...or how the ball got dropped this time around. The government *always* drops the ball in the end, or, as Bob Beckman used to say (paraphrased) "What we learn from History is that nobody learns anything from History."
This author has summarized the development of the banking crisis in straightforward terms:
Economic Disasters and Stupid Evil People
I suppose I should be updating my Great Depression page, written in 2003 (although I've been waiting for this to happen since at least the 1980's). It's about time, really.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Monday, May 05, 2008
Web Design
People keep asking me to fix or create their web sites for them. Well, OK. Maybe that will be my new mode of income, apart from the film work at the Studio. So I shall be a web designer. Take a look at http://www.shortletbudapest.co.uk for one I've begun... I've done others recently too, now I think about it. I guess I can be a web designer. And, since people keep asking me, I don't think I'll have to search too hard for business. And as people typically ask extortionate prices, I can be more reasonable, I think. After all, I have a day job to go to too.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Three Quarters of a Kid
It seems Spring is making a proper appearance at last, albeit only for a few days perhaps. Anyway, I went out and took some photos in a nearby bluebell woods - you can see the pics via my Image London blog.
If you like animals, you might enjoy The Daily Coyote blog, by a woman who adopted an orphaned coyote. She takes great photos too.
On the other hand, if you are suffering from depression, you might like to try the BROH trick: it stands for Brain Running Old Habits - the article will explain in properly, but basically it is about remembering that you and your habits of thought are two separate entities. Learn to identify but don't identify with those depressing thoughts: don't believe them. They are just a habit.
If you are thinking of getting married... and your maths is up to it, why not try working out what your odds are? Geek Logic might do the trick. According to that I should get married but should only have three quarters of a kid...
If you like animals, you might enjoy The Daily Coyote blog, by a woman who adopted an orphaned coyote. She takes great photos too.
On the other hand, if you are suffering from depression, you might like to try the BROH trick: it stands for Brain Running Old Habits - the article will explain in properly, but basically it is about remembering that you and your habits of thought are two separate entities. Learn to identify but don't identify with those depressing thoughts: don't believe them. They are just a habit.
If you are thinking of getting married... and your maths is up to it, why not try working out what your odds are? Geek Logic might do the trick. According to that I should get married but should only have three quarters of a kid...
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Credit Crunch
The credit crunch is all very well - indeed, I've been having my very own credit crunch for most of my life it seems - but in some parts of the world things are, of course, much worse than here. According to Macrohistory, a very good history site, the news for April 9th is:
So... OK, the official inflation rate here is about 2.5%. In reality, food prices rose by 11% over the last 12 months here. Elsewhere, because of problems with wheat and rice crops this year plus increasing demand from rising populations, prices are rising much faster. And of course there's Zimbabwe with 116,000% inflation. That is, "hyperinflation".
Apr 9 People around the world are rioting because of food prices or availability: in Egypt, Mexico, Haiti, Yemen, Côte d’Ivoire, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan, Guinea, Mauritania. In South Korea there is panic buying. In the Philippines, officials are raiding warehouses looking for unscrupulous traders hoarding rice. The rising price of oil has made food production more expensive. Nations are cutting back on their exports of food in order to have enough for their own people. Egypt's reduction of rice exports is hurting Turkey, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. On April 3, world rice prices rose as much as 30 percent.
So... OK, the official inflation rate here is about 2.5%. In reality, food prices rose by 11% over the last 12 months here. Elsewhere, because of problems with wheat and rice crops this year plus increasing demand from rising populations, prices are rising much faster. And of course there's Zimbabwe with 116,000% inflation. That is, "hyperinflation".
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Working Too Much?
I've hardly had time to do anything much lately - too much work! Plus watching the Great Depression unfold, if that is what it is doing (see previous post). But here are a few interesting web pages I've managed to dig up even so. You might want to calculate your global "footprint" at the Earthday Footprint Page. They try to calculate how many planet Earths would be needed if everybody lived like you do. My lifestyle adds up to 1.5 Earths; below average for a Westerner. But really I don't buy all this scaremongering. Yes people could take more care of the planet and I wish we would, but in the end, I believe we will sort the problems out and maintain or improve our lifestyles. Technology rules!
On another subject altogether (or is it?), did you know that Jesus had female apostles? Society up to 400AD and indeed much later couldn't really comprehend that, so the women were largely erased from the record - but not completely. I always thought that the idea that a priest had to have a willy just because Jesus (presumably) did was a bit weird anyway.
And now, even further off the limb: video lectures about really weird stuff - like flying saucers and so on. Enjoy it, but perhaps take it with a pinch of salt. Science requires scepticism of hearsay.
On another subject altogether (or is it?), did you know that Jesus had female apostles? Society up to 400AD and indeed much later couldn't really comprehend that, so the women were largely erased from the record - but not completely. I always thought that the idea that a priest had to have a willy just because Jesus (presumably) did was a bit weird anyway.
And now, even further off the limb: video lectures about really weird stuff - like flying saucers and so on. Enjoy it, but perhaps take it with a pinch of salt. Science requires scepticism of hearsay.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
1929 Recapitulated?
Back in 2003 I wrote an article about the coming Great Depression. Well, the current "sub-prime" banking crisis certainly fits the pattern of a financial bubble finally bursting.
Basically, a wunch of bankers have been lending money to people such as myself who can't afford it, and now they're all surprised as it blows up in their faces. The boss of the Northern Rock bank, Britain's recent casualty, bleated before a parliamentary committee that "nobody could have foreseen this", as if people such as myself haven't been forecasting this outcome for, literally, decades.
I see that UBS in Switzerland has written down billions of dollars against bad debts. How can one choose a bank these days? Well, there can be no guarantees really, but probably it is necessary to do a load of homework first. For example, UBS's share price has fallen 83% over the last year in the lead-up to their crisis. Bear Stearns' share price had been sliding for some time before that crisis broke. It seems somebody had a clue. Probably, if you have any funds that you can't afford to lose, they should be spread between a number of UNRELATED institutions, and a number of currencies. In the UK, guarantees only cover up to around £30,000 on deposits (and the deposits must be in unrelated banks for them all to be protected). Check this article at http://www.moneysavingexpert.co.uk for advice.
Is the dollar a safe currency any more? Nobody knows. US interest rates are down, making it unattractive and raising inflation in countries whose currencies are pegged to the dollar. If too much money leaves the US to find better rates elsewhere, the US will find itself with the unenviable choice between a collapsing currency raising the prices of imports to unaffordable levels, or raising interest rates and crushing the economy that way instead. That is, slump1 or slump2.
Bankers around the world are afraid of inflation - and certainly, hyperinflation such as in Zimbabwe at the moment or Germany between the wars is worth avoiding at all costs - but generally, a great depression is much worse than normal inflation levels. Inflation, after all, allows people to pay off their debts with cheap money: the debt remains much the same but your wages tend to go up each year. Depression makes debts progressively harder and harder to pay off as money becomes more and more expensive (falling prices means your cash is more valuable (e.g., your wages may fall), which means it is harder to pay things off). The golden rule: cash is king. Hold on to it!
Basically, a wunch of bankers have been lending money to people such as myself who can't afford it, and now they're all surprised as it blows up in their faces. The boss of the Northern Rock bank, Britain's recent casualty, bleated before a parliamentary committee that "nobody could have foreseen this", as if people such as myself haven't been forecasting this outcome for, literally, decades.
I see that UBS in Switzerland has written down billions of dollars against bad debts. How can one choose a bank these days? Well, there can be no guarantees really, but probably it is necessary to do a load of homework first. For example, UBS's share price has fallen 83% over the last year in the lead-up to their crisis. Bear Stearns' share price had been sliding for some time before that crisis broke. It seems somebody had a clue. Probably, if you have any funds that you can't afford to lose, they should be spread between a number of UNRELATED institutions, and a number of currencies. In the UK, guarantees only cover up to around £30,000 on deposits (and the deposits must be in unrelated banks for them all to be protected). Check this article at http://www.moneysavingexpert.co.uk for advice.
Is the dollar a safe currency any more? Nobody knows. US interest rates are down, making it unattractive and raising inflation in countries whose currencies are pegged to the dollar. If too much money leaves the US to find better rates elsewhere, the US will find itself with the unenviable choice between a collapsing currency raising the prices of imports to unaffordable levels, or raising interest rates and crushing the economy that way instead. That is, slump1 or slump2.
Bankers around the world are afraid of inflation - and certainly, hyperinflation such as in Zimbabwe at the moment or Germany between the wars is worth avoiding at all costs - but generally, a great depression is much worse than normal inflation levels. Inflation, after all, allows people to pay off their debts with cheap money: the debt remains much the same but your wages tend to go up each year. Depression makes debts progressively harder and harder to pay off as money becomes more and more expensive (falling prices means your cash is more valuable (e.g., your wages may fall), which means it is harder to pay things off). The golden rule: cash is king. Hold on to it!
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Image London
I have started a new blog: http://imagelondon.blogspot.com. I have noticed various blogs showing photos of various cities around the world on a daily basis, and getting lots of visitors, so I thought why don't I do the same (although probably not daily, knowing me)? There are London blogs already but each has its own style. There is room for one more: the things I like will be the things some other people like, after all.
It is also a get-rich-quick scheme of sorts, since I am putting Google ads on it - just in case zillions of visitors click on them and pay me a penny each or something. Well, you never know.
It is also a get-rich-quick scheme of sorts, since I am putting Google ads on it - just in case zillions of visitors click on them and pay me a penny each or something. Well, you never know.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Forms
Apart from making the occasional entry in this blog, I also make the occasional web site, such as http://www.britishunitedartists.com/ , http://www.cwfstudio.com/ , http://www.actingcourses.net/ (at which I also maintain the blog)... I mention this because web sites require e-mail links or forms of some sort, and this presents a problem: spammers. Spammers fill in the forms, usually automatically, or they harvest the e-mail addresses for later use by a zillion zombies.
I have tried various php solutions but they basically don't work because server administrators change their settings seemingly every week and whatever automated form-to-mail solution I try stops working within days unless I can host the site on my own server, which I cannot. I have better things to do than keep changing the code on numerous web sites.
I have tried obfuscating the e-mail address; this works to some extent, but as spammers' robots get more sophisticated, this solution will not work forever.
Then I found formsmarts.com. They provide a number of simple solutions from a challenge-response web page to a hosted html form which should be compatible with all systems. Fingers crossed, but it seems to be working smoothly enough at the moment!
I have tried various php solutions but they basically don't work because server administrators change their settings seemingly every week and whatever automated form-to-mail solution I try stops working within days unless I can host the site on my own server, which I cannot. I have better things to do than keep changing the code on numerous web sites.
I have tried obfuscating the e-mail address; this works to some extent, but as spammers' robots get more sophisticated, this solution will not work forever.
Then I found formsmarts.com. They provide a number of simple solutions from a challenge-response web page to a hosted html form which should be compatible with all systems. Fingers crossed, but it seems to be working smoothly enough at the moment!
Sunday, February 10, 2008
The Meaning Of Life
Well, I suppose one can't talk about the meaning of life without thinking of Douglas Adams, for whom the answer appeared to have been "42" (in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
"), and indeed, this web site does just that. But he also indirectly makes an important point about the alternative philosophy of nihilism, which states that life, and indeed everything, is meaningless: if everything is meaningless, then so is the idea that everything is meaningless... In other words, the idea that life is worthless is a worthless idea. To me, that means it is false, or might as well be. So nihilism is imploded by its own definition: if true, it must be false.
I expect that is arguable, but it seems close enough for practical purposes. And the purpose of life - its meaning? Altruism. So there.
Here is a recent photo of Douglas Adams, taken at Highgate Cemetry in London.
And here is a quote from him:
"), and indeed, this web site does just that. But he also indirectly makes an important point about the alternative philosophy of nihilism, which states that life, and indeed everything, is meaningless: if everything is meaningless, then so is the idea that everything is meaningless... In other words, the idea that life is worthless is a worthless idea. To me, that means it is false, or might as well be. So nihilism is imploded by its own definition: if true, it must be false.I expect that is arguable, but it seems close enough for practical purposes. And the purpose of life - its meaning? Altruism. So there.
Here is a recent photo of Douglas Adams, taken at Highgate Cemetry in London.
And here is a quote from him:
"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."On another subject, I rather liked this rather well-travelled photographer's travel photos. And the latest Batman movie trailer.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Democracy and Stuff
Here is a nice 90-second overview of the progress of "democracy" (of sorts) down through the ages, assuming that no tribal systems were democratic, I suppose. And assuming that the modern system of "representative democracy" actually counts given that most such governments seem to claim to listen then do what they like anyway (and then claim to wonder why voter turnout is so low).
The above flash movie comes from Maps Of War and there are several others to enjoy there. If history isn't your bucket of cheese, maybe you need 32 Keys to Life instead. Or maybe watch a movie trailer (one of them mentions cheese, by the way)? Finally a great photo of a forest fire.
The above flash movie comes from Maps Of War and there are several others to enjoy there. If history isn't your bucket of cheese, maybe you need 32 Keys to Life instead. Or maybe watch a movie trailer (one of them mentions cheese, by the way)? Finally a great photo of a forest fire.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
What About...
...the woman whose boyfriend thought she was too drunk to drive, so she called the police. While drunk. And driving. Or the desperado who broke into parking meters, but plugged his drill into the local police station ("Capitol guardhouse" in US English, AIUI).
On the plus side, if you like sculptures and statues, maybe you'll appreciate these unusual ones. Or a fancy planetarium. Next a useful reference guide to which foods are supposed to help with what diseases. Finally... the kind of house I might like to live in when I'm rich.
On the plus side, if you like sculptures and statues, maybe you'll appreciate these unusual ones. Or a fancy planetarium. Next a useful reference guide to which foods are supposed to help with what diseases. Finally... the kind of house I might like to live in when I'm rich.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Christmas and All That
After many years of not being rich yet (in Western terms anyway), I have discovered the joys of cheap shopping on the Internet. Now, I have shopped online before, but this Christmas I specifically wanted to buy cheaply... and as I like to give books and movies, I was pleased to explore Amazon's second-hand options. And sure enough, the bulk of books and DVDs that I bought for people second-hand were just fine. In near perfect condition, indeed. One or two were a bit off, but overall, I managed to handle Christmas for about £70 instead of the usual £200. With a DVD movie costing about £2.37 including delivery instead of £10-£30, the savings can be immense. OK, the risk of a problem with the product is slightly higher, but at that kind of price I can just buy another one from another supplier.
Funny news stories... How about the latest pyramid selling scam in China? Over a million people have been persuaded to spend some £1300 on ant farms. Then there's the latest teenage-wild-party-while-the-parents-are-away event. I like the fact that the naughty fellow has his story well thought-out. His video chit-chat is a bit hard to follow but the article spells it out.
Now here is a photo showing the Moon over the 'top' of the Earth's atmosphere, taken from the Space Shuttle Discovery in July 2007. "Image ISS013-E-54329.JPG courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center."
Funny news stories... How about the latest pyramid selling scam in China? Over a million people have been persuaded to spend some £1300 on ant farms. Then there's the latest teenage-wild-party-while-the-parents-are-away event. I like the fact that the naughty fellow has his story well thought-out. His video chit-chat is a bit hard to follow but the article spells it out.
Now here is a photo showing the Moon over the 'top' of the Earth's atmosphere, taken from the Space Shuttle Discovery in July 2007. "Image ISS013-E-54329.JPG courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center."
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