Later this week the G20 meets in London, England under extraordinary security. Heads of State will discuss options for our future based on their assessment of the processes of economics that generated the present difficulties.
On the top of the list must be the future role of the IMF, and one can be forgiven after what has happened whether the IMF has been neglecting its mandate, which is to ensure that the world economy grows and inflation is kept in check. The idea may have arisen in many minds as to whether it is a failing of the staff of the IMF or its political bosses. Its one thing for staff to comment on what countries should do, but quite another to buffet the pressures of governments pushing their own agenda a views of what makes good world order.
The IMF Slept While Housing Inflation Raged in the US and UK.
At fault is the price index used by the IMF to assess whether inflation exists. A new index needs to be worked out that assesses contributions of inflation in long term investment forces, such as housing, land rental, residence rental and property. This is a minimum and security of pensions and of pensioners is at stake.
The main economic idea to be supported is that inflation is socially divisive and has in the past contributed to the deterioration of the social fabric of the period immediately before the second great war.
The role of the IMF, its primary role, is to ensure that the world does not deteriorate into stagflation that brings about international conflict in trade and investment, especially if such deterioration and conflict can be avoided by good economic policy.
Stability in the Housing and Building Industry
Its very strange that Gordon Brown should be mouthing off about how upset he and the people around him are about how profligate the banks have been. Going back in time, one can see that the approach of allowing the big five in the UK to lend to the housing market resulted in an over investment in that market relative to what could be sustained. Its fairly easy to see that liberalization of the banking system in this one aspect was controversial from the start as it was based on the wrong assumption that banks in the UK could lend long and borrow long. That is not the case. Even building societies have problems borrowing long.
The competitive reaction analysis done by Knickerbocker in the 1960's, by Gary Hufbauer in the 1960's and by numerous economists like myself in the 1970's, was suggestive enough that American banks would bring with them a competitive reaction relationship from the US and the very financial technologies suitable for America but unsuitable for the UK. The US banking system is vastly different from that of the UK and the rules that US banks like to follow are competitive, dishonest and legalistic rather that cooperative and honest as in the UK. In essence, the British banks increased in number as Building Societies became banks. The ethics of British bank fell prey to the lack of ethics in American banking. The US disease has been seen around the world and suggests that we need to move to remove the sickness of doing what is legal and replace it with doing what is good for everyone.
At the very least, the OECD technology wing should study the competitive situation in banking systems of the members of the OECD and come up with proposals for reform.
Stability in World Banking and My Recommendations of Starting Steps to Achieve it
It is fair to say that people are holding too much debt. Much of existing debt needs to be written off, but it needs to be done within a cooperative frameworks rather than competitive frameworks. Under competition, banks will gobble each other up as they dishonestly portray their financial situations. Camouflage and obfuscation is the 'order of war' between banks. People will be thrown out of houses to make balance sheets look good!!
1. The OECD should study the technologies of the banking systems and make recommendations based on high technology considerations.
2. The OECD should also study the nature of banking sector risk and make recommendations regarding what forms of hedge funds would be permitted based on risks of the forms we have seen and based on simulations of potential industrial growth permutations.
3. The IMF should reexamine the role of the SDR as a commercial medium of exchange and store of value. The US dollar as a stable unit of account is exaggerated. The Chinese, Brazilians and Russians are quite right in asking for a basket of currencies, and in my view it should be the SDR.
3. Oil and energy taken from the ground (gas, petrol, wood, and other contaminate) should be priced in SDRs. The IMF should regulate these pricess to ensure the environment targets, what ever they may be, are met. A proportion of the revenues should go to the IMF to help finance solar energy and clean energy production in small economies. Energy from the sun should be priced in the currencies of countries of source.
4. A better approach for housing finance is that certain debts be forgiven over the long period on a sliding basis. What should happen, in my humble view is that all housing debt after 2004 be locked in at fixed rate of two percent and the 60 year maturity assigned. Each year thereafter the maturity of the loan should be adjusted forward by one year. After fifteen years these loans should be reviewed and differentiated between manageable and unmanageable accounts. Those that cannot afford their properties should sell them and move to other locations.
5. All new loans for housing should have a fixed interest rate of greater than 2 percent. All borrowers should be allowed a single multiple of 3.5 times current annual income, and married couples 5 times joint incomes. Capacity to repay should be the basic rule.
Scratches to Sketches
Monday, 30 March 2009
Saturday, 21 March 2009
Wuh Lax Rules
1. Don't smoke... ever!
2. Drink only in moderation, and keep as wheat free as possible, for health and nourishment.
3. Be as honest as you can be in all things.
4. Treat others as you would treat yourself.
5. Exercise as often as you can.
6. Eat only when hungry and eat for health and nourishment.
7. Talk when spoken to. but talk in moderation and listen attentively to others.
8. Remember that people are varied and enjoy them as you would good books.
9. Rest often and be tranquil frequently.
10. Avoid profanity.
11. Cultivate friends assiduously.
12. Try working with those who oppose you as your preferred option.
13. Find out new things by figuring out the universe.
14. Create novelty and be inventive in your attitudes and attempts to master new skills.
15. Do voluntarily give up.
2. Drink only in moderation, and keep as wheat free as possible, for health and nourishment.
3. Be as honest as you can be in all things.
4. Treat others as you would treat yourself.
5. Exercise as often as you can.
6. Eat only when hungry and eat for health and nourishment.
7. Talk when spoken to. but talk in moderation and listen attentively to others.
8. Remember that people are varied and enjoy them as you would good books.
9. Rest often and be tranquil frequently.
10. Avoid profanity.
11. Cultivate friends assiduously.
12. Try working with those who oppose you as your preferred option.
13. Find out new things by figuring out the universe.
14. Create novelty and be inventive in your attitudes and attempts to master new skills.
15. Do voluntarily give up.
Friday, 20 March 2009
The Real Losses During the Present Financial Crisis
Strange isn't it that when everyone is looking at stopping the bonuses at AIG as a moral issue, the people at AIG and administering the rescue package see it as a competitive issue. We have to pay out the bonuses in order not to lose the brains behind financial market turmoil. These precioiusly smart individuals have to be kept within the fold of American industry. This sounds a bit like the retention in the United States of German military and bomb scientists after the war. We can't let destructive genius escape into the void. What the administrators of the rescue packages appear actually to be saying is that the destructive scientists will or could come back and beat us at our own destructive games! The real loss to America is, however, that the destructive games will not be stopped because the country worships them. They represent its new and resident gods, the 'now' gods of financial warfare.
America - You can't handle the ........ competition
The present financial difficulties of America and Great Britain are far more serious than most can imagine. I use the verb 'can' purposefully. Our difficulty is that we have now got used to the conventional explanations for the weaknesses of these economies. The usual story is that the housing markets got over blown and because it was insured by AIG this meant that AIG was vulnerable when the home loans started to go sour with a slow down in the growth of home loans, house purchases, construction of new homes and what fills homes.
Money was poured into AIG and the businesses that were insured by AIG. Those financing the stock market, however, realize that the 'real' problems go much deeper. There are many many people who know, not just suspect, that getting the financing right for home loans does not solve the extraordinarily deep problems that America and Britain face. President Obama last night on the Jay Leno show intimated that the collapse of AIG would bring down the financial markets and that this would lead to a main street collapse, as well. Few doubt that he was wrong, but many know that the solutions presently in place are definitely not getting to the heart of the problem especially if what we are seeing is inherently structural in nature and not tactical.
My thinking goes to the heart of the problem which is that the strategic games being played by banks changed fundamentally during the 2006-2008 period into one of 'anti-competition' and defensive realignment. At some point during the recent period, some banks assessed that it was in their interest to create a bit of creative destruction by innovating in the 'scale of operation' game, the Walmart game, but within the financial sector.
This new development, which has been brewing for decades took a very serious leap forward when the deposits needed to play the game gave it an ominous character. Defending 'your' bank against acquisition by another required raising the stakes and borrowing more into riskier and riskier ventures of acquisition. Inherent in this game was cheating and lying, falsifying a bank's true worth, hiding operations from competitors view, creating deliberate confusion and confuscation in order to survive as an independent entity.
An explanation for banks being unwilling to lend to each other could be that they do not trust the credit worthiness of other banks. My view is that the problem may be far deeper in that banks do not want to lose in the restructuring of the banking system, its consolidation into fewer and fewer banks.
That this problem exists in both the United States and Great Britain cannot be escaped. It obviously exists across the world financial sectors. By putting more liquidity into the system, the authorities may be accelerating and enhancing the odds for those most active in this destructive game. My dears, the money that is going into the banking rescue is not for the rescue at all, but for the freeforall of debt creation as banks gobble each other up.
Money was poured into AIG and the businesses that were insured by AIG. Those financing the stock market, however, realize that the 'real' problems go much deeper. There are many many people who know, not just suspect, that getting the financing right for home loans does not solve the extraordinarily deep problems that America and Britain face. President Obama last night on the Jay Leno show intimated that the collapse of AIG would bring down the financial markets and that this would lead to a main street collapse, as well. Few doubt that he was wrong, but many know that the solutions presently in place are definitely not getting to the heart of the problem especially if what we are seeing is inherently structural in nature and not tactical.
My thinking goes to the heart of the problem which is that the strategic games being played by banks changed fundamentally during the 2006-2008 period into one of 'anti-competition' and defensive realignment. At some point during the recent period, some banks assessed that it was in their interest to create a bit of creative destruction by innovating in the 'scale of operation' game, the Walmart game, but within the financial sector.
This new development, which has been brewing for decades took a very serious leap forward when the deposits needed to play the game gave it an ominous character. Defending 'your' bank against acquisition by another required raising the stakes and borrowing more into riskier and riskier ventures of acquisition. Inherent in this game was cheating and lying, falsifying a bank's true worth, hiding operations from competitors view, creating deliberate confusion and confuscation in order to survive as an independent entity.
An explanation for banks being unwilling to lend to each other could be that they do not trust the credit worthiness of other banks. My view is that the problem may be far deeper in that banks do not want to lose in the restructuring of the banking system, its consolidation into fewer and fewer banks.
That this problem exists in both the United States and Great Britain cannot be escaped. It obviously exists across the world financial sectors. By putting more liquidity into the system, the authorities may be accelerating and enhancing the odds for those most active in this destructive game. My dears, the money that is going into the banking rescue is not for the rescue at all, but for the freeforall of debt creation as banks gobble each other up.
Thursday, 19 March 2009
The Insanity of Borrowing Short and Lending Long
I was going to entitle this blog "Take Banks Out of Home Loans." My logic is that if we don't remove banks from the housing markets around the world, we will descend into another sick period of international violence. There is no logic that tells me as an economist for over forty years that the banks can finance home loans.
Banks really can't, and its obvious that the liberalization of financial markets in such a way that banks participate in lending for housing predisposes them to excessive over investment.
End the competition between banks in that sector and one ends the economic insanity of land price inflation that destabilizes democracy. We know the experience of Germany with its inflation in the 1920's, where it led and the insane demands in Germany for living room. We can see how lending for homes and bank financed 'illegal' settlements in Israel destabilizes the balance between communities their. Which banmk is going to take the greaterst risk? Who is financing conflict between communities for land and homes? There are countless experiences of stock and house price inflation linked to competition of bank lending for home loans.
History will repeat itself in many communities and the world community unless we take competitive banks out of the business of borrowing short and lending long.
In USA and UK very few banks finance for the long term. They may lend to consumers but they ask for, no they demand, a variable rate and revision of terms and conditions whenever they see their margins falling. It is insane to expect banks to borrow short and lend long. They just don't do that.
Our big problem is that Governments often make it too easy for banks to get into problems of cash flow. Governments don't allow banks to fail because banks are into the long term loans where they have no right to be. If governments allow banks into long term lending and variable rate financing they contribute to the subsequent squeeze of banks against the non-banking sectors after periods of excessive borrowing by buyers competing on terms of loans that they have agreed with banks.
The banks that take the greatest risk beat out those that are careful lenders. Prudence in lending is thrown away in attempts by competitive banks to stay alive. Banks will borrow to buy other banks and those that take the greatest risk contribute to the highest extremes of asset price inflation. As short term businesses, banks cash flow issues arise first. They then pass their problems onto the real economy main street. In fact, they can create many of the problems of low investment in the real economy main street by increasing the uncertainty of investment in the main street.
Liberalization of banking systems around the world has increased uncertainty and produced the basis of inflation of land values, real estate, and stock market excesses. People have bought more than their incomes can support over the long term. Everyone engages in the activity of borrowing short for long term assets. Insanity. It is insanity!!!!!!!!!!!
Banks really can't, and its obvious that the liberalization of financial markets in such a way that banks participate in lending for housing predisposes them to excessive over investment.
End the competition between banks in that sector and one ends the economic insanity of land price inflation that destabilizes democracy. We know the experience of Germany with its inflation in the 1920's, where it led and the insane demands in Germany for living room. We can see how lending for homes and bank financed 'illegal' settlements in Israel destabilizes the balance between communities their. Which banmk is going to take the greaterst risk? Who is financing conflict between communities for land and homes? There are countless experiences of stock and house price inflation linked to competition of bank lending for home loans.
History will repeat itself in many communities and the world community unless we take competitive banks out of the business of borrowing short and lending long.
In USA and UK very few banks finance for the long term. They may lend to consumers but they ask for, no they demand, a variable rate and revision of terms and conditions whenever they see their margins falling. It is insane to expect banks to borrow short and lend long. They just don't do that.
Our big problem is that Governments often make it too easy for banks to get into problems of cash flow. Governments don't allow banks to fail because banks are into the long term loans where they have no right to be. If governments allow banks into long term lending and variable rate financing they contribute to the subsequent squeeze of banks against the non-banking sectors after periods of excessive borrowing by buyers competing on terms of loans that they have agreed with banks.
The banks that take the greatest risk beat out those that are careful lenders. Prudence in lending is thrown away in attempts by competitive banks to stay alive. Banks will borrow to buy other banks and those that take the greatest risk contribute to the highest extremes of asset price inflation. As short term businesses, banks cash flow issues arise first. They then pass their problems onto the real economy main street. In fact, they can create many of the problems of low investment in the real economy main street by increasing the uncertainty of investment in the main street.
Liberalization of banking systems around the world has increased uncertainty and produced the basis of inflation of land values, real estate, and stock market excesses. People have bought more than their incomes can support over the long term. Everyone engages in the activity of borrowing short for long term assets. Insanity. It is insanity!!!!!!!!!!!
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
The Breaking of Boundaries
Throughout history, there are individuals that break boundaries. Such individuals are most often capable of perceiving the nature of a boundary, just as clearly as most people can perceive the presence of a wall that represents a barrier.
Occasionally, people perceive the limits of a current ethos of thought and its progression over time. Such people may be able to alter the ethos in such a way as to change the progression of history for better or worse. At the heart of ethos changing are words and actions by individuals. Their words and actions are interventions to correct the direction of progression of human affairs. Although very abstract, the interventions and the perception of hidden boundaries in the historical dynamic become realities with enormous consequences.
Why individuals should be able to perceive boundaries is interesting, but why they should also be able to perceive ways to alter these boundaries permanently is much more interesting.
Occasionally, the boundaries broken by individuals are unique to the characteristics of the individual as if given an opportunity that has consequences beyond anything imaginable. Some people change the course of history, occasionally without realizing what they are doing, but some times well aware of the impact of their actions.
What results from boundary breaking are events, many events, that run counter to what would have been. Historically, there is an enormous disjoint between the beneficiaries of significantly wonderful and well perceived boundary breaking interventions, and the awareness by people that an intervention has even taken place. Thus, on the one hand there is the myth that individuals do not matter, and this idea runs counter to the notion that individuals do indeed matter. In any event, there is always within the human experience those that attempt to minimize the consequences of those that perceive boundaries and how to alter them for the benefit of others. Such interventions are perceived as moving arrangements between individuals in ways that are intolerable.
The historian, novelist, news writer, lawyer, columnist attempts to redress the imbalance between the consequence of individual action and lack of recognition in the many arenas of human fact sharing. In an important sense a missing recognition of the king pins of benign change are a loss of value in valuation and a breaking of the contract. Without recognition of these contributions, there is a cyclical process in human affairs that allows bad things to continuously repeat.
Occasionally, people perceive the limits of a current ethos of thought and its progression over time. Such people may be able to alter the ethos in such a way as to change the progression of history for better or worse. At the heart of ethos changing are words and actions by individuals. Their words and actions are interventions to correct the direction of progression of human affairs. Although very abstract, the interventions and the perception of hidden boundaries in the historical dynamic become realities with enormous consequences.
Why individuals should be able to perceive boundaries is interesting, but why they should also be able to perceive ways to alter these boundaries permanently is much more interesting.
Occasionally, the boundaries broken by individuals are unique to the characteristics of the individual as if given an opportunity that has consequences beyond anything imaginable. Some people change the course of history, occasionally without realizing what they are doing, but some times well aware of the impact of their actions.
What results from boundary breaking are events, many events, that run counter to what would have been. Historically, there is an enormous disjoint between the beneficiaries of significantly wonderful and well perceived boundary breaking interventions, and the awareness by people that an intervention has even taken place. Thus, on the one hand there is the myth that individuals do not matter, and this idea runs counter to the notion that individuals do indeed matter. In any event, there is always within the human experience those that attempt to minimize the consequences of those that perceive boundaries and how to alter them for the benefit of others. Such interventions are perceived as moving arrangements between individuals in ways that are intolerable.
The historian, novelist, news writer, lawyer, columnist attempts to redress the imbalance between the consequence of individual action and lack of recognition in the many arenas of human fact sharing. In an important sense a missing recognition of the king pins of benign change are a loss of value in valuation and a breaking of the contract. Without recognition of these contributions, there is a cyclical process in human affairs that allows bad things to continuously repeat.
On the Nature and Significance of the Christian Experience
At the heart of the religion that is available as Christianity are two very important components. The first is historical and the second is mystical. Ignore either of these components of Christianity and one might as well ignore the nature and significance of Christianity. Christ and the cross are both symbolic and historical.
On the historical side, Christ represents an intervention into history of a force that the universe has never before experienced. The intervention is nevertheless very small relative to its impact within the universe.
At the most, it physically represents a life cycle of a human being that creates a cross roads in human affairs. At the least, it conceptually represents a mystery intervention, a thought by an individual human being or a group of human beings that has the power to transform human society and through human thought the universe.
What Christ did was create meaning, and so much meaning that the course of history was changed. He may have only pulled together the ideas of others or expressed the ideas of others, but in terms of what he did, his actions were a spectacular intervention in human affairs by a single individual which would have consequences well beyond that of the individual. In this sense Christ is at the crossroads of human history and represents a significant departure from human business as usual.
Whether one believes that Christ's life, death and resurrection were real or imaginary does not matter except to ones participation in the processes of the intervention. One can choose to opt out or opt in. Christ demands that one opt in showing clearly the rewards of participation. Nevertheless, the process of participating in the consequences of Christian intervention are very abstract and personal.
The personalization of Christ within the hearts and minds of people who know of his intervention whether divine or not, is very real and allows for the interaction of human beings with abstractions that don't really exist in terms of human expectations of what physical life and death are all about. Christ has sent a message that rings true through the ages and it is the communication of this abstract idea about love and self sacrifice that sets an eternal standard for human conduct and experience.
Christian communications now pervade on different levels of society and a vastly different scales, but the challenge is always to recognize that a single human being at a point in history intervened in a significant way.
The relationship that one assumes regarding this fact defines whether or not any individual will maintain a contract with an abstraction, a fact of intervention in human affairs.
In either event of maintaining a personal contract or not, the effect of Christ's intervention is perpetual, irrefutable, and highly effective. At the heart of the Christian message is the notion of self sacrifice in order that love might prevail throughout the many arenas of the universe. One's notion of what that love is may vary over time or between individuals, but the idea of self sacrifice is inherently irreversible.
On the historical side, Christ represents an intervention into history of a force that the universe has never before experienced. The intervention is nevertheless very small relative to its impact within the universe.
At the most, it physically represents a life cycle of a human being that creates a cross roads in human affairs. At the least, it conceptually represents a mystery intervention, a thought by an individual human being or a group of human beings that has the power to transform human society and through human thought the universe.
What Christ did was create meaning, and so much meaning that the course of history was changed. He may have only pulled together the ideas of others or expressed the ideas of others, but in terms of what he did, his actions were a spectacular intervention in human affairs by a single individual which would have consequences well beyond that of the individual. In this sense Christ is at the crossroads of human history and represents a significant departure from human business as usual.
Whether one believes that Christ's life, death and resurrection were real or imaginary does not matter except to ones participation in the processes of the intervention. One can choose to opt out or opt in. Christ demands that one opt in showing clearly the rewards of participation. Nevertheless, the process of participating in the consequences of Christian intervention are very abstract and personal.
The personalization of Christ within the hearts and minds of people who know of his intervention whether divine or not, is very real and allows for the interaction of human beings with abstractions that don't really exist in terms of human expectations of what physical life and death are all about. Christ has sent a message that rings true through the ages and it is the communication of this abstract idea about love and self sacrifice that sets an eternal standard for human conduct and experience.
Christian communications now pervade on different levels of society and a vastly different scales, but the challenge is always to recognize that a single human being at a point in history intervened in a significant way.
The relationship that one assumes regarding this fact defines whether or not any individual will maintain a contract with an abstraction, a fact of intervention in human affairs.
In either event of maintaining a personal contract or not, the effect of Christ's intervention is perpetual, irrefutable, and highly effective. At the heart of the Christian message is the notion of self sacrifice in order that love might prevail throughout the many arenas of the universe. One's notion of what that love is may vary over time or between individuals, but the idea of self sacrifice is inherently irreversible.
Monday, 9 March 2009
How should one view coincidence?
What is coincidence? Is it something important or an annoyance about something we don't quite understand but which will be explained later on? Is coincidence a result of our engineered world, the world that man has created and can see or measure, or is there something that goes much deeper?
Some authors claim that coincidence is normal and that our world is somehow small or getting smaller, that we should be able to see coincidence a not much more than an engineering phenomenon resulting from purely physical laws. The problem with this logic is that it begs a question as well as throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
One of the great steps humans have made is to understand the nature of such phenomenon as electricity, radio and microwaves. We now have a strong body of science that shows how things work at the minutest level. Along with this growth of knowledge and technology, there is growing scepticism about unseen forces. We only have to look around us to see that humans engineer unseen forces all the time, that man has become master of a world of unseen capabilities allowing computation and control. What we cannot see, many will not believe. What their parents did not see, they can't either.
Along with realism and inherited habits is a flood of scepticism. We have not got to the point where the human mind seeks to know for the sake of knowing. We think and say that we have an inclination to understand a greater reality, but in everyday reality our scientists confine themselves to small enclaves of scepticism within which all is comfortable and tidy, even when our reality tells us that nothing is comfortable for long, nor neat and tidy for long. This blinkering of our willingness to be out of the box confines most human minds to the box.
It is normally too much effort or costs to much in one's career to try, even try, to think out of the box. It is easier to be told what to think, not have to think. We want to believe a reality in which we are with the majority. Most people, for example, cannot believe in a reality that has not be condoned by their parents. They say for example that smoking is good because Dad or Mom smoked therefore it will do me no harm. By not thinking out of the logic boxes of their parents, people lose their longevity. They die sooner than they should. They give up sooner than they should and they are less than they can be! I am reminded how hard it was to get people over forty to use microcomputers in the 1980's.
I am not saying that people should not try to see behind coincidences. I am say that the observation of inexplicable coincidences should not be reduced to mathematics. Coincidences are not mathematics they are physical events that happen for very real reasons. They point us in the direction of forces we don't believe in or which we would never have conceived.
In the practical world all this about coincidence has relevance when we cope with coincidences that are the result of strong physical forces. Think how hard it was to get economists to use non-linear modelling techniques even though the world is almost totally non-linear. Think how hard it is for ordinary people to see the work of inflation and understand its implications.
Our reality is that we see coincidences, but fail to understand them as the work of cooperative or competitive underlying forces. We see people dying from the effects of smoking cigars, but don't connect this with people dying from the smoking of cigarettes or pipe smoking. Because not so many people die from cigars relative to cigarettes, the deaths from cigars may be enormously underestimated. The reality is different and the coincidence of a relationship is of a stronger association than our minds lead us to believe.
Associations are coincidences that we observe most of the time. Factorial or canonical, geometric, indirect, and non-linear associations we don't observe and they don't appear as coincidences. Such associations can be deadly yet we ignore them because our minds do not see the coincidence.
The coincidences that we can see provide us with opportunities to understand associations between things or realities and non-things or non-realities, such as abstractions. For example, God is an abstraction to most people. What we associate with God reveals many things about how we approach our realities. If there exists a force that is an abstraction, we may or may not be aware of it because we do not understand the coincidences that this force produces. Thinkers such as Arthur Koestler and Rupert Sheldrake are controversial to those that think of the universe as being very tidily physical and a result of natural engineering.
Associations that include messy associations such as hidden unknown forces do not conform to existing physics and prevalent ways of thinking in institutions earning their bread and butter from salaries of patrons convinced that physical truths are the end of the story.
Although mathematics is used to dismiss coincidences, often the mathematics is flawed and about as good as the mathematics of hedge funds, and you know what happened there. Mathematical statistics itself has multiple schools. The improbable does occasionally happen and when it does it changes everything. Yes, California will get its massive earthquakes and Florida its great floods even though you or I may not ever live to see either.
Some authors claim that coincidence is normal and that our world is somehow small or getting smaller, that we should be able to see coincidence a not much more than an engineering phenomenon resulting from purely physical laws. The problem with this logic is that it begs a question as well as throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
One of the great steps humans have made is to understand the nature of such phenomenon as electricity, radio and microwaves. We now have a strong body of science that shows how things work at the minutest level. Along with this growth of knowledge and technology, there is growing scepticism about unseen forces. We only have to look around us to see that humans engineer unseen forces all the time, that man has become master of a world of unseen capabilities allowing computation and control. What we cannot see, many will not believe. What their parents did not see, they can't either.
Along with realism and inherited habits is a flood of scepticism. We have not got to the point where the human mind seeks to know for the sake of knowing. We think and say that we have an inclination to understand a greater reality, but in everyday reality our scientists confine themselves to small enclaves of scepticism within which all is comfortable and tidy, even when our reality tells us that nothing is comfortable for long, nor neat and tidy for long. This blinkering of our willingness to be out of the box confines most human minds to the box.
It is normally too much effort or costs to much in one's career to try, even try, to think out of the box. It is easier to be told what to think, not have to think. We want to believe a reality in which we are with the majority. Most people, for example, cannot believe in a reality that has not be condoned by their parents. They say for example that smoking is good because Dad or Mom smoked therefore it will do me no harm. By not thinking out of the logic boxes of their parents, people lose their longevity. They die sooner than they should. They give up sooner than they should and they are less than they can be! I am reminded how hard it was to get people over forty to use microcomputers in the 1980's.
I am not saying that people should not try to see behind coincidences. I am say that the observation of inexplicable coincidences should not be reduced to mathematics. Coincidences are not mathematics they are physical events that happen for very real reasons. They point us in the direction of forces we don't believe in or which we would never have conceived.
In the practical world all this about coincidence has relevance when we cope with coincidences that are the result of strong physical forces. Think how hard it was to get economists to use non-linear modelling techniques even though the world is almost totally non-linear. Think how hard it is for ordinary people to see the work of inflation and understand its implications.
Our reality is that we see coincidences, but fail to understand them as the work of cooperative or competitive underlying forces. We see people dying from the effects of smoking cigars, but don't connect this with people dying from the smoking of cigarettes or pipe smoking. Because not so many people die from cigars relative to cigarettes, the deaths from cigars may be enormously underestimated. The reality is different and the coincidence of a relationship is of a stronger association than our minds lead us to believe.
Associations are coincidences that we observe most of the time. Factorial or canonical, geometric, indirect, and non-linear associations we don't observe and they don't appear as coincidences. Such associations can be deadly yet we ignore them because our minds do not see the coincidence.
The coincidences that we can see provide us with opportunities to understand associations between things or realities and non-things or non-realities, such as abstractions. For example, God is an abstraction to most people. What we associate with God reveals many things about how we approach our realities. If there exists a force that is an abstraction, we may or may not be aware of it because we do not understand the coincidences that this force produces. Thinkers such as Arthur Koestler and Rupert Sheldrake are controversial to those that think of the universe as being very tidily physical and a result of natural engineering.
Associations that include messy associations such as hidden unknown forces do not conform to existing physics and prevalent ways of thinking in institutions earning their bread and butter from salaries of patrons convinced that physical truths are the end of the story.
Although mathematics is used to dismiss coincidences, often the mathematics is flawed and about as good as the mathematics of hedge funds, and you know what happened there. Mathematical statistics itself has multiple schools. The improbable does occasionally happen and when it does it changes everything. Yes, California will get its massive earthquakes and Florida its great floods even though you or I may not ever live to see either.
What is meant to be may very well be!
When I say that strange things can happen to me, I mean very strange. One as myself thinks of these strange things in terms of mathematical statistical probabilities. Then there are those events that blow statistics out of the water because they should not happen yet do happen.
For example, I gave my cousin John my telephone number in Florida. He misdials the number with one digit a 5 instead of a 3. He asks for me, and the person at the other end, a complete stranger in a state where I rarely travel tells him that he knows me. My cousin remarks that this is a strange coincidence, and that he is hot on the trail to locating me. However, this coincidence does not really help him because the person he is talking to does not know my telephone number nor how to reach me. He just knows that I exist from a relative of people who are staying with him and that they have spoken to him about me. End of story, or perhaps you would think. My cousin has to give up because there is no way to reach me. I have changed telephone numbers and no one knows the new number.
Meanwhile, I thinking that I must get into contact with my cousin do not know his number either, but he is staying with friends who send an email to me. I do not receive the email until Saturday, a few days later because I have not had a telephone number nor internet access. When I finally get a phone number and email address I open up my email to find that my cousin is looking for me urgently. I phone the number in the email and get in touch with thy cousin, John. I give him my new address and tell him to come stay a while. You would think the story would end here, but it doesn't.
On arrival, at my new address, my cousin, John tells me that he tried getting me, and that he had somehow misdialed my telephone number and had spoken with someone who knew me. This is very strange because the people he spoke with who knew me are from England and the only reason my cousin spoke with them was because he misdialed my temporary number by one digit.
All the above, I have verified. Its coincidence enough that I should be in Florida from Canada at the same time as people I know are in Florida from England, but that my cousin, who knew me, and was on a short visit from Michigan should talk to complete strangers who knew me. Well that is a second coincidence. It is strange that these people should actually have talked about me to their friends, the people they are staying with in Florida. It is a third coincidence that he should misdial bby accident and get a working numbner at all. He could have dialed the number correctly and just given up. It is a fourth coincidence that the number he should misdial would be one digit different from the number that I gave him by email more than a week earlier. It is a fifth coincidence that the numbers in Florida should be so close and the locations where I am visiting and my English friends are visiting should be so close.
I never spoke to my English friends that I was staying in Florida temporarily and they did not book a vacation to see me. That I am sure. However, by a sixth coincidence they had a meal with cousins of mine from Sidmouth in England about one hundred miles away from these friends and one of the friends is a niece of my cousin, Dorothy. Dorothy sent me an email guessing that the place where we were vacationing in Florida was the same as her niece aand husband had chosen to vaction at the same time as me. When I looked at the email from Dorothy this morning I noted that the Florida telephone number Jenny had given her was one digit different, but this not after I had phone Jenny's number in Florida.
That is the final coincidence because I had little intention of phoning that number thinking that Dorothy's email message was a very long shot and that in any event these people would have returned to Engl;and already.
Something this morning got me to read my emails, call Jenny's number in Florida. I had no idea that it was her friends that my cousin John had spoken with. Jenny was surprised to hear from me but less surprised than John to hear I had someone in Florida who knew me. She immediately told me of John's call to her firneds.
So the circle was completely until I checked for the coincidence of the telephone numbers and tied the whole thing together.
I have now to cope with the strangeness of these events and try to interpret some meaning if any. As you know, I do not think that things happen coincidentally, but that there are unseen reasons, unseen physics behind everything. Nothing is by chance. What we don't know is the extent to which events happen because of serious forces that are hidden from view until revealed by our meager logics.
For example, I gave my cousin John my telephone number in Florida. He misdials the number with one digit a 5 instead of a 3. He asks for me, and the person at the other end, a complete stranger in a state where I rarely travel tells him that he knows me. My cousin remarks that this is a strange coincidence, and that he is hot on the trail to locating me. However, this coincidence does not really help him because the person he is talking to does not know my telephone number nor how to reach me. He just knows that I exist from a relative of people who are staying with him and that they have spoken to him about me. End of story, or perhaps you would think. My cousin has to give up because there is no way to reach me. I have changed telephone numbers and no one knows the new number.
Meanwhile, I thinking that I must get into contact with my cousin do not know his number either, but he is staying with friends who send an email to me. I do not receive the email until Saturday, a few days later because I have not had a telephone number nor internet access. When I finally get a phone number and email address I open up my email to find that my cousin is looking for me urgently. I phone the number in the email and get in touch with thy cousin, John. I give him my new address and tell him to come stay a while. You would think the story would end here, but it doesn't.
On arrival, at my new address, my cousin, John tells me that he tried getting me, and that he had somehow misdialed my telephone number and had spoken with someone who knew me. This is very strange because the people he spoke with who knew me are from England and the only reason my cousin spoke with them was because he misdialed my temporary number by one digit.
All the above, I have verified. Its coincidence enough that I should be in Florida from Canada at the same time as people I know are in Florida from England, but that my cousin, who knew me, and was on a short visit from Michigan should talk to complete strangers who knew me. Well that is a second coincidence. It is strange that these people should actually have talked about me to their friends, the people they are staying with in Florida. It is a third coincidence that he should misdial bby accident and get a working numbner at all. He could have dialed the number correctly and just given up. It is a fourth coincidence that the number he should misdial would be one digit different from the number that I gave him by email more than a week earlier. It is a fifth coincidence that the numbers in Florida should be so close and the locations where I am visiting and my English friends are visiting should be so close.
I never spoke to my English friends that I was staying in Florida temporarily and they did not book a vacation to see me. That I am sure. However, by a sixth coincidence they had a meal with cousins of mine from Sidmouth in England about one hundred miles away from these friends and one of the friends is a niece of my cousin, Dorothy. Dorothy sent me an email guessing that the place where we were vacationing in Florida was the same as her niece aand husband had chosen to vaction at the same time as me. When I looked at the email from Dorothy this morning I noted that the Florida telephone number Jenny had given her was one digit different, but this not after I had phone Jenny's number in Florida.
That is the final coincidence because I had little intention of phoning that number thinking that Dorothy's email message was a very long shot and that in any event these people would have returned to Engl;and already.
Something this morning got me to read my emails, call Jenny's number in Florida. I had no idea that it was her friends that my cousin John had spoken with. Jenny was surprised to hear from me but less surprised than John to hear I had someone in Florida who knew me. She immediately told me of John's call to her firneds.
So the circle was completely until I checked for the coincidence of the telephone numbers and tied the whole thing together.
I have now to cope with the strangeness of these events and try to interpret some meaning if any. As you know, I do not think that things happen coincidentally, but that there are unseen reasons, unseen physics behind everything. Nothing is by chance. What we don't know is the extent to which events happen because of serious forces that are hidden from view until revealed by our meager logics.
Saturday, 21 February 2009
A Visit with America's Tulip King
Not only is Jack the Tulip King of America, he is the country's largest breeder of Dartmoor ponies. Yes! Jack is trying to save the Dartmoor pony from extinction by breeding them himself in South Carolina. Nestled in the beautiful foothills of the mountains, Jack's small holding supports what has become a valuable contribution to saving the Dartmoor pony as it struggles to retain its original breed. Prince Charles of England declared that the Dartmoor pony was endangered and this got Jack all eager to save it. What can I say about such an effort other than it merits our support.
Jack sells tulip bulbs to make a living and by planting these we can help save the pony and Jack's business as he struggles with the current depression.
Jack sells tulip bulbs to make a living and by planting these we can help save the pony and Jack's business as he struggles with the current depression.
Monday, 26 January 2009
What's New on Wooooooh's Stream
Fact is I have had a jolly good vacation while the world fell apart at the seams, or so it seems! Pun intended. My thoughts on what and why this has happened are unprintable.
I do have strong opinions about the post Thatcher and post Reagan changes in the financial sectors of both USA and the UK, that leveraged the property market. The fact is that these are war economies and so deserve special attention.
I do feel that the consumer price index should include rent on land and appreciation of land, after all, is not that what communism was all about.
Now that the weaknesses of both systems have been revealed to revolve around the value of land, we can have a better idea of where to reconstruct both.
What is printable is that there are obvious solutions, even though these promise to be painful. What I see is a severe mathematical disjoint between incomes and debt. Normally economies meet this change by means of the price mechanism.
The problem with the needed price adjustment is that its effect would be to slow activity in areas where activity has been compressed within time just as the price rises of the past decade have compressed activity forward in time in certain areas such as housing and consumer capital items (such as, furniture, heating and decoration).
It seems obvious that what will happen is a reallocation of incomes coming from different areas and capital going into different areas from what we have seen.
The stock market and related economies will continue to grow but some sectors, formerly starved of investment will receive investment while other sectors that have received too much investment should receive less.
The oil sector is grossly over invested as is every item that uses oil, so this sector needs to be starved of capital while the solar sector needs to receive capital.
I do have strong opinions about the post Thatcher and post Reagan changes in the financial sectors of both USA and the UK, that leveraged the property market. The fact is that these are war economies and so deserve special attention.
I do feel that the consumer price index should include rent on land and appreciation of land, after all, is not that what communism was all about.
Now that the weaknesses of both systems have been revealed to revolve around the value of land, we can have a better idea of where to reconstruct both.
What is printable is that there are obvious solutions, even though these promise to be painful. What I see is a severe mathematical disjoint between incomes and debt. Normally economies meet this change by means of the price mechanism.
The problem with the needed price adjustment is that its effect would be to slow activity in areas where activity has been compressed within time just as the price rises of the past decade have compressed activity forward in time in certain areas such as housing and consumer capital items (such as, furniture, heating and decoration).
It seems obvious that what will happen is a reallocation of incomes coming from different areas and capital going into different areas from what we have seen.
The stock market and related economies will continue to grow but some sectors, formerly starved of investment will receive investment while other sectors that have received too much investment should receive less.
The oil sector is grossly over invested as is every item that uses oil, so this sector needs to be starved of capital while the solar sector needs to receive capital.
Tuesday, 21 October 2008
The World's Greatest Challenge is that of Changing Decades Old Habits of Energy Use
We are all user's of energy and we have fixed habits in the way we use energy. This is our greatest challenge, our natural reluctance to alter the amounts and ways we use energy. We have not even accepted yet that we need to change our energy habits. Many newly elected governments are not yet pulling their weight as regards telling the truth to their electorate. Statesmen, like Stephan Dion of Canada, who tried to tell the Canadian people as it is, can be laughed out of a serious role in political circles where they could be extremely value because they see the very real need to alter our habits even if it is costly. We cannot avoid the costs and we need to educate people that these costs are coming down the track, and if we don't the costs will make our present recession seem like a vacation, a play day.
Europe took many decades to set its habits in a somewhat energy saving mode, but North America is decades behind and still unwilling to see the facts staring at them. The very real facts that their economies need to move in very different energy producing and consuming directions. Instead we have insincere people leading what has become a multi-ring circus of dishonest game playing about energy. There is such a lack of consensus in North America about what to do and how to go about it.
Saturday, 18 October 2008
Stop Your Negative Thinking Now
A consequence of the stresses on the world financial and economic systems that we see all around us is the rise of negative thinking. What many don't realize is that the financial patterns that we are presently seeing have been evident for some long time. They are not something negative, but a new pattern that is positive. The earlier pattern of inflation of excessive spending and spiralling house prices was actually the negative pattern. That is now ended in the US and thank goodness for that! Talk about living in a dreamworld!
The collapse of that pattern and its replacement with a process of necessary correction is a positive thing and will help the younger generation realize that things do not come as easily as they have been led to believe. This reassertion of the real values of our universe, is a wonderful expression of its ultimate vitality. What we were seeing was market-led injustice. What we are now seeing is a necessary realignment of values.
The fact that America watched Asia have its crisis in 1997 and did little to change its own ways are an important lesson for all of us. The Asian crisis was in reality an American led dollar crisis, and we can now all see that. That is a very positive step to Americans realizing that they are not the creme de la creme, but a part of the whole, and a declining part of that whole. Now as we watch other peoples realign, we will see more clearly the mistakes of the Bush administration, the lack of understanding by Bill Clinton of the economics of his success.
We see more clearly that all sides were most definitely wrong, and we see that it is now necessary to keep inflation of all kinds down otherwise we risk a rise of the second stage of depression which is anger and intolerance. I myself, sleep much more soundly now that the crisis is over for the crisis was what went on before and not what is going on now. Sure the world is in pain, but it could be in so much more pain down the road, should the old patterns of profligate spending not been arrested.
Now is the time to embrace the message that Obama is stating, and that is one of social justice. This does not mean that Obama got the pattern right. He most definitely did not as the McCain people so clearly show. No one in America has the right now to point the finger. All were within a destructive process that leadership at the FED failed to recognize and act upon.
We are suffered from a lack of direction on the part of the US monetary authorities, who go it wrong and should have known better! Lets hope they can end this scourge of inflation while we invest in a new energy paradigm that is self sustainable and based on what flows from the sun rather than what happens to come from the ground, or from inside the molecule.
The collapse of that pattern and its replacement with a process of necessary correction is a positive thing and will help the younger generation realize that things do not come as easily as they have been led to believe. This reassertion of the real values of our universe, is a wonderful expression of its ultimate vitality. What we were seeing was market-led injustice. What we are now seeing is a necessary realignment of values.
The fact that America watched Asia have its crisis in 1997 and did little to change its own ways are an important lesson for all of us. The Asian crisis was in reality an American led dollar crisis, and we can now all see that. That is a very positive step to Americans realizing that they are not the creme de la creme, but a part of the whole, and a declining part of that whole. Now as we watch other peoples realign, we will see more clearly the mistakes of the Bush administration, the lack of understanding by Bill Clinton of the economics of his success.
We see more clearly that all sides were most definitely wrong, and we see that it is now necessary to keep inflation of all kinds down otherwise we risk a rise of the second stage of depression which is anger and intolerance. I myself, sleep much more soundly now that the crisis is over for the crisis was what went on before and not what is going on now. Sure the world is in pain, but it could be in so much more pain down the road, should the old patterns of profligate spending not been arrested.
Now is the time to embrace the message that Obama is stating, and that is one of social justice. This does not mean that Obama got the pattern right. He most definitely did not as the McCain people so clearly show. No one in America has the right now to point the finger. All were within a destructive process that leadership at the FED failed to recognize and act upon.
We are suffered from a lack of direction on the part of the US monetary authorities, who go it wrong and should have known better! Lets hope they can end this scourge of inflation while we invest in a new energy paradigm that is self sustainable and based on what flows from the sun rather than what happens to come from the ground, or from inside the molecule.
The Pain of the Straight Line
Those who know me will understand when I say that the anathema of modern civilization is its obsession with the straight line. For me, the straight line is associated with the rise of Roman thinking, an obsession with directness and a failing to understand other forms of line.
As the straight line was absorbed into the world as a dominant form with the suppression of other forms, civilization began the road down to evisceration and self destruction. For me the straight line is so closely attached to death that it is synonymous with dying and self elimination.
We are impoverished by the dominance of the straight line and when ever we add curves we are enriched. Why is that? Why do so much of us live linear lives? Why are so many of us impoverished by the straight line. You may not know what I mean, but then you are on the straight line of your life and if you remain on it you are approaching, well whatever! Put a mirror in front of yourself and ask whether you see any straight lines. Your life is based on nature making curves, so why are you so obsessed with the straight line.
Why is the Roman logic of linearity captivating your soul. Consider, is the straight line evil, or painful, or dangerous, of hurtful? I ask you to add a curve or two and to start to live more universally. Get off the straight road and breath life. See the other patterns out there. Forget the straight lines and see the beauty of the curve. Allow yourself to be inspired by the charm of indirectness, captivated by the novelty that is contained in curves. Be yourself as you can be. Live your life more eternally. Don't die on the straight line.
Tuesday, 14 October 2008
My Auntie is One Hundred Years Old
As of October 15, 2008, I have it on good information that my English auntie is one hundred years old. Time to celebrate! Good luck and congratulations, Auntie Stella!
The Challenge of Economic Adjustment and What to Expect
For a simplistic explanation read my comment!
Explanations of the present worldwide financial crisis are not so clear as to the adjustment process. Was has happened is the United States and many other countries have over invested in their respective domestic housing markets. This was made possible by lax lending practices which did not adequately take into account what borrowers could afford throughout their borrowing period.
Obviously, to make the financial equations balance either peoples' incomes have to rise, or they have to pay out so much of their current incomes for their mortgages that they can afford little else, or they have to receive further loans at concessional rates, or they have to rent out part of their homes, or they have to sell their homes.
To mitigate the overall problems, governments have decided that they will help out by making available more money at concessional rates so that more people can hang on to their homes. What happens in reality is that people try to make ends meet by getting better paying jobs, by getting second jobs, by working longer hours, by divorcing and selling their homes, by declaring bankruptcy, etc.
In some communities, banks have allowed people to remain in their homes but become shareholders. This seems like a reasonably good solution since the debt of the bank is no longer a purely bad debt, but an asset of lower yield, i.e. lower profit. The problem is that the banks have sold on their loans to other entities who are not in a position to dictate the terms of shareholding in the housing market. Indeed in buying the 'housing' paper, speculative buyers, which means banks wishing to convey at the time to others they were in the 'profitable' housing market, leveraged themselves into a crisis. But, what if the original lenders were required to buy back all their housing loans that did not perform! At least then there would be some accountability.
The impact of over-investment in the housing market, which is a long term market, is probably over investment in almost every other market, especially the longer term markets, such as vehicles and all what fills new houses, such as furniture. What this means is that the value or prices of the product of these over invested markets will decline. Those that have over invested will probably under invest as a precautionary rule. This means that the recovery out of this period of over investment could take a very considerable period.
Meanwhile governments will try by various means to soften the impact of recession. If they soften too much people will continue to over invest and a correction to sustainable investment will not happen. That is the problem of low interest rates and easy money. It encourages over investment and pushes against correction to sustainable spending and investment.
Perhaps, if governments focused on redirecting the economies towards CO2 saving industries where there is now under investment, we might just be spared the repeat of over investment.
Explanations of the present worldwide financial crisis are not so clear as to the adjustment process. Was has happened is the United States and many other countries have over invested in their respective domestic housing markets. This was made possible by lax lending practices which did not adequately take into account what borrowers could afford throughout their borrowing period.
Obviously, to make the financial equations balance either peoples' incomes have to rise, or they have to pay out so much of their current incomes for their mortgages that they can afford little else, or they have to receive further loans at concessional rates, or they have to rent out part of their homes, or they have to sell their homes.
To mitigate the overall problems, governments have decided that they will help out by making available more money at concessional rates so that more people can hang on to their homes. What happens in reality is that people try to make ends meet by getting better paying jobs, by getting second jobs, by working longer hours, by divorcing and selling their homes, by declaring bankruptcy, etc.
In some communities, banks have allowed people to remain in their homes but become shareholders. This seems like a reasonably good solution since the debt of the bank is no longer a purely bad debt, but an asset of lower yield, i.e. lower profit. The problem is that the banks have sold on their loans to other entities who are not in a position to dictate the terms of shareholding in the housing market. Indeed in buying the 'housing' paper, speculative buyers, which means banks wishing to convey at the time to others they were in the 'profitable' housing market, leveraged themselves into a crisis. But, what if the original lenders were required to buy back all their housing loans that did not perform! At least then there would be some accountability.
The impact of over-investment in the housing market, which is a long term market, is probably over investment in almost every other market, especially the longer term markets, such as vehicles and all what fills new houses, such as furniture. What this means is that the value or prices of the product of these over invested markets will decline. Those that have over invested will probably under invest as a precautionary rule. This means that the recovery out of this period of over investment could take a very considerable period.
Meanwhile governments will try by various means to soften the impact of recession. If they soften too much people will continue to over invest and a correction to sustainable investment will not happen. That is the problem of low interest rates and easy money. It encourages over investment and pushes against correction to sustainable spending and investment.
Perhaps, if governments focused on redirecting the economies towards CO2 saving industries where there is now under investment, we might just be spared the repeat of over investment.
Monday, 6 October 2008
My Political Leadership Wish List
If the last few weeks of turmoil and bubble bursting have taught us anything, it is that economic, financial and political policies of communities and governments do matter. The failings of the leadership of Blaire, Brown, Harper and Bush are now very apparent. The most obvious fact is that they need to seriously re-read the histories of their own countries to understand what they did wrong. Perhaps, they should also take courses in ethics. This is so they don't embarass us when they write their memoires.
I don't think they should write autobiographies or memoires until they really understand how serious their failings were for the three countries they led or continue to lead. They should pay particular attention to the interwar period and try to understand the way things work in desperate societies and why they now have contributed or continue to contribute to the creation of a world environment that is poised for religious, social and then nationalistic warfare. In my view, they do not understand the sources/causes of war. This is why they really need to go back to school so that they can see the extensive damage that they have done.
Of the present candidates for leadership of the free world my present preference is for Dion (Canada), Obama (USA) and Cameron (UK). What strikes me about these candidates is their honesty, sobriety and genuine ethical approach. What worries and worried me most about the Blaire, Brown, Bush and Turner leaderships was their dishonesty. It seems/seemed as if they are/were caught up in a world that they do/did not really understand.
I am particularly distraught about the contradiction inherent in the right wing religious community of USA, which espouses the minimalization of government while promoting ideologies that promote the intrusion of government into everyday life and freedom of choice. They say governments should be reduced, but want governments to expand and then behave as though they are religious communities at war furthering obvious religious goals, such as have to do with reducing the influence and freedom of genuine scientific research while supporting rearmament, disengagement, warfare, prohibitions and ever more dangerous weaponry. By preventing the normal evolution of positive and open value development, they foster an ever more dangerous hidden criminality of mentality. Though they don't bless it, they undoubtedly do lead to its increased likelihood. By supporting gun ownership, they increase the role of government in defending people's rights and a growth of governments and related agencies focused on security and control. They see people being shot in the streets with guns that people should not own. They don't mind gun ownership and they let the fear mentality of gun ownership to dominate the mores of American society. In effect, they bring the old west mentality into an otherwise ethical modern society where it can do serious damage.
I don't think they should write autobiographies or memoires until they really understand how serious their failings were for the three countries they led or continue to lead. They should pay particular attention to the interwar period and try to understand the way things work in desperate societies and why they now have contributed or continue to contribute to the creation of a world environment that is poised for religious, social and then nationalistic warfare. In my view, they do not understand the sources/causes of war. This is why they really need to go back to school so that they can see the extensive damage that they have done.
Of the present candidates for leadership of the free world my present preference is for Dion (Canada), Obama (USA) and Cameron (UK). What strikes me about these candidates is their honesty, sobriety and genuine ethical approach. What worries and worried me most about the Blaire, Brown, Bush and Turner leaderships was their dishonesty. It seems/seemed as if they are/were caught up in a world that they do/did not really understand.
I am particularly distraught about the contradiction inherent in the right wing religious community of USA, which espouses the minimalization of government while promoting ideologies that promote the intrusion of government into everyday life and freedom of choice. They say governments should be reduced, but want governments to expand and then behave as though they are religious communities at war furthering obvious religious goals, such as have to do with reducing the influence and freedom of genuine scientific research while supporting rearmament, disengagement, warfare, prohibitions and ever more dangerous weaponry. By preventing the normal evolution of positive and open value development, they foster an ever more dangerous hidden criminality of mentality. Though they don't bless it, they undoubtedly do lead to its increased likelihood. By supporting gun ownership, they increase the role of government in defending people's rights and a growth of governments and related agencies focused on security and control. They see people being shot in the streets with guns that people should not own. They don't mind gun ownership and they let the fear mentality of gun ownership to dominate the mores of American society. In effect, they bring the old west mentality into an otherwise ethical modern society where it can do serious damage.
Thursday, 2 October 2008
Starbucks Coffee Shop - Blueberry Bar
Since I don't eat wheat, it was a shock for me to see Starbucks in Ontario selling donuts with their coffee. It seems that Canadians cannot get away from their favourite food fifth column.
If you don't think that donuts are bad for you, perhaps you are a bit of a carb addict yourself. In any event, I enjoy the Starbucks blueberry bar, and when I don't see it on display, I do ask for it and have not been disappointed in Ontario, yet! So far, I have not detected any digestive problems associates with any wheat lurking within the bars. I do believe that blueberries are cancer fighters, and that oats are good for your heart. The coffee contains caffiene, which helps keep me alert, but I think it dries me out a bit, so I also like a glass of cranberry juice with my meals.
If you don't think that donuts are bad for you, perhaps you are a bit of a carb addict yourself. In any event, I enjoy the Starbucks blueberry bar, and when I don't see it on display, I do ask for it and have not been disappointed in Ontario, yet! So far, I have not detected any digestive problems associates with any wheat lurking within the bars. I do believe that blueberries are cancer fighters, and that oats are good for your heart. The coffee contains caffiene, which helps keep me alert, but I think it dries me out a bit, so I also like a glass of cranberry juice with my meals.
A Personal Review of Tim Horton's Coffee and Donut Shops
This morning, I tried very hard to find something at Tim Hortons that I could enjoy because it would not make me either sick or uncomfortable. Most of the products at Hortons make me ill because my body cannot tolerate the wheat that seems to be in everything they sell! I think all this wheat in the form of white stuff is bad for one's health.
My choice was coffee with two milk and one sugar, plus a side of hash brown potatoe. I find the coffee at Hortons fairly acidic so the double milk was intended to offset that. I was risking wheat being with the potatoe, but thought it might be worth the risk.
Everything went sour when I noticed the 'chef' touching my hash browns with her fingers. I did not order germs, so was a bit put out. The coffee was tolerable and it really did give me an energy rush for my bike ride. I left the hash browns because its not a good idea to eat food that others have touched with their fingers.
By all means have your coffee break, but I would do a cycle around Tim Hortons to a place where the coffee is better tasting, has more aroma, and seems fuller. As for the finger work. Who asked for that!
Incidently, I tend to prefer Starbucks coffee, which is better from filler, taste and aroma aspects, and I find less acidic. The oceans have too much acid so why do I need it also (a stupid non-sequitor!).
My choice was coffee with two milk and one sugar, plus a side of hash brown potatoe. I find the coffee at Hortons fairly acidic so the double milk was intended to offset that. I was risking wheat being with the potatoe, but thought it might be worth the risk.
Everything went sour when I noticed the 'chef' touching my hash browns with her fingers. I did not order germs, so was a bit put out. The coffee was tolerable and it really did give me an energy rush for my bike ride. I left the hash browns because its not a good idea to eat food that others have touched with their fingers.
By all means have your coffee break, but I would do a cycle around Tim Hortons to a place where the coffee is better tasting, has more aroma, and seems fuller. As for the finger work. Who asked for that!
Incidently, I tend to prefer Starbucks coffee, which is better from filler, taste and aroma aspects, and I find less acidic. The oceans have too much acid so why do I need it also (a stupid non-sequitor!).
Monday, 29 September 2008
What Leveraging Really Means to the Average Person
Excessive leveraging is what the Reserve Requirements of a Central Bank are supposed to limit. Obviously, there has been a big failure to communicate and inflation of house prices and stocks over the Bush period has been rampant. Without adequate Reserve Requirements throughout banking systems the US and UK will continue to create too much credit, and their currencies will weaken unless there is real economic growth, which is not likely in this holding period of adjustment.
Obviously, banks need to exact adequate reserve requirements (deposits, lower multiples of loans over income, percentage of income paying for interest and loans, etc.) from customers or they will fold like the economic system is folding right now. If your present loans are more than three times your salary, you should cut back spending or liquidate shares (i.e. loans to companies) to pay your loans down, no matter what the favourable interest rate, dividend percent or capital gain expected. That is prudence and not recklessness as has been common over the Bush administration period.
The problem is that more credit has been created over the last decade than what combined incomes can cover with interest payments. To get back to order, people need to sell assets, such as stocks and shares, houses, and liquidate deposits paying off their debts or as much interest as will keep the creditors happy (pretty high now!).
When this does not happen the debts become bad debts and the banks have to declare that they have bad debts. If everyone has bad debts at the same time, the assets that the bank is using to recover bad debts such as repossessed objects and homes fall in value because everyone is selling stuff at the same time.
When the Fed helps the banks it does not mean that the bad debts disappear, but that the fall in asset values is more orderly over time as sales of assets progress. Prices of stocks and shares, houses, and other assets will continue downwards until the full correction point has been reached.
For the average person, this means that the sale of a property that cannot be financed can to be delayed on a downward moving market. The problem is that people will race to sell while the market is on the upper end of its downward slide. Furthermore, people will delay acquisition of assets on a market moving downward because they prefer the higher valuation. There is consequently no easy solution, just the mathematics of human and market behaviour.
We do not know what the full correction point is, but one can be suspicious that the leveraging went forward some seven years beyond reason. So perhaps values of the past seven years adjusted for some small growth in value would appear to be about right. Not very nice, but more stable than continuing to live with the fear of a rush to sell rather than more certain modest growth in value! The appropriate correction period is the next nine months not years from now as the bad bailout dynamics might induce. Laws and money cannot really buy US banks out of stupidity, just time so that they can become smarter investors in people and assets.
Obviously, banks need to exact adequate reserve requirements (deposits, lower multiples of loans over income, percentage of income paying for interest and loans, etc.) from customers or they will fold like the economic system is folding right now. If your present loans are more than three times your salary, you should cut back spending or liquidate shares (i.e. loans to companies) to pay your loans down, no matter what the favourable interest rate, dividend percent or capital gain expected. That is prudence and not recklessness as has been common over the Bush administration period.
The problem is that more credit has been created over the last decade than what combined incomes can cover with interest payments. To get back to order, people need to sell assets, such as stocks and shares, houses, and liquidate deposits paying off their debts or as much interest as will keep the creditors happy (pretty high now!).
When this does not happen the debts become bad debts and the banks have to declare that they have bad debts. If everyone has bad debts at the same time, the assets that the bank is using to recover bad debts such as repossessed objects and homes fall in value because everyone is selling stuff at the same time.
When the Fed helps the banks it does not mean that the bad debts disappear, but that the fall in asset values is more orderly over time as sales of assets progress. Prices of stocks and shares, houses, and other assets will continue downwards until the full correction point has been reached.
For the average person, this means that the sale of a property that cannot be financed can to be delayed on a downward moving market. The problem is that people will race to sell while the market is on the upper end of its downward slide. Furthermore, people will delay acquisition of assets on a market moving downward because they prefer the higher valuation. There is consequently no easy solution, just the mathematics of human and market behaviour.
We do not know what the full correction point is, but one can be suspicious that the leveraging went forward some seven years beyond reason. So perhaps values of the past seven years adjusted for some small growth in value would appear to be about right. Not very nice, but more stable than continuing to live with the fear of a rush to sell rather than more certain modest growth in value! The appropriate correction period is the next nine months not years from now as the bad bailout dynamics might induce. Laws and money cannot really buy US banks out of stupidity, just time so that they can become smarter investors in people and assets.
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