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It’s been a while now since the financial world went to hell in a hand-basket but not that big a while, as we all continue to struggle with the impact how are the banks making out? Well, they’re fine to be honest, they’re back to making money & doing their best to make as much of it as possible by charging plenty of interest whilst paying almost none. To look at an average bank now you wouldn’t believe that the current economic turmoil had anything to do with them whatsoever, I had hopes that the banks might have come out of the mess with a better or at least more realistic attitude but this is certainly not the case. If anything they’ve proved that they can do pretty much as they please & that if the brown stuff ever does hit the fan again then it’s in our best interests to act in their best interests. Frankly the whole thing stinks to high heaven & anyone who wants to believe that they’ll be responsible in the future when they have no chance of suffering the consequences of their actions is a bloody fool. (continue reading…)

It’s a problem that doesn’t seem to be going away even with the banks’ share prices coming along nicely, that’s the trouble with rushing in, it might need doing but it’s just never that simple. The fact is that this country borrows too much whether it’s a good year or not & then when the brown stuff hits the fan we’re stumped, it doesn’t even matter who’s in power either, they all do it. Given that simple maths tells us that we’ve got to take a few years to sort this out & that other things are going to happen there ought to be a proper plan. That the Tories want to play hack & slash is no surprise to anyone, it’s sadly the only plan they ever have, that the Lib-Dems are going along with is slightly amusing though. Selling out is always awkward & no matter how they dress it up it has always been a case of selling out for them, it was their only chance for power. Like many people I was hoping that with the return of vast profits to the financial sector we could be spared some of the pain caused by the financial sector, this doesn’t seem to be coming though, apparently we only count when they’re broke. (continue reading…)

It would seem that the legendary reliability of Blackberry privacy is ruffling feathers in the Middle East as a few of the countries there are demanding monitor rights over their networks. It may well be just a power play to bring a successful company to heel but if nothing else it shows what a fine line can be drawn between an individuals’ right to privacy & a governments’ need to know. Maybe given that Rim are so business orientated that they will only use their own servers for certain traffic this was bound to come up eventually but in a world scared rigid by terrorism this may just be another knee jerk reaction by the authorities. Most of us use mobile phones every day & we expect our private conversations & Emails to be just that, private, sadly we also expect the forces of Law & Order to be ever vigilant against those who would do us harm & so provoke the constant paradox we now live under. I get around it the same way most everyone else does by assuming that the government have every right to snoop on anyones’ privacy so long as they stay the hell away from mine because I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m not saying that this solves the entire problem but as far as honesty goes it’s all I’ve got. (continue reading…)

It’s always nice for politicians to have an easy target & for the Americans right now there’s no-one easier than BP, it doesn’t matter how much money they can throw at the Yanks, they’re still going to hate them, which is stupid. Okay if you were going to pick a group of companies that could be hated even more than the banking system then the oil companies are a fair point to raise, the profits they generate are obscene & they’re forever involved in the less democratic areas of the world in their endless search for fresh supplies. On any level despising the oil industry is peachy, it’s like loving the addiction but hating the dealers & we can all relate to that, after all it’s our way of life that spawned them & continues to feed them although we intentionally ignore this because it spoils all the hating & resentment. Even amongst the oil companies themselves there’s always one that gets to be singled out for a special dose of hating due to whatever disaster it caused or was attached to, at least until one of the other oil companies causes a fresh disaster & claims the crown back that it is. Right now BP is right up there as demon number one & if the oil spill had happened anywhere else in the world I’d be right there hating the company along with everyone else, but I can’t do it, it can’t be done & shouldn’t be done, as much as I’d like to join in with the abuse it’s just not right. (continue reading…)

People get paid for working, in some cases for those lucky enough they get paid a lot, sometimes when compared to the majority it’s a hell of a lot. Normally this isn’t a problem least of all for those getting the money but now that the BBC trust has waded in the BBC is going to have to come clean about how much it’s shelling out at the top end. This does raise a few interesting points, the first being whether it’s any of our business to know & if it is just how much we need to know? Is this just an exercise in good management & transparency or a way for the struggling commercial channels to gain a few steps on the public sector? It’s certainly true that if we carry on in this way then the capacity of the BBC to deliver the current quality of programming is bound to be affected if asked to compete with those who can pay what they like. It’s also subjective as well, we all have our favored personas & those we can’t stand watching, will this be the criteria needed to judge who’s worth what? & if it is who gets to say so? At this rate the accountants may as well be booking the performers which can only mean a much steeper drop into the realm of awful TV that caters only to the lowest common denominator. (continue reading…)

I get the theory obviously, if the government can drag more money in than it actually spends then the debt will have to be reduced accordingly, it’s logical but also not quite. If the cutbacks increase unemployment then the government will have to spend some of the money it’s trying to save, & if the cutbacks reduce the amount of money people have then they’ll spend less so unemployment will go up. I keep studying the figures as far as I understand them but I can’t see why this isn’t political suicide, it’s probably a worthwhile risk right now with Labour still outcasts but it remains a risk. It may well be in the interests of the UK to have some harsh medicine to swallow but when the people doling it out are rich & those taking it are not then the risk that they’ll remember come election time has to be considered. People have never liked doing things solely for the common good especially when they’re only going to feel the benefits after years & even then only in the abstract. The lottery may make a comeback but it’s hard to see anywhere else getting a boost out of austerity, I aren’t saying that the job doesn’t need doing or that I care how unpopular the Tories get, just that I thought they were meant to be brighter than this? (continue reading…)

So the pension age is set to rise? It’s hardly a shock & will be repeated across Europe over the coming years, it mostly makes sense as well, a lot of people are finding it hard to take that a birthday ends their employment. It may be a good way for businesses to do away with less productive staff & bear no guilt for it but it ought to be up to employees as well as employers so long as they can still do the job. This is where it gets tricky though, just as all of us have varying degrees of fitness at age 20 by the time a few decades have passed the degrees of fitness have warped somewhat. This makes sticking an absolute age limit a trifle dodgy, to the unfortunate man of 50 it’s a lifetime away yet to the spry 70 year old it’s a lifetime wasted, inflexibility will always bring casualties. How many of us know of people who’ve looked fit as fiddles at their retirement do yet are dead a short while after? There are those who live to be active & valued & for those folks an unending succession of empty days can be a nightmare that bingo cannot wake them from. Yes there are things for the retired to do but these things do seem to become an elaborate way of whiling away the days until the bloke with the grin shows up, coffee mornings may be good for the soul but beer nights are always better. (continue reading…)

It’s hardly going to be a shock that this budget is going to upset more than a few of us, it’s not an easy job to conjure up money & as that’s why we’re in this mess it’s tougher still. Not that this means that I have much sympathy for our Government, they’ve worked damned hard to be there & always knew that this was coming. It will if nothing else go someway to proving who was right on curing the deficit without crippling the country, Labour were adamant that the cuts had to be bearable whereas the Tories wanted savagery & speed. It did worry me a little though that this budget is meant to not only cure the deficit but also to bring prosperity for all, this would appear to be Disney at work. I don’t mind all the flannel but it does keep occurring to me that we were led to believe that by saving the banks we weren’t only saving ourselves but setting ourselves up for a tidy profit to boot, perhaps we didn’t listen closely enough. Anyway, it doesn’t matter all that much right now, we may be preparing ourselves for some bad news but it’s not all that complicated & is mainly focused on where the bad news will hit rather than just how bad it will be. (continue reading…)

I read recently that a few of the big players of the grocery world are claiming to be all for a regulated unit price for alcohol & an end to the all out price war that leaves them giving it away. Considering that the World Cup was coming up along with the normal UK delusions about how Summer could turn out this was a worry but it appears to be an unfounded one. So far they all seem to be pulling the usual trick of encouraging us all to buy more for less & vying with each other to have the cheapest offers. The range would also appear to be wider this year although that could just be my not noticing before that cider has always been included. It’s coming to something though when you fancy a four pack but end up buying three crates because it’s just so worth it, that’s not a complaint by the way, I’m all for beer being on sale. It’s just that if the supermarkets are really in favour of charging more then it has to be legislation they’re waiting for since whoever goes it alone is going to have the emptiest shop in Britain. (continue reading…)

It’s about time people, I know that moving home has been a chore & that much is different at the moment but even with so much to do it’s been hard without the net. In an insidious & invasive way it has permeated so much of my world that the wrench when it was no longer there was tough to deal with. I’m so used to being constantly informed about everything & being able to take an active part in the endless discussions about nothing that swarm forever online. I wouldn’t mind but it was the first time in a decade that I’d been without it for longer than three days & once you start becoming wistful for dial-up you know things have got out of hand. Seeing the browser come back to life was one of the highlights of today but knowing what I know now it will no longer be the everything that it was before, I may even get some work done. (continue reading…)