Isn't This Where We Came In?

What can be said at the beginning of this year? Many people make predictions. I can confidently say that as there are so many varying, contradictory, confused, vague, expert and inexpert that some could be right.

Which of them will be I do not know. What I can say is many people will say and do things they will later regret, things will happen that are unexpected, some of the expected or hoped for things will not happen and the human race will be no more wiser or reliable at the end of the year than at the beginning.

On the subject of wisdom Grant Shapps, Minister for Housing, who has been in and out of the property market along with others seems to be saying that he is alright the rest of us can forget it in terms of Brown’s Boom, the end that was never to be it seems is imminent.

Quite how he can square this with reports of funny money flooding into London to keep the pot boiling, encouraged by the government, is uncertain.

When I walk along the High Street in my town most of the shops that used to sell things are now either employment agencies or estate agencies.

There is a discrepancy between them, because the salary levels, many for jobs with responsibility requiring experience and qualifications, would not allow the takers to get into the job market on the basis either of salary or possible savings.

A reason for this is that lenders have recently rediscovered the knowledge that if you lend pots of money to people that cannot afford to repay it on the basis of them telling you what you want to know about their incomes and personal status, you may find yourself stuck with either bad debts or unsaleable overpriced property or both.

So what would Grant Shapps like to have? It is more lending to people on a relaxed basis and with lots of “innovative” mortgage products subject to little or no regulation. This is just what was involved in the recent crash.

One worry for the government is the needs of families. These are said to be in decline because of social changes. But according to an item in the Hals Report there could be other reasons.

http://www.thehalsreport.com/2011/01/is-something-wrong-with-the-sexual-development-of-human-males/

We are told to be a high consumption society. Much of what we consume and eat is now dependent on petro chemical products. It is the derivatives of these shoved into almost everything we eat and use that is doing the damage. It is not just us, it is also the other creatures of the earth.

“Not with a bang but a whimper” as the poet T.S. Eliot said in his poem “The Hollow Men”

But there could be a good big bang on the way that will end the debate on the Euro because it will end much of Europe.

Apparently there is a huge Caldera in Italy compared with which Pompeii is but a pimple. British scientists are arguing with others about the right to drill holes in it.

Is this is good idea , I ask?

http://www.armageddononline.org/Campi-Flegrei-super-volcano-caldera.html

I can predict that in 2011 there will be some volcanic activity somewhere. How big and where and with what effect I do not know. We were told about the risk of a larger secondary Icelandic one that has yet to happen and other possibilities. Your guess is as good as mine and maybe better.

This year, next year, sometime when?

The Shape Of Things To Come

The picture above from 1956 shows a computer memory device being loaded onto an aircraft. It is very large, very heavy, and very expensive. It stored 5mb of memory. In those days there were few computers, they were little known, and managed by a mysterious cult of boffins. The first real container shipping service began that year, although there had been a handful of specialist ships in the previous decade.

Imagine, food cost a quarter of the ordinary family incomes, and supermarkets did not exist. Manual adding machines and ball point pens represented heights of technology. A fridge was a serious luxury item for the ordinary family. A TV was a new experience where you watched what you were told to watch, and newspapers had real news. Most people rented their homes, few could obtain much if any credit, and a car was still a distant ambition. The dockyards were filled with men, as were the workshops of industry and mines and railway facilities and farms employed many labourers. The City of London was a place where people knew what they were doing. I could go on.

In the past when I was young and callow, I did try to make forecasts. Early in 1967 in a discussion at the local Chamber of Commerce, I suggested that the UK position was weak, we were facing difficult choices, and one of the basic problems in coming to terms with our present, let alone the immediate future was our hang-ups about world power and prestige, especially the latter. For this I was roundly denounced at work by my boss for disloyalty to Queen and Country, lack of patriotism, and inability to recognise the greatness and might of Britain. A few weeks later the pound was devalued and the Wilson government announced the withdrawal from East of Suez. He never forgave me.

Now we are all broke, yet again, perhaps it is time to reflect on just what might be in store for us in the next fifty years. I can do so confident in the knowledge that the vast majority of the futurologists of 1956 to 1959 had it hopelessly wrong. A more delicate issue and maybe an advantage is that I will be unlikely to be around unless something really remarkable happens to the expectation of life figures. However, if I manage to get some things right then I might become an object of veneration, a new Nostradamus for the 21st Century. The trouble arises immediately I begin.

A major challenge is the wealth of information, sources, and debate now the web has opened up the minds and thoughts of the world to any who cares to debate or inform. Whilst properly this should lead to uncertainty and questioning, people have been brain washed into expecting positive and firm predictions, even when they know those who give them are lying through their teeth or have a personal agenda and something to sell. In any case, the figures probably will be manipulated, vital evidence be suppressed, and “research” done to order.

My personal problem is that if I set out predictions in which I honestly believe, using the LBO methods of analysis (Laws of the Bxyzabcg Obvious) some will be deeply uncomfortable, very difficult to accept, and will attract similar complaints to those made in genuine anger in 1967. But does anyone really think that life in 2010 will be anything like that we expected in 1980, never mind 1960? As for fifty years hence what will 2060 have to offer?

At least amongst all the advice and information nowadays there are online sites which advise you how to learn the basic skills of hunter gathering, but I am keeping this information to myself. But then I really am very old fashioned, and still think that 5mb is a lot of memory to have. Well, Bill Gates did once say that 256kb of memory was as much as any ordinary computer user needed, and who knew any better in those heady days of 1980?