Keep Taking The Pills

Keeping track of all the elements in the human comedy is becoming more and more difficult.  One reason is that it is now very easy to find out more and look for a variety of comment.  Another is the immediacy and extent of media operations deliver more to worry about.

This cheery prediction dropped in the Inbox from one of the more optimistic members of my family.  We may be all doomed but at least there are a few years fun left; for those who can afford it.

Another opinion entirely came from the pessimistic side giving the chance of signing up to a project designed to run for ten thousand years, give or take a millennia or two.  It would have been of interest to see the predicated profit and loss figures and perhaps the rate of return on investment.

In the meantime war has broken out between the USA and the UK.  Luckily, just a war of words at present.  Pfizer of USA, big Pharma' incarnate of the alternative universe is trying to  swallow gallant little AstraZenica of the UK.

The intention is digest the patent rights, current profitable research and financial assets and to spit out anything where they do not like the taste of the figures or possible damage to the structure of their own product base from other new ones.

At one time our political leaders would have been rushing about bawling about the wonders of foreign investment and confidence in Britain.  Now Pfizer are characterised as thieves in the night.

Why might this be?  Could it involve plants and facilities located in key marginal constituencies or major UK lobby men with a lot to lose and a scientific establishment with much more at stake?

Some commentators point to the scale and extent of sell outs of the recent and further past and suggest it is down to the shareholders whose votes are critical.  Others seem to be born again economic nationalists anxious to preserve British firms for British workers.

There is more going on here than is apparent and it may be a case of who has interests in what.  More to the point, who are the shareholders?  They are hardly widows, orphans and ageing clergy in rural decay. 

They are trusts, pension funds and many financial entities who are either obliged to or committed to maximising their return on the value of their investments.  Which way they will jump has yet to be seen.  Much of what is being said politically is posturing.

The concerning aspect about so much of the financial services activity that bulks so large in our economy is that so very few of the population and indeed of the elite really know or understand how it operates.

In the old days we could understand how mines and factories functioned and how ships were built and the rest.  But what goes on around the computers and calculators of high finance and complex company structures is beyond almost all of us.

And usually we do not find out much until it is too late and those who try to tell us know little more.

Mind Bending For Beginners

Imagine

The picture above from 1956 shows a computer memory device being loaded onto an aircraft.  It is large, heavy, and very expensive.  It stored 5mb of memory.  In those days there were very few computers, they were little known, and managed by a mysterious cult of boffins.

Imagine, food cost a third 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 but the first real container shipping service began that year, although there had been a handful of specialist ships in the previous decade.  Across the UK 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.  Now we are 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 21^st 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. 

However 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 method of analysis (Law of the Bxyzabcg Obvious) some will be deeply uncomfortable, very difficult to accept, and will attract complaints. 

But does anyone really think that life in 2020 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 amost 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 I am 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?

What changes?  Almost everything?

Getting It All Wrong

As a Bank Holiday, when we all rush out to the Malls to spend money we do not have, courtesy of the banks, it is not a time for organised or serious thought.  But things do intrude.

The admission that they are all wrong in that both the basic ideas of the Left and Right about economics and wealth is something close to my own ideas.  But Blond's item from the LSE web site veers off course and crashes when he suggests that the answer is for the UK to become the great world power leading the way.  My view is that the best we can hope for is a zero hours contract to sweep up the mess.

What went badly wrong is spelled out on Naked Capitalism by Yves Smith as the idea that business and economic activity should be based on maximising shareholder value and returns.  This from Milton Friedman etc. which overthrew the idea of shareholders being one form of investor in companies with other objectives destroyed the balance of money, trade and markets to produce the horrors of the present.

A shlock horror energy item comes from Germany, noted on Energy Matters, where it seems that the great green energy caper is literally past its sell by date.  Sigmar Gabriel, Vice Chancellor and Economics Minister has said it does not work and will not work and costs far too much.  As the UK has gone hell bent down this road so we too have gone badly wrong.

Another fine mess it seems is the idea that the "Swiss Model" could be the one for the UK to follow in relations with the EU.  The Local, relayed by Richard North says it is going wrong and is not working.

Four wrongs do not make a right.

Reforming Parliament?

Apparently the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow is on a mission to make the Palace of Westminster a more commercial operation, beyond the backhanders. 

The plan is to turn the place with its extensive eating and even more extensive drinking holes into a tourist attraction and an events centre with occasional meeting days for politicians.

We are already aware that you pays your money and you gets your chance there but it seems all a little on the tawdry side.  But with, it is said, a billion pounds needed for repairs and maintenance, beggars cannot be chosers. 

As the present inmates have reduced so many to beggary it might be a fair option.

However, and it is a big "how" it looks like our Prime Minister, with the emphasis on the "mini" is badly in need of a major game changer.  With one year to go before an election he needs to take the initiative and keep it going.

It has to be big enough to command media attention, even to displace celebrity pregnancies from the headlines.  It needs to be bold enough to show that he is a man of power.  And it needs to cure several of our ailments with one major piece of surgery

Critically, he needs to deal with the Westminster Syndrome.

The big idea for the future may be to move the lot North. This item from here on Tuesday 19 May 2009 has the answer.  It would change the face of politics.

It might even work.

Bring Back Rationing?

One way of defeating the obesity crisis, cutting food bills and improving the health of the nation at one go would be to go back to the 1940's, more or less, and bring back rationing.

This strident Youtube item running at a couple of minutes is a shock horror one that dropped into the inbox, sadly just before my fix of strawberries picked fresh from the field and cream.  It is about the vices of sugar.

With the EU banning mangoes because they are laden not just with sweetness of taste but plant diseases and enough pesticides to poison it is trouble enough.  Add to that the extensive use of antibiotics in animals in the USA and elsewhere eating is not much fun, more like a bungee jump with ageing elastic.

Going back to the past when rationing was intended to be rational eating for health and activity this Wikipedia article gives a decent summary of it.  Did we really manage on so little, allowing for all the bread and potatoes, excuse the wind, and the imaginative use of foods we would shun today?

Are we now just prisoners in a consumer society where we just do what the advertisements tell us to do and obey the psychology of shopping imposed by the retailers?  Can we escape this?

Fat chance, it seems.

See You Later Accelerator

The great discovery of our time has been revealed in the Economics and Math section of e! Science News.  Now we know that in cars driven by teenagers when there is loud talking and horseplay they are more likely to prang.  We await the views of the Jaguar Driver's Club, "You were meant to belong".

The little car above, the same as my first one, was a car that needed constant attention to drive.  The gears were not synchromesh so changing entailed double de-clutching, the steering was very positive, most of the time, but wobbly on some cambers and the braking had a mind of its own. 

Apart from that it was relatively safe, except perhaps when carrying several blokes on the local gallon run, a series of eight pubs where the aim was to have a pint in each, all taken in one go and still remain standing, more or less.

The lighting could be temperamental, sensitive bulbs and wiring given to separating out after a long or rough ride. The prudent driver would carry spare bicycle lamps to strap over them if needed.  They didn't give much light but at least you were legal, depending on the policeman.

The technology that has made cars so much easier to handle and more reliable also means that there is a lot more to see and do on the dashboard and controls.  Also, they are quieter and built in such a way that the driver feels to be apart from the world; in a cocoon almost.

More to the point, the performance, speed and handling of the basic modern cars is a lot better than those of the expensive cars of the past. 

For everyman his equivalent of the racing cars that ran the old Nurburgring.  There was a time when you could take the family car on that for 5 DM and try your luck, insurance excluded.

A factor these days there is so much more going on to distract drivers.  Where they have modern gizmos's on the go as well for music and messaging it seems that many are more and more occupied on tasks other than driving.

Whether driving skills and manners are better or worse is one of those arguments between the generations that will never be resolved.  Modern drivers because of the capability of their vehicles seem to leave much less margin for error but get away with it because the braking and controls are so much better.

Until the bad weather comes and pileups occur.  Or until teenagers are in control and turning up the sound.

Invitation To The Balls

It is always nice to be invited to something, especially when it is from someone who seems to have your best interests at heart.  At our age and stage the invites are drying up so it always gives a cause for cheer when they do.

This morning the postman brought us a special one, is it an offer we cannot refuse?  Could we shun such a philanthropic ideal?  Is it the chance of a lifetime and a better one than all those cruises to rat ridden locations teeming with stomach bugs?

It says "Be Part of the London Housing Bubble" and is from a gent' called Simon Miller who seems to know a lot about the subject and is willing to help as much as he can.

What is wonderful is that if we respond and instruct them to sell our residence we will feature in the major London Property Exhibition to be held at Park Lane in London, no less, on Wednesday 7th May.

Can I assume that the fizz will be flowing freely?  Will we be rubbing shoulders with the great and the good, or at least the great and the bad, depending on the expenses claims?  Will people, if only estate agents, be happy to chat to us?

Alas, my Chairman and Finance Director tells me to bin it and go back to searching the Disused Stations Web Site for my lost youth.  Practical as ever, it is pointed out that we are miles from London and cannot afford a garage in an outer suburb let alone an abandoned council toilet.

We are told that prices are going up by 12.9 per cent in general in London with up to 23.5 per cent in one area in the last year.  This is said to be bringing joy to all, except many buyers, renters and others.

Thanks to the wisdom of our leaders and financial experts this has no effect on the inflation figures or other crucial indexes.  This we are told is investment and not consumption and does not affect our critical personal financial outlays.

What could possibly go wrong?