Tomorrow is my birthday, I shall be approaching the status of an ancient but I still feel like a boy. How did this happen, where did the years go?
Aren’t I that little wide eyed boy pressing every button to ride the elevators up and down the tower blocks at the end of my street with my friends, hoping not to get caught, but confident that I could outrun anyone if we were. Where did the innocence of that first drink, cigarette, kiss or “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” all go?
Perhaps it’s that part of us that form the bedrock of our personalities, the thing that makes us behave a certain way in our later lives. Because along with all the mischief we perpetrated on our neighbors we also learned the rudiments of how to properly behave, what the rules were, and what would happen to you if you disobeyed them.
My first major lesson in this regard came when my friend, Francis Monk, who I shall always blame for leading me astray, and I decided to find out what girls in bathing suits looked like. We were neighbors in West Acton, a quiet suburb of London, in small homes with no pretensions. We were about six years old and the back end of my garden had a heavily wooded area that overlooked the big swimming pool belonging to Haberdasher’s School for Girls. It was the Girls bit that grabbed our boyish attention. The older girls would walk shivering to the poolside, wrapped in large towels, and then, just before they jumped in, they removed their towels. We could see that they had bumps where we had no bumps, and no bumps where we did have bumps. Both of us had done our best to investigate this phenomenon by trying to accidentally enter our bathrooms when our sisters went about their ablutions, but no luck!
We had to take drastic action if we were to find out the secrets of the female form. We didn’t know why, but we knew this was an important part of our quest for knowledge. We consulted with each other and came up with a plan. We would throw a bunch of rocks from the garden into the pool and when the girls jumped in they would hurt their feet and in their astonishment would be forced to jump out of the pool and this would cause them to expose their bumpy bits to our more leisurely inspection.
The night before the appointed day Frances and I climbed the garden shed, quite a feat in itself, something akin to the ascent of the North face of Everest, and, without breaking cover, managed to lob a large arsenal of rocks into the pool. Satisfied with our efforts we went to sleep excited. The next morning arrived, nice and shiny, the warm sun coating our backs as we lay on top of the shed and waited for the girls. Right on schedule they arrived, and clearly these were the big girls, and this was beyond our wildest expectations. They went through their normal ritual of giggling and standing by the pool and dipping their toes in to test the temperature and then finally, there was the brief flash of blue swimming costume as the young ladies jumped into the water.
Within moments there was a great deal of thrashing around, shouting and complaining as their feet found our pointy objects. As planned they all started to jump out of the pool in a mild outbreak of mass hysteria. We forgot all about our covert reconnaissance as we burst into a fit of giggle. As in one of those Vampire movies there was a terrible moment as all the girls and their teacher turned in our direction. The game was up; they clearly knew that we were the guilty parties. We ran without looking back, jumping from our elevated perch, not wanting to hear the accusing voices.
We thought we were safe as there was a major fence between the school and ourselves and were too naïve to understand that it was perhaps foolish to undertake a crime from my own back garden. But nothing happened that day, and being young boys we compared notes about the bumpy bits and decided we needed to do a bit more thorough research.
The next day dawned and there was a ring on our doorbell. I answered it and standing there was the biggest police officer I had ever seen. He was wearing Sergeant’s stripes and was not happy. “Is your mother in? “ He asked, I knew the game was up, and I could feel a dreadful knot in my stomach as I estimated how many years they would lock me up for. I trudged up to my mother, and told her that there was a policeman downstairs for her. “What have you been up to? “ she asked me, on her way downstairs. I intuitively knew it was best not to volunteer an admission of guilt, after all the police man might only be there to arrest someone else she knew so didn’t answer. I would admit nothing under any circumstances; let them provide evidence of my throwing the stones. How could they? I thought hopefully.
I heard a muffled conversation from the front door and my mother, who until then I had loved without reservation came back up the stairs. She looked at me and shook her head, “Get downstairs and talk to the Sergeant.” She instructed. I went, my head bowed, to meet my executioner. When I got to the door he seemed to have grown a bit, he was so big that he was now blocking out the light and all I could see was a giant blue silhouette.
Very calmly the policeman questioned me about what had happened at the swimming pool. I broke down in terror after about ten seconds, and admitted everything. “Your mother has asked me to deal with your punishment,” he intoned, and with that he gave me a belt around my ear. I can still feel the sting, imaging the reddest ear in England, and that was my ear, it was also ringing so badly that I think I can still hear it reverberate if I try hard enough. The policeman continued, “And if I have to come and talk to you about this again I shall lock you up and it will be for a very long time, understood?” I swore I understood perfectly and I did. I have never thrown anything in anyone’s swimming pool ever since, in fact I have had that small boy’s healthy fear and respect of the law ever since.
It’s what I would call common sense policing and perhaps London’s new Metropolitan Commissioner of Police, Sir Paul Stephenson, appointed today, could learn something from such common sense. It is long past time that the men doing this job thought a little less about politics and a bit more about being a police officer.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
ShameOnUsAll
When I was growing up in the austerity of post war England we had some certainties in our confined universe. Our country could always beat the Germans in a fight, our music and fashion were the best, our police were the best and our bureaucrats and politicians were boring, straight and efficient. Oh how sadly things have changed.
The Insight column in Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper yesterday exposed four members of the House of Lords who it is alleged, accepted bribes to amend legislation. Today one of the Lords implicated stood up in our second House of Parliament and admitted he had accepted the offer of money in this manner but didn’t feel he had done anything wrong. He went on to add that he apologized if he had done something they considered wrong.
What world do these people inhabit? It is entirely wrong and deplorable behavior for any member of our political elite to accept money from anyone, ever, to do the job they were put in place and are well paid to do. It is even more worrying that their Lordships don’t appear to understand that they have done something wrong.
There is now some evidence that this is just one example of this legislation fixing. When you listen to the tapes already in the public domain recorded by the Insight team it soon becomes clear that there has been long-term endemic corruption of this kind in the House of Lords
The second house of the British Parliament is, it is now clear, used for this form of corruption because the elected House of Commons is too tightly regulated for anyone to get away with it. Ironically even if the House of Lords find their peers guilty the only punishment that can be imposed is for the colleagues to refuse to listen to them speak in a debate. There is little wonder that these greedy, grubby little men would risk such opprobrium for the large sums of cash seemingly on offer.
I am hugely disappointed that our previously revered system of government has allowed this awful pattern of action to become a part of the covert political reality of our country. We have to examine both ourselves and our country in light of this awful expose. How could such reprehensible actions exist in our society? Why do seemingly upstanding businesses feel it is appropriate or permissible to offer bribes to our legislators?
It is vital that the laws are changed so that the next time someone behaves like this in the House of Lords they will get thrown into jail for a very long time. Otherwise the citizens of our country will have no trust in their leaders or moral compass from those of whom we rightfully expect more.
The Insight column in Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper yesterday exposed four members of the House of Lords who it is alleged, accepted bribes to amend legislation. Today one of the Lords implicated stood up in our second House of Parliament and admitted he had accepted the offer of money in this manner but didn’t feel he had done anything wrong. He went on to add that he apologized if he had done something they considered wrong.
What world do these people inhabit? It is entirely wrong and deplorable behavior for any member of our political elite to accept money from anyone, ever, to do the job they were put in place and are well paid to do. It is even more worrying that their Lordships don’t appear to understand that they have done something wrong.
There is now some evidence that this is just one example of this legislation fixing. When you listen to the tapes already in the public domain recorded by the Insight team it soon becomes clear that there has been long-term endemic corruption of this kind in the House of Lords
The second house of the British Parliament is, it is now clear, used for this form of corruption because the elected House of Commons is too tightly regulated for anyone to get away with it. Ironically even if the House of Lords find their peers guilty the only punishment that can be imposed is for the colleagues to refuse to listen to them speak in a debate. There is little wonder that these greedy, grubby little men would risk such opprobrium for the large sums of cash seemingly on offer.
I am hugely disappointed that our previously revered system of government has allowed this awful pattern of action to become a part of the covert political reality of our country. We have to examine both ourselves and our country in light of this awful expose. How could such reprehensible actions exist in our society? Why do seemingly upstanding businesses feel it is appropriate or permissible to offer bribes to our legislators?
It is vital that the laws are changed so that the next time someone behaves like this in the House of Lords they will get thrown into jail for a very long time. Otherwise the citizens of our country will have no trust in their leaders or moral compass from those of whom we rightfully expect more.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
EndMultiCulturalism
It has recently become acceptable to demonize an entire religion for the actions of some maniacs in their midst. I am writing about Islam. I am not an expert on this religion and as far as I am concerned, if they left everyone else alone I wouldn’t bother with them any more than I would Catholics or Hindus or any other religion.
In the last few months I have received an ever-growing number of hateful messages aimed at the Islamic world. If they were aimed at any other group there would be a huge outcry. I wonder if people who read my articles believe that because I am a Zionist and a supporter of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state that I would automatically hate Islam. For the record my support of Israel has no bearing on my respect for Islam as a religion.
However my contempt for Islamic extremists runs deep. They are selfish bullies who follow an obscenely tunnel visioned and warped version of their religion that has no place in a democracy. They demand that everyone live in a Caliphate in which we all have to be devout Muslims or die. These are the same kind of people as those that run the terrorist group in Gaza, Hamas, who publicly state it is now legitimate to kill all Jews wherever they are, even the Jewish children. The same people as the Taliban in Afghanistan, who have stoned people to death for adultery and poured acid into the faces of young girls who dared to attend school. The same people who killed over 3,000 innocent civilians working in a couple of buildings in New York on 9/11.
Don’t ever confuse the legitimate reactions of self-defense and self -preservation with the awful acts of carnage that provoke us. The spin -doctors of extreme Islam has so confused our Western population that they now confuse the victims with the culprits. It is no longer questioned that it is legitimate to attack our values and us but improbably we constrain ourselves and limit our reactions. We must continue to do so or we will sink to the level of the gutter with our enemies who confuse our courtesy, civility and hospitality with weakness and foolishness.
Make no mistake the Islamic extremists remain dangerous and are working hard to destabilize and destroy any society which doesn’t conform to their dreams of a Caliphate and they will do anything to reach that goal.
We must not be idiotic in the way we combat such lunacy nor can we ignore the threat however unpalatable that may be to their well intentioned fellow traveling nincompoops of the liberal left who want to pretend no such threat exists. It would be easy to adopt the tactics of the Nazis to beat down this threat but that would, perversely, only encourage the militant Islamic extremists further.
Instead of our reducing ourselves to circulating hateful propaganda to match the venomous poison of this mad fringe of the Muslim world we should be doing all we can to eradicate their falsehoods. We can only do this with intelligence, wisdom and wit.
Our leaders must launch a coordinated campaign of public relations aimed to penetrate the ghettoized world the Muslim minority inhabits.
We must immediately abandon the failed experiment of multi culturalism that has contaminated our Western societies during persistent waves of immigration.
We must facilitate integration and abandon any thoughts of a separate society living within a larger society. For a start that means that students in our education system have to learn the language of their host country and there should be no attempt to cater to their mother tongues.
We must support other democracies with all we have so that we can defend ourselves in this continuing war for the survival of our civilization. Make no mistake this is a war in all but name. At the moment it is mainly a war of ideas, philosophy and words, but in many places in the world the war is already punctuated by the sound of bullets. We must wake up to this real threat and confront it without losing what we are and what we must value.
In the last few months I have received an ever-growing number of hateful messages aimed at the Islamic world. If they were aimed at any other group there would be a huge outcry. I wonder if people who read my articles believe that because I am a Zionist and a supporter of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state that I would automatically hate Islam. For the record my support of Israel has no bearing on my respect for Islam as a religion.
However my contempt for Islamic extremists runs deep. They are selfish bullies who follow an obscenely tunnel visioned and warped version of their religion that has no place in a democracy. They demand that everyone live in a Caliphate in which we all have to be devout Muslims or die. These are the same kind of people as those that run the terrorist group in Gaza, Hamas, who publicly state it is now legitimate to kill all Jews wherever they are, even the Jewish children. The same people as the Taliban in Afghanistan, who have stoned people to death for adultery and poured acid into the faces of young girls who dared to attend school. The same people who killed over 3,000 innocent civilians working in a couple of buildings in New York on 9/11.
Don’t ever confuse the legitimate reactions of self-defense and self -preservation with the awful acts of carnage that provoke us. The spin -doctors of extreme Islam has so confused our Western population that they now confuse the victims with the culprits. It is no longer questioned that it is legitimate to attack our values and us but improbably we constrain ourselves and limit our reactions. We must continue to do so or we will sink to the level of the gutter with our enemies who confuse our courtesy, civility and hospitality with weakness and foolishness.
Make no mistake the Islamic extremists remain dangerous and are working hard to destabilize and destroy any society which doesn’t conform to their dreams of a Caliphate and they will do anything to reach that goal.
We must not be idiotic in the way we combat such lunacy nor can we ignore the threat however unpalatable that may be to their well intentioned fellow traveling nincompoops of the liberal left who want to pretend no such threat exists. It would be easy to adopt the tactics of the Nazis to beat down this threat but that would, perversely, only encourage the militant Islamic extremists further.
Instead of our reducing ourselves to circulating hateful propaganda to match the venomous poison of this mad fringe of the Muslim world we should be doing all we can to eradicate their falsehoods. We can only do this with intelligence, wisdom and wit.
Our leaders must launch a coordinated campaign of public relations aimed to penetrate the ghettoized world the Muslim minority inhabits.
We must immediately abandon the failed experiment of multi culturalism that has contaminated our Western societies during persistent waves of immigration.
We must facilitate integration and abandon any thoughts of a separate society living within a larger society. For a start that means that students in our education system have to learn the language of their host country and there should be no attempt to cater to their mother tongues.
We must support other democracies with all we have so that we can defend ourselves in this continuing war for the survival of our civilization. Make no mistake this is a war in all but name. At the moment it is mainly a war of ideas, philosophy and words, but in many places in the world the war is already punctuated by the sound of bullets. We must wake up to this real threat and confront it without losing what we are and what we must value.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
TheManComesAround
Today I welcome President Barack Obama to his new post. Ironically, as I started to write this article the play list I was listening to automatically selected Johnny Cash singing “The Man Comes Around”. There could not be a more appropriate theme tune for the next few years. “ Behold a white horse,” sings Cash, and the question is stark, is our society ready to die an ignominious death or is there some glory yet to be won by us in ways yet unimagined if we follow the black man riding our white horse?
There are, without doubt, wholly unrealistic expectations for Obama that he couldn’t fulfill even if he were the Messiah, which for the sake of those of you too dewy eyed to realize, he isn’t and doesn’t claim to be.
We understand the sheer excitement and exuberance of the day brought about because the man is seen as the natural inheritor of greatness bestowed on the first African American to achieve the dream passed to him directly from the founding fathers, through Abraham Lincoln via Martin Luther King.
The rest of the world, almost without exception, shares America’s excitement about today’s events. The reason for this is that the world actually likes and admires America. We share many common dreams and aspirations, and the world wants America to do well but it no longer enjoys America acting as the lone gunfighter taking on the guy in the black hat alone. Now the time has come for a series of genuine partnerships built around political consensus. Both the problems and solutions are global. Obama clearly understands this and we can only hope that this is the path he intends to pursue, even when the going gets tough.
Obama passed the first test, which wasn’t easy, in winning the Primaries against some super tough opposition in the person of Hillary Clinton who he later had the good sense to appoint as his Secretary of State; he then vanquished a creditable and honest competitor in John McCain. But that is now just history, and today the clock starts on the new President and what he can actually achieve in office.
There will inevitably be a honeymoon period when everything the newly elected President does is viewed in a rosy hue that lends brilliance and luster to his every action. Because of the unique circumstances surrounding his inauguration, turning it into more of a coronation, it’s likely this period might last more than a year. Lest you forget Prime Minister Blair and President Bush both had remarkably successful honeymoon periods in office but left under clouds of suspicion and loathing.
We can only use today to pause and speculate on the enormity and complexity of the problems facing Obama. No incoming President has had as much to deal with on day one in office. Not just a total financial and economic collapse, but two wars and problems in the Near and Middle East, Latin America and we could go on, but it would just serve to depress what should be a day of celebration and joy that this man’s perceived ability alone has catapulted him to the highest elected office in the world. Can we dare hope that this man is the lever around which we find the tipping point where America and the West reassert its moral purpose and compass? It would be wonderful if this were the case.
America needs a great leader and the darkest hour is just before the dawn. Whatever our personal views on Margaret Thatcher she took the UK from an ungovernable economic basket case and totally turned it around, so one motivated and determined person of enormous vision can lead us and save the situation. One person can make a difference, is Obama that man?
The world joins America in praying for the new President to be as good as he looks and sounds, we could all do with some calm, astute and well intentioned leadership shaped by humanity, intelligence and heart. The world welcomes President Barack Obama.
There are, without doubt, wholly unrealistic expectations for Obama that he couldn’t fulfill even if he were the Messiah, which for the sake of those of you too dewy eyed to realize, he isn’t and doesn’t claim to be.
We understand the sheer excitement and exuberance of the day brought about because the man is seen as the natural inheritor of greatness bestowed on the first African American to achieve the dream passed to him directly from the founding fathers, through Abraham Lincoln via Martin Luther King.
The rest of the world, almost without exception, shares America’s excitement about today’s events. The reason for this is that the world actually likes and admires America. We share many common dreams and aspirations, and the world wants America to do well but it no longer enjoys America acting as the lone gunfighter taking on the guy in the black hat alone. Now the time has come for a series of genuine partnerships built around political consensus. Both the problems and solutions are global. Obama clearly understands this and we can only hope that this is the path he intends to pursue, even when the going gets tough.
Obama passed the first test, which wasn’t easy, in winning the Primaries against some super tough opposition in the person of Hillary Clinton who he later had the good sense to appoint as his Secretary of State; he then vanquished a creditable and honest competitor in John McCain. But that is now just history, and today the clock starts on the new President and what he can actually achieve in office.
There will inevitably be a honeymoon period when everything the newly elected President does is viewed in a rosy hue that lends brilliance and luster to his every action. Because of the unique circumstances surrounding his inauguration, turning it into more of a coronation, it’s likely this period might last more than a year. Lest you forget Prime Minister Blair and President Bush both had remarkably successful honeymoon periods in office but left under clouds of suspicion and loathing.
We can only use today to pause and speculate on the enormity and complexity of the problems facing Obama. No incoming President has had as much to deal with on day one in office. Not just a total financial and economic collapse, but two wars and problems in the Near and Middle East, Latin America and we could go on, but it would just serve to depress what should be a day of celebration and joy that this man’s perceived ability alone has catapulted him to the highest elected office in the world. Can we dare hope that this man is the lever around which we find the tipping point where America and the West reassert its moral purpose and compass? It would be wonderful if this were the case.
America needs a great leader and the darkest hour is just before the dawn. Whatever our personal views on Margaret Thatcher she took the UK from an ungovernable economic basket case and totally turned it around, so one motivated and determined person of enormous vision can lead us and save the situation. One person can make a difference, is Obama that man?
The world joins America in praying for the new President to be as good as he looks and sounds, we could all do with some calm, astute and well intentioned leadership shaped by humanity, intelligence and heart. The world welcomes President Barack Obama.
Monday, January 19, 2009
GoodbyeGeorgeW
I am taking this opportunity to say goodbye to President George W. Bush. Sure, like you I have seen him lampooned a million times in every conceivable way. It wasn’t always like this, it’s strange how short our memories are, like the incoming President Barack Obama, George W. had a popularity rating of over 80%.
The perception of the outgoing President is that he was a total idiot who couldn’t walk and talk. Interesting that those who know him paint a totally different and contradictory picture. I don’t have personal knowledge of the man, a great many of whose policies I don’t like or simply abhor. But I don’t think he is a fool and I don’t believe he had been foolish, any more than most of his predecessors.
Moreover I am prepared to take bets that long-term history is going to be a great deal kinder to his stint in office than predecessors like Clinton, Carter or many others.
Obviously speaking in public was painful to George W. and any of us listening to his tortured syntax and garbled grammar, but that didn’t mean he was stupid any more than Barack being a brilliant orator will make him a great President.
I instinctively hate big business being in any way involved in government at any level, whatever the rationale, and I especially find some of the big American corporations genuinely terrifying harbingers of some dreadful corporate world and these people appeared to have their hooks into George, but I don’t think these same corporations are strangers to anyone who has previously inhabited the White House. I would love to see Barack create some distance between himself and those insider interests.
Bush didn’t seem to handle emergencies well but then again, do you remember Clinton or Nixon facing emergencies, they tried to lie their way out of their problems. Carter, probably the President with the highest IQ of the lot didn’t have a clue how to handle the Iranian hostage situation and is still making lame excuses for his lamentable choices. Perhaps no one forgives Bush for the War on Terror, which I believe was and still is necessary, even if it has been disastrously handled in many ways.
The truth is that President Clinton is fondly remembered for his time in office because people felt prosperous whereas they despise President Clinton because the economy is collapsing around their ears, the people are terrified for their future, and they’re looking for someone to blame and Wall St is just too alien and anonymous to understand let alone attack. We’re left with the outgoing President to despise and blame and although we’re all culpable to a lesser or greater extent the real culprits live in the City of London and New York’s Wall St.
Like the comedians who found Bush ideal lampoon material I will miss this misunderstood President for his apparent humanity and despite his frailties. I hope President Obama will be nothing like him as times have certainly moved on, and we need a very different type of man for the uncertain future we all face.
In the meantime I thank the outgoing President for trying his best, which at times was good enough, and for his very obvious attempts to do the right thing. I hope he has a long and healthy retirement and gains satisfaction from his successor’s achievements. I hope and believe he will.
The perception of the outgoing President is that he was a total idiot who couldn’t walk and talk. Interesting that those who know him paint a totally different and contradictory picture. I don’t have personal knowledge of the man, a great many of whose policies I don’t like or simply abhor. But I don’t think he is a fool and I don’t believe he had been foolish, any more than most of his predecessors.
Moreover I am prepared to take bets that long-term history is going to be a great deal kinder to his stint in office than predecessors like Clinton, Carter or many others.
Obviously speaking in public was painful to George W. and any of us listening to his tortured syntax and garbled grammar, but that didn’t mean he was stupid any more than Barack being a brilliant orator will make him a great President.
I instinctively hate big business being in any way involved in government at any level, whatever the rationale, and I especially find some of the big American corporations genuinely terrifying harbingers of some dreadful corporate world and these people appeared to have their hooks into George, but I don’t think these same corporations are strangers to anyone who has previously inhabited the White House. I would love to see Barack create some distance between himself and those insider interests.
Bush didn’t seem to handle emergencies well but then again, do you remember Clinton or Nixon facing emergencies, they tried to lie their way out of their problems. Carter, probably the President with the highest IQ of the lot didn’t have a clue how to handle the Iranian hostage situation and is still making lame excuses for his lamentable choices. Perhaps no one forgives Bush for the War on Terror, which I believe was and still is necessary, even if it has been disastrously handled in many ways.
The truth is that President Clinton is fondly remembered for his time in office because people felt prosperous whereas they despise President Clinton because the economy is collapsing around their ears, the people are terrified for their future, and they’re looking for someone to blame and Wall St is just too alien and anonymous to understand let alone attack. We’re left with the outgoing President to despise and blame and although we’re all culpable to a lesser or greater extent the real culprits live in the City of London and New York’s Wall St.
Like the comedians who found Bush ideal lampoon material I will miss this misunderstood President for his apparent humanity and despite his frailties. I hope President Obama will be nothing like him as times have certainly moved on, and we need a very different type of man for the uncertain future we all face.
In the meantime I thank the outgoing President for trying his best, which at times was good enough, and for his very obvious attempts to do the right thing. I hope he has a long and healthy retirement and gains satisfaction from his successor’s achievements. I hope and believe he will.
ScaryTimes
Today there will be two blog articles, this one about domestic matters, and the other to say goodbye to President George W. Bush.
We are all very concerned about the government and its latest bail out of the banks in the UK. Today’s figures are just so astronomical they could choke our economy for a couple of generations to come if this doesn’t work. We are now entering the realm of fantasy fiscal policy, which has been trodden before, in Weimar Germany and more recently in Zimbabwe.
The solution being sought involves in our government in theory creating a bank for toxic debt. This central clearing house will deal with all the bad or suspect debts floating in the banking system, and now to be guaranteed by us, the taxpayers. This is a black hole that could bury us; it is extremely treacherous territory from which there might be no escape. Our government doesn’t actually know how big this risk is, no one seems able to do so.
Add to this the tactic of simply printing more money to meet potentially unending obligations and we could yet face the day when wheelbarrow manufacture might be the boom business of the new decade, simply because we would need some means of wheeled transport to carry our worthless money in if the pound continues to implode.
You can already feel the affect of this decrease in comparative value when you travel to the USA or Europe and realize that your pound has dropped about 25% in value in a relatively short period of time. We need to see the economy stabilize and the government’s latest measure take effect or we are in huge trouble. Even if they do become instantly effective, and I doubt that, there is still no light at the end of this particular tunnel.
I’m sorry if I am confirming the pundits naming of this date as the most pessimistic and downbeat date on the annual calendar but we have to face the future with pragmatism and that tells us that our Prime Minister did what he had to a few weeks ago as he probably had no alternative other than to watch our banks topple like a row of dominoes and – it simply wasn’t effective and it hasn’t worked in broader terms. Our banks are still not liquid enough and are still not lending to the small and medium sized businesses or solid citizens, as they must if we are to financially survive.
Although today's bail out is larger in both size and ambition I don’t trust the banks to take a view bigger than their own boardrooms and next shareholder event. They are going to have to be dragged screaming to do what’s right by the government or they will simply not comply.
The scariest thing I have recently witnessed was President George W. Bush as he calmly made arrangements with the American legislature for the next $350 billion of public money to be downloaded to the boys from Wall St. When he was asked how we were going with the previous £350 billion, provided less than a month ago, he smiled and said, “That’s already been spent.”
This money isn’t endless and we need to see some positive signs from our banking system or we are falling into the biggest financial hole in history. We need to start handing out the shovels and digging!
We are all very concerned about the government and its latest bail out of the banks in the UK. Today’s figures are just so astronomical they could choke our economy for a couple of generations to come if this doesn’t work. We are now entering the realm of fantasy fiscal policy, which has been trodden before, in Weimar Germany and more recently in Zimbabwe.
The solution being sought involves in our government in theory creating a bank for toxic debt. This central clearing house will deal with all the bad or suspect debts floating in the banking system, and now to be guaranteed by us, the taxpayers. This is a black hole that could bury us; it is extremely treacherous territory from which there might be no escape. Our government doesn’t actually know how big this risk is, no one seems able to do so.
Add to this the tactic of simply printing more money to meet potentially unending obligations and we could yet face the day when wheelbarrow manufacture might be the boom business of the new decade, simply because we would need some means of wheeled transport to carry our worthless money in if the pound continues to implode.
You can already feel the affect of this decrease in comparative value when you travel to the USA or Europe and realize that your pound has dropped about 25% in value in a relatively short period of time. We need to see the economy stabilize and the government’s latest measure take effect or we are in huge trouble. Even if they do become instantly effective, and I doubt that, there is still no light at the end of this particular tunnel.
I’m sorry if I am confirming the pundits naming of this date as the most pessimistic and downbeat date on the annual calendar but we have to face the future with pragmatism and that tells us that our Prime Minister did what he had to a few weeks ago as he probably had no alternative other than to watch our banks topple like a row of dominoes and – it simply wasn’t effective and it hasn’t worked in broader terms. Our banks are still not liquid enough and are still not lending to the small and medium sized businesses or solid citizens, as they must if we are to financially survive.
Although today's bail out is larger in both size and ambition I don’t trust the banks to take a view bigger than their own boardrooms and next shareholder event. They are going to have to be dragged screaming to do what’s right by the government or they will simply not comply.
The scariest thing I have recently witnessed was President George W. Bush as he calmly made arrangements with the American legislature for the next $350 billion of public money to be downloaded to the boys from Wall St. When he was asked how we were going with the previous £350 billion, provided less than a month ago, he smiled and said, “That’s already been spent.”
This money isn’t endless and we need to see some positive signs from our banking system or we are falling into the biggest financial hole in history. We need to start handing out the shovels and digging!
Friday, January 16, 2009
Hiding
Have you recently sent a text to someone via your mobile phone because it saved you from confrontation?
Or perhaps you've sent a quick e mail rather than confront a potentially
difficult chat?
When those options were not available did you speak on the phone rather than meet in person?
Our modern use of technology has resulted in hiding behind our communication devices. There are layers of cowardice involved in these new patterns of behavior and almost all of us are implicated.
It is also not obvious to us how much we use these electronic devices as an invisible shield behind which we can hide, or simply run our lives, until they suddenly become unavailable.
Today, for the fourth time in a week the power went out in my home. This outage has apparently affected 1,700 homes in my district and is further evidence, if any were necessary, that our first world country is doing its best to become third world as fast as it can. Suddenly nothing works and a plan B is essential.
My TV went out and I couldn’t do my exercise tape, the server went down so I couldn’t post the article that was going to feature today and the heating went off so the temperature dropped like a stone. I couldn’t microwave my porridge or turn on any lights. As I was due to meet a production client to discuss some techno questions it seemed a good idea to choose another venue or we’d be talking in the dark, literally.
But back to the key question, is this avoidance of direct, personal interaction a good development or is it a disaster?
I cannot imagine a more damaging descent into a woeful world in which you see most young mums talking on their mobiles whilst they ignore the efforts of their young children to grab their attention.
Now you see people walking along together but talking to other people on their mobiles as if the partner they are with wasn’t even present.
Yesterday it was reported that a young girl in the States used her text facility on average once every two minutes for her every waking minute. When questioned why she used this service so much she replied that she liked to talk. Ironically the one thing she was not doing was talking to anyone. In fact she was ignoring the people around her in order to communicate to those who were not. To me this is rudeness writ large and it demeans the people being ignored.
Worse still we have people being fired from their jobs by text as if they were robots with no emotions or rights to humanity or caring.
Sometimes using a communications device places increases the distance between us. If we were all to remember our humanity and opt for personal contact we would improve our connectivity and our quality of life would be enhanced as a result.
Or perhaps you've sent a quick e mail rather than confront a potentially
difficult chat?
When those options were not available did you speak on the phone rather than meet in person?
Our modern use of technology has resulted in hiding behind our communication devices. There are layers of cowardice involved in these new patterns of behavior and almost all of us are implicated.
It is also not obvious to us how much we use these electronic devices as an invisible shield behind which we can hide, or simply run our lives, until they suddenly become unavailable.
Today, for the fourth time in a week the power went out in my home. This outage has apparently affected 1,700 homes in my district and is further evidence, if any were necessary, that our first world country is doing its best to become third world as fast as it can. Suddenly nothing works and a plan B is essential.
My TV went out and I couldn’t do my exercise tape, the server went down so I couldn’t post the article that was going to feature today and the heating went off so the temperature dropped like a stone. I couldn’t microwave my porridge or turn on any lights. As I was due to meet a production client to discuss some techno questions it seemed a good idea to choose another venue or we’d be talking in the dark, literally.
But back to the key question, is this avoidance of direct, personal interaction a good development or is it a disaster?
I cannot imagine a more damaging descent into a woeful world in which you see most young mums talking on their mobiles whilst they ignore the efforts of their young children to grab their attention.
Now you see people walking along together but talking to other people on their mobiles as if the partner they are with wasn’t even present.
Yesterday it was reported that a young girl in the States used her text facility on average once every two minutes for her every waking minute. When questioned why she used this service so much she replied that she liked to talk. Ironically the one thing she was not doing was talking to anyone. In fact she was ignoring the people around her in order to communicate to those who were not. To me this is rudeness writ large and it demeans the people being ignored.
Worse still we have people being fired from their jobs by text as if they were robots with no emotions or rights to humanity or caring.
Sometimes using a communications device places increases the distance between us. If we were all to remember our humanity and opt for personal contact we would improve our connectivity and our quality of life would be enhanced as a result.
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