robthill's posterous

This is a new facility from Posterous which makes it even easier to post on the move from both iPhone and Android.

the following arrived in my email today as I sat in front of a computer with two other machines standing idly by.... "In the queue at the shop, the cashier told the older woman that she should bring her own bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.  The woman apologised to him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day." The cashier responded, "That's our problem today.  The former generation did not care enough to save our environment!" He was right, that generation didn't have the green thing in its day. Back then, they returned their milk bottles, lemonade bottles and beer bottles to the shop.   The shop sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.  But they didn't have the green thing back in that customer's day.In her day, they walked up stairs, because they didn't have an escalator in every shop and office building. They walked to the grocery shop and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time they had to go two miles. But she was right. They didn't have the green thing in her day. Back then, they washed the baby's nappies because they didn't have the throw-away kind. They dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts - wind and solar power really did dry the clothes.  Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that old lady is right, they didn't have the green thing back in her day. Back then, they had one TV, or radio, in the house - not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief, not a screen the size of Wales. In the kitchen, they blended and stirred by hand because they didn't have electric machines to do everything for them. When they packaged a fragile item to send in by post, they used a screwed up old newspaper to cushion it, not polystyrene or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, they didn't fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the lawn. They used a push mower that ran on human power. They exercised by working so they didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right, they didn't have the green thing back then.   They drank from a fountain when they were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time they had a drink of water. They refilled their writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and they replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.  But they didn't have the green thing back then.   Back then, people took the tram or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or rode in the school bus instead of turning their mums into a 24-hour taxi service. They had one electrical socket in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And they didn't need acomputerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest Pizza Hut.   But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful the old folks were just because they didn't have the green thing back then?"

I have heard in the past some very swingeing criticisms of Bloggers and other amateur purveyors of news especially from the likes of Andrew Marr of the BBC.  I have in recent days noticed that the media as a whole have used amateur video and digital pictures of the terrible events in Japan and mostly took some days before they actually had their own people on the ground.  I may have failing eyesight but I have also not seen any prominent gestures to the copyright owners of this material.  Surely double standards if not actually plagiarism?

Why was Jim Naughtie allowed to go to Japan for the Today Programme?  Firstly, the BBC make a point of having correspondents all over the world so should they not be doing the job of reporting the Japanese disaster.  Secondly it seems to me almost indecent voyeurism to send superfluous reporting staff to a country which is only just managing to cope with overwhelming problems without having to answer yet more questions and to transport, feed and shelter a news team just to feed the Today ego.

The ultimate irony was a piece about a new comedy "Twenty Twelve" lampooning bureaucracy which was aired just before 9.00 am to be followed by Naughtie in Japan interviewing the Japanese ambassador in London!  Can the BBC not realise that lunacy like that just makes them look unfeeling, insensitive and wasteful of taxpayers' money?

I have just been listening to "In Our Time" on Radio 4 where Melvyn Bragg was discussing the recent finding that the universe is 13.7 billion years old with three eminent cosmologists, Martin Rees, Carolin Crawford and Carlos Frenk.  The programme home page is here.  It was a fascinating discussion, not for the content so much as the manner and the images.  The almost casual talk of this universe and its sheer mind-boggling scale left me feeling decidedly unwell and with an almost queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.  Partly it was the certainty which all three assumed as if this figure of 13 or so billion was the weight of a bag of apples in a supermarket but it was also the never asked let alone unanswered question - Why?  Why is this universe of billions of objects and immense complexity even existing and more so how do we fit into it and how on earth can we presume such certainty of knowledge?
And then at the very end Carlos Frenk said that this was of course the limit of our knowledge at the moment and we might be just one universe in billions of other much bigger universes about which we had as yet no knowledge.
Melvin Bragg then thanked them all and said that next week he would be discussing "Free Will".  I do hope it is in the context of a multi-billion starred universe!

William Rees Mogg in today's Times gently castigates the Daily Telegraph undercover operation to trap Lib Dem ministers into indiscreet remarks.  It is of course true that the ministers trapped in this way showed a degree of naivety which actually reflects the fact that Lib Dems have never been in power for such a long time that they have had no experience of being of such interest to the media.  He concludes thus

There is, however, something wrong. The Daily Telegraph decided to adopt a policy of trapping Lib Dem ministers by a trick — passing off reporters as constituents. They did not do so in pursuit of any major impropriety, but simply in a random search for political copy. I do not think that the old Daily Telegraph would have done that. Nor would it have been tolerated when I set out in journalism. These methods inherently involve deceit. Sometimes deceit is an unavoidable part of a legitimate investigation, but the subject of the investigation must be sufficiently serious to justify methods that inevitably undermine trust.

What surprises me however is what on earth motivated the Daily Telegraph.  If the paper honestly thinks it is serving the right wing Conservative cause by undermining the Coalition, it is seriously out of touch with the public mood.  If they bring down the Coalition, the Conservatives will most definitely not win any subsequent election.  However, if the Coalition survives for the full five years then there will be a better chance that a Conservative party which has shown reasonable restraint during that time might well win a working majority.

I would not normally post something like this but it does seem to be important to reach as many people as possible so please pass it on.  This comes from a very reputable source.

Can you circulate this around especially as Xmas is fast approaching - it has been confirmed by Royal Mail. The Trading Standards Office are making people aware of the following scam:
 
A card is posted through your door from a company called PDS (Parcel Delivery Service) suggesting that they were unable to deliver a parcel and that you need to contact them on 0906 6611911 (a Premium rate number).
 
DO NOT call this number, as this is a mail scam originating from Belize.
 
If you call the number and you start to hear a recorded message you will already have been billed £315 for the phone call.
 
If you do receive a card with these details, then please contact Royal Mail Fraud on 020 7239 6655.

There must be a certain irony in the UK banks contemplating paying out £7 bn in bonuses and the government having to find the same amount to bail out Ireland along with the other EU members.

As I understand it, there are several countries in Europe who have pledged to meet all their own banks debt obligations but who actually cannot do so as their individual GDPs are minuscule in relation to the size of the debts.  A large proportion of this bank debt is owed to other foreign banks who are in turn guaranteed by their own governments.  If all the governments reneged on these promises to honour foreign debt it would be horrific for the banks, but would not the taxpayer - us - be better off in the long run?

I will repeat myself.. they should have let them go bankrupt in the first place.

Without answering point by point I think my point about the banks is confirmed by a lot of this.

Already written on Facebook in a reply to a post on my wall....

This country is at present running a deficit; i.e. each year the government is spending more than it gets in revenue. This has come about through a combination of many things but certainly in that mix were the banks high risk investment strategies and the subsequent massive bail out by our government and many others but proclaimed as the only solution by Gordon Brown. That bail out has made our position worse than it needed to be.

The solution lies in two things. We can reduce the overspend. At the same time the economy could grow so that at some point the two graphs cross and we are no longer spending more than we collect in taxes. Nobody has suggested not even attempting to reduce that excessive expenditure. The "carry on regardless" option does not appear to be on the table.

Now we come to the detail and the devil is always in the detail because to somebody every item of expenditure is a sacred cow and should be ring fenced. My broad take would be to minimise reductions for anything that will be a benefit in future growth of the economy such as education.

My other question is this. It seems to be a given that having a flourishing financial sector is good for this country. This actually means a high risk investment type of financial sector. I would really like to know if this given is actually of benefit to us all.  Did the high risk financial sector pay more in taxes over the last few years than it cost to bail out? But also did it suck in investment funds which in a more normal investment climate would have gone into industry, the making of goods rather than the providing of services?  The analogy of a casino and how it benefits the local economy is town or city is pertinent.  I would suggest that it benefits a few but not really the many.

Mathew Lynn writing in November 13th edition of the Spectator is admiring of the way Iceland has managed to handle the banking crisis by protecting the home investors and letting the banks go under and default on the rest of the debt.  To quote him

 

In truth the Icelandic experience raises an alarming possibility for the rest of  the developed world.  Maybe we didn't need to bail out our banks quite so expensively.  Maybe we should have let them go bust?

 

Interesting that I was saying that we should have let banks fail in my post of April 27th this year.  Elsewhere in the same Spectator Fraser Nelson is suggesting that the 50 percent rate of tax will drive top  earners away.  Letting the banks go bust would have solved that problem as well; by now there would not be that many jobs let alone big bonuses in the financial world.  We might even have got some real competition instead of the return to the cosy cartel which is British banking today.