science Says:
Most glaciers are retreating, posing a serious problem for millions who rely on glaciers for water.

Climate Myth: Glaciers are growing
“[R]eports are coming in from all over the world: for the first time in over 250 years, glaciers in Alaska, Canada, New Zealand, Greenland, and now Norway are growing.”(JamulBlog)

Although Glaciologists measure year-to-year changes in glacier activity, it is the long term changes which provide the basis for statements such as "Global Glacier Recession Continues". Some Skeptics confuse these issues by cherry picking individual glaciers or by ignoring long term trends. Diversions such as these do not address the most important question of what is the real state of glaciers globally?

The answer is not only clear but it is definitive and based on the scientific literature. Globally glaciers are losing ice at an extensive rate (Figure 1). There are still situations in which glaciers gain or lose ice more than typical for one region or another but the long term trends are all the same, and about 90% of glaciers are shrinking worldwide (Figure 2).


Figure 1: Long-term changes in glacier volume adapted from Cogley 2009.
 

Figure 2: Percentage of shrinking and growing glaciers in 2008–2009, from the 2011 WGMS report

It is also very important to understand that glacier changes are not only dictated by air temperature changes but also by precipitation. Therefore, there are scenarios in which warming can lead to increases in precipitation (and thus glacier ice accumulation) such as displayed in part of southwestern Norway during the 1990s (Nesje et al 2008).

The bottom line is that glacier variations can be dependent on localized conditions but that these variations are superimposed on a clear and evident long term global reduction in glacier volume which has accelerated rapidly since the 1970s.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

John Cook's Climate Change Mythbusters 19

This is part of a series reposting material from John Cook's Skeptical Science website. Although he is a physicist rather than a specialist in climate science, he is a convinced "global warmist" and tries to rebut frequently-raised objections to the theory. However, it is always possible to question the data (e.g. this valuable note about measuring temperature) and the line of argument. Please help advance the debate - with facts and logic.

Is Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth accurate?

What The Science Says:
Al Gore's film was "broadly accurate" according to an expert witness called when an attempt was made through the courts to prevent the film being shown in schools.

Climate Myth: Al Gore got it wrong
“Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, was […] criticised by a high court judge who highlighted what he said were "nine scientific errors" in the film.

Mr Justice Barton yesterday said that while the film was "broadly accurate" in its presentation of climate change, he identified nine significant errors in the film, some of which, he said, had arisen in "the context of alarmism and exaggeration" to support the former US vice-president's views on climate change.” (The Guardian)

Al Gore, certainly the most vilified proponent of climate change anywhere in the world, earned most of this enmity through the success of a film he presented called An Inconvenient Truth (AIT). The film was a staid presentation of climate science to date, a round-up of research, science and projections, with many cinematic sequences employed to harness the power of the medium.

The majority of the film, covering issues like Himalayan Glaciers, Greenland and Antarctica losing ice, the severity of hurricanes and other weather phenomena, was accurate and represented the science as it stood. Since the release of the film, considerably more evidence has been found in support of the science and projections in the film.

One claim was in error, as was one attribution of a graph. The error was in the claim that climate change had caused the shrinking of Mount Kilimanjaro, although the evidence that the shrinkage was most likely caused by deforestation did not appear until after the film was made. The error of attribution was in reference to a graph of temperature and attributes it mistakenly to a Dr. Thompson, when it was actually a combination of Mann’s hockey stick and CRU surface temperature data.

The Legal Case

The film is also subject to attack on the grounds that Al Gore was prosecuted in the UK and a judge found many errors in the film. This is untrue.

The case, heard in the civil court, was brought by a school governor against the Secretary of State for Education, in an attempt to prevent the film being distributed to schools. Mr. Justice Burton, in his judgement, ordered that teaching notes accompanying the film should be modified to clarify the speculative (and occasionally hyperbolic) presentation of some issues.

Mr. Justice Burton found no errors at all in the science. In his written judgement, the word error appears in quotes each time it is used – nine points formed the entirety of his judgement - indicating that he did not support the assertion the points were erroneous. About the film in general, he said this:

17. I turn to AIT, the film. The following is clear:

i) It is substantially founded upon scientific research and fact, albeit that the science is used, in the hands of a talented politician and communicator, to make a political statement and to support a political programme.

22. I have no doubt that Dr Stott, the Defendant's expert, is right when he says that:

"Al Gore's presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate."

The judge did identify statements that had political implications he felt needed qualification in the guidance notes for teachers, and ordered that both qualifications on the science and the political implications should be included in the notes. Al Gore was not involved in the case, was not prosecuted, and because the trial was not a criminal case, there was no jury, and no guilty verdict was handed down.

Note: the vilification of Al Gore is best understood in the context of personalisation. When opponents attack something abstract - like science - the public may not associate with the argument. By giving a name and a face and a set of behavioural characteristics - being a rich politician, for example - it is easy to create a fictional enemy through inference and association. Al Gore is a successful politician who presented a film, his training and experience suitable to the task. To invoke Gore is a way to obfuscate about climate science, for which Gore has neither responsibility, claim nor blame.

 

Basic rebuttal written by GPWayne

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Fukushima radiation: should we worry?

First, the scare. Michael Snyder gives a raft of facts to show that post-Fukushima, radiation levels have increased around the west coast of America. Professor Michel Chossudovsky discusses the spread of radiactive fallout from Japan under the shock title "... A Nuclear War Without A War..." - somwhat insensitively bearing in mind that Japan is the only country to have been atom-bombed. The Liberty Beacon relays official US information on the plume of water-borne radioactivity.

Then, some critical comment and reassurance. American Live Wire shows that a dramatic graphic purporting to show the spread of radiation across the Pacific is actually a map of increased wave height from the tsunami. And the ever-informative xkcd freely offers the following infographic on normal and acceptable radiation dosage (click on caption for full size picture):

http://xkcd.com/radiation/

Finally, the rational concern: as with the now-banned pesticide DDT, the most significant potential damage could be concentration of the toxic substances as they rise through the food chain. Now, shoppers in Korea are using Geiger counters to check imports of "eastern sea" fish, and as early as January 2012 the readings from seaweed were 3 times higher than background:



Fish (like tuna) that eat other fish; scavengers like crab and lobster; plankton and krill (and the whales that eat them), squid... we may be advised not to eat Pacific seafood. Already Seoul has banned imports from the Fukushima region. And it's possible that wildlife is suffering from the disaster.

What if there was a bigger disaster? There's been much excited speculation about the consequences of a potential collapse of the spent fuel storage that could result in fire and evacuation. Paul Blustein at Slate.com discusses this coolly and concludes that it could be very bad, though not apocalyptic.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Enter The Chinese Dragon - and the start of bonded servitude

Under foreign flags

Readers may be aware that I am generally untroubled by inward investment and foreign ownership of UK assets, though this is clearly not a view shared by all who visit these pages.

The Chinese aspect in this week's jaw-dropping (if highly trailed) nuclear announcement is a bit different, though.  There is the national security angle, of course, and many will be most agitated by that.  I don't dismiss it, but it's not what strikes me the hardest.  Security of supply is a non-issue: the Americans tried to pin that on Russia as a gas supplier during the Cold War and it never stuck.  Safety ?  Technology ?  All issues that can be resolved - if you count buying the ridiculous EDF / Areva EPR technology as a good idea in the first place.

More foreign flags

I am more concerned about what it signals, or rather confirms, about what I have long felt to be the probable strategic response of European governments to our parlous financial position.  A couple of years ago I wrote that when we are really up a gum tree the Chinese will have a deal for us, and we will meekly sell the farm.

This is a particularly acute risk for the UK, in my assessment.  In our semi-detatched euro-positioning, our vulnerability to having the City isolated by jealous continental and American financial authorities, and our commendable centuries-old willingness to roam the high seas, we will always be inclined to 'trade our way out of trouble'.  

Now true commercial trade is a great thing and would indeed be the ideal way forward.  But increasingly what we see is a baser trade: the prostituting of our institutions to the whim of Russian and Chinese wealth.  If they want to lavish their money on our libel courts or Mayfair shops, that's one thing.  But it won't be ending there.

Today we see the first of the mega-bargains our desperate UK politicians will enter in order to engineer short- and medium-term relief from our woes.  Faustian is just one way to describe it.  Another would be the PFI-ing of the UK economy to China.  Future generations will curse Camerosborne roundly, as they pay grotesque prices for electricity and probably a great deal more.

And the prices may not only be measured in currency.  Bonded servitude may be the term we are looking for.

This post first appeared on the Capitalists@Work blog 


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Teaching our children to be fat diabetics?

Market Ticker commentator Karl Denninger is a convert to low-carbohydrate diets, having lost 60 pounds. He says - and I've seen this allegation elesewhere - that dietary advice in favour of starch suits commercial interests while bloating and killing the populace.

Meanwhile, around the UK, a standard part of the primary curriculum continues to promote carbs as the foundation of healthy eating, as witness this graphic from a local school:

Do we teachers know anything at all?

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After "Silent Spring", "silent sea"

Australia's Herald newspaper reports no birds in a trans-Pacific crossing, post Fukushima.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

John Cook's Climate Change Mythbusters 18

This is part of a series reposting material from John Cook's Skeptical Science website. Although he is a physicist rather than a specialist in climate science, he is a convinced "global warmist" and tries to rebut frequently-raised objections to the theory. However, it is always possible to question the data (e.g. this valuable note about measuring temperature) and the line of argument. Please help advance the debate - with facts and logic.

What is the link between hurricanes and global warming?

What The Science Says:
There is increasing evidence that hurricanes are getting stronger due to global warming.

Climate Myth: Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming
“According to the National Hurricane Center, storms are no more intense or frequent worldwide than they have been since 1850. […] Constant 24-7 media coverage of every significant storm worldwide just makes it seem that way.” (Paul Bedard)

The current research into the effects of climate change on tropical storms demonstrates not only the virtues and transparency of the scientific method at work, but rebuts the frequent suggestion that scientists fit their findings to a pre-determined agenda in support of climate change. In the case of storm frequency, there is no consensus and reputable scientists have two diametrically opposed theories about increasing frequencies of such events.

The background to these enquiries stems from a simple observation: extra heat in the air or the oceans is a form of energy, and storms are driven by such energy. What we do not know is whether we might see more storms as a result of extra energy or, as other researchers believe, the storms may grow more intense, but the number might actually diminish.

What do the records show? According to the Pew Centre, “Globally, there is an average of about 90 tropical storms a year”. The IPCC AR4 report (2007) says regarding global tropical storms: "There is no clear trend in the annual numbers [i.e. frequency] of tropical cyclones."

But this graph, also from the Pew Centre, shows a 40% increase in North Atlantic tropical storms over the historic maximum of the mid-1950, which at the time was considered extreme:



But while the numbers are not contested, their significance most certainly is. Another study considered how this information was being collected, and research suggested that the increase in reported storms was due to improved monitoring rather than more storms actually taking place.

And to cap it off, two recent peer-reviewed studies completely contradict each other. One paper predicts considerably more storms due to global warming. Another paper suggests the exact opposite – that there will be fewer storms in the future.

What can we conclude from these studies? About hurricane frequency – not much; the jury is out, as they say. About climate change, we can say that these differing approaches are the very stuff of good science, and the science clearly isn’t settled! It is also obvious that researchers are not shying away from refuting associations with climate change, so we can assume they don’t think their funding or salaries are jeopardised by research they believe fails to support the case for AGW. The scientific method is alive and well.

Never mind the frequency, feel the width

So far, all we’ve managed is to document here is what we don’t know for sure yet. But we do know there is extra energy in the system now, so could it have any other effects on tropical storms? Here, the science is far less equivocal, and there is a broad consensus that storms are increasing in strength, or severity. This attribute, called the Power Dissipation Index, measures the duration and intensity (wind speed) of storms, and research has found that since the mid-1970s, there has been an increase in the energy of storms.

Recent research has shown that we are experiencing more storms with higher wind speeds, and these storms will be more destructive, last longer and make landfall more frequently than in the past. Because this phenomenon is strongly associated with sea surface temperatures, it is reasonable to suggest a strong probability that the increase in storm intensity and climate change are linked.

Basic rebuttal written by GPWayne

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Seven climate theories

Or is it eight... or nine?

Back in 2010 a booklet called Seven Theories of Climate Change by Joseph L. Bast was published by the Science and Public Policy Institute.

It lists seven climate change theories, one of them being the AGW CO2 theory. The booklet is worth reading not so much because it delimits what we know of climate drivers, but because it highlights how exceedingly complex the issue is. Vastly more complex than popular journalism would have us believe.

Climate science is dominated by uncertainty and there are also highly uncertain connections between these theories, so I’ll merely summarise them below. Additional theories and ideas from readers are very welcome – this is an evolving, not an evolved science.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 Anthropogenic Global Warming

The mainstream theory of climate change heavily promoted for reasons beyond the scope of this post. Greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide are said to be causing a catastrophic rise in global temperatures.

2 Bio-thermostat

The second theory of climate change is really a number of theories bundled together. Feedbacks from biological and chemical processes are said to contribute towards global temperature stability by suppressing temperature increases. These are :- 

• Enhanced carbon sequestration by plants as atmospheric CO2 increases, thereby causing increased rates of plant growth.
• Carbonyl sulphide (COS) produced biologically is said to form sulphate aerosols in the atmosphere which reflect solar radiation and lead to a cooling effect.
• Biosols are biologically derived plant compounds which circulate in the atmosphere and may act as condensation nuclei for clouds. They may also diffuse solar radiation close to the ground, reducing the effect of shade and increasing photosynthesis and CO2 uptake.
• Iodine containing compounds formed in sea air by marine algae may act like biosols.
• Dimethyl sulphide is emitted by oceans and may be a source of cloud condensation nuclei.
• Other aerosols. There are other natural aerosols which may also have an impact on climate.

3 Cloud Formation and Albedo

A third theory says that the climate is controlled by the formation and albedo of clouds.

4 Land Use

A fourth theory is that climate is affected by large scale changes in land use such as forestry, irrigation and building cities.

5 Ocean Currents

The fifth theory claims that climate cycles are the result of changes to ocean circulation patterns.

6 Planetary Motion

The sixth theory is that gravitational and magnetic oscillations of the solar system cause solar variations and/or other influences which change the terrestrial climate.

7 Solar Variability

The seventh theory is that solar variability accounts for most or all climate change.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Immigration, abortion and demographics

Some days ago, I answered a post on Raedwald's site regarding the economic effect of immigration to the UK and the claimed impact on our per capita wealth. The official statistics I found told me that actually, both GDP and per capita GDP showed a rising trend until the bankers' bubble burst in 2008. That's not to say that GDP is necessarily the best measure of well-being: eating more sweets and having more fillings at the dentist's both increase GDP.

Arguing for (or against) immigration purely on economic grounds is not as simple as it might seem. A 2004 paper by David Coleman and Robert Rowthorn ("The Economic Effects of Immigration into the United Kingdom") concludes (my emphases):

"This article has examined the impact of immigration on citizens of the United Kingdom. The claim that large-scale immigration will be of great economic benefit to them is false. Some will gain, but others will lose. With respect to the existing population of the UK and their descendants, the purely economic consequences of large-scale immigration could be negative or positive, but either way they will be small. Two earlier reviews of the economic effects of immigration to the UK came to carefully argued conclusions that stopped far short of a clear endorsement of its advantages, despite being presented in collections that otherwise served to underpin the new policy (Findlay 1994; Kleinman 2003). Immigrants are the only unequivocal economic beneficiaries of migration. There is no guarantee that anyone else will be, not even the sending countries from which the migrants come.

"The more important effects of sustained large-scale immigration on the UK are demographic, social, and environmental: provoking unexpected renewed growth in population and in housing demand and risking new and intractable social divisions and a corresponding weakening of national identity and cohesion, with the prospect of an eventual eclipse of the population receiving the migrants and of its culture..."

In a self-indulgently showy phrase ("filling a demographic gap created by sterile, murderous British selfishness"), I added another dimension to the debate, namely the impact of abortion and birth control in the UK, and was challenged on it by "Wolfie". But I think I can show that this has made a difference, in more ways than one.

To help me answer, I've used Wikipedia's article on the UK's demography, and Johnston's archive on abortion statistics. The latter stops at the year 2010, so I've assumed that for the following three years the number of abortions was the same as in 2010 (i.e. 208,935). If that is so, then since 1968 (i.e. the year after abortion was legalised) there have been over 8 million "terminations". The rate of slaughter increased over the decades:

It's said that 98% of abortions are carried out for "social" reasons, so we'll assume that in all cases the children would otherwise have survived, though obviously a percentage would have died at some point (but not a very high one, in our country). Now because the overwhelming number of terminations happened in the last 50 years, all those individuals would be of working age or younger, and here is how the demographic might have looked:

 

This opens up a can of worms, as they say. For example, I don't know whether if an aborted child had been allowed to live, its mother might have chosen not to conceive another later on.

But other things being equal, we would now have a population of 71 million rather than 63 million. Or possibly not, since we would have hit a housing crisis much earlier and presumably public policy on immigration would been different.

And getting the balance between young and old isn't enough. For although there would have been an extra 4 million people of working age, that doesn't automatically mean that there would be another 4 million jobs for them to do. So policy on globalisation would have had to be rethought.

Instead, the government develops its theme of seeing people as inconvenient, and seeks to adjust the demographic equation by slaughter of the old, to boot. The Liverpool Care Pathway, the creeping program to decriminalise assisted suicide, and now the £50 bribe to GPs to save the NHS £1,000 by denying patients the ambulance ride to terminal care in hospital.

Just as, surrounded by CCTV and cyberspies, we are still told that this isn't "1984", we are sliding into dehumanisation while being reassured that we're not Nazis. My father could have spared himself the trouble of fighting the latter in North Africa and Italy; they're back, and winning.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.