Useful observations

Windows 10 high CPU usage Windows Explorer - explorer.exe - noisy computer fan windows 10 - quick fix

2019-07-05T08:09:00.001-07:00

After a recent automatic update to windows 10. the CPU on my computer went crazy. Explorer.exe or Windows Explorer in the Task Manager showed 35%+ CPU usage whilst doing nothing.

To fix this:

1. Look on your desktop for any icons that are not displaying (they might be blank or just displaying a strange icon)

2. Delete these icons or move them to a different directory

3. Restart your machine

Hope this works for you - it did for me. More information can be found at this Microsoft Answers link

How to make record profits as a bank - the 5 step plan

2014-05-13T01:59:00.004-07:00

1. Grow like crazy by making loans

2. Progressively increase interest rates on loans whilst selling them to people with little education or money at knock down initial rates. Example 2 years at 3% next 28 years at 5.5%

3. Use extreme leverage - i.e borrow as much as you can

4. Keep minimal loan loss reserves

5. Sell your loans to government agencies and/or third parties with minimal recourse

Do these 5 things as a banking executive and you will be paid 100s of times the average salary.

After 4 years leave your bank and do this at another bank. After 12-15 years retire or move into government as the losses from the banks mount you can now have total control again as people look to you to solve the problems created by this plan.

If a regulator ever reads this maybe they could stop it? But then they wouldn't get a job with a bank and earn more money.....

The modern day robber barons of our hard work

2014-04-17T03:39:00.002-07:00

All,

When the sovereign debt crisis arrives in a few years ( I can't predict when, but its a mathematical certainty) remember these names:

The Primary Dealers of Government Debt are:

Bank of America
Barclays Capital Inc.
BNP Paribas Securities Corp.
Cantor Fitzgerald & Co.
Citigroup Global Markets Inc.
Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC
Daiwa Securities America Inc.
Deutsche Bank Securities Inc.
Goldman, Sachs & Co.
HSBC Securities (USA) Inc.
J. P. Morgan Securities Inc.
Jefferies & Company Inc.
Mizuho Securities USA Inc.
Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated
Nomura Securities International Inc.
RBC Capital Markets
RBS Securities Inc.
UBS Securities LLC.

These are the banks that control the world.

They lend us our own money back with interest and they buy politicians election campaigns to enable their own regulatory agenda to expand and grow taking a piece of all productive entrepreneurial parts of society. Banks are the number one donors to most political parties in western democracies.

They control government through the bond market and they control YOU through your mortgage interest, food, heating and oil prices (which they manipulate to profit). Think about what your biggest expenditures are on....

Taxes: 60-75%% of your income if you include VAT, income tax and stamp duty - go to pay our debts, are largest welfare expenditure is pensions where they earn their hidden commissions, purchase of infrastructure is via debt

Shop prices are a function of rents and bank charges - most property is owned by banks through debt. The prices they charge increase as rents increase. Rents and employees will be their largest costs.

They are bailed out whenever they get anything wrong so the incentives are always to never get caught and take the largest risks possible.

These are the controllers of your fortunes forget about fate, government and God. Your day to day life is governed by the group of people who control these banks. 80% of everything you are able to do, what you can buy, what you can afford to buy your kids, where you live, and what you eat.

The people who understand this early on are the people who want to live life "off the grid", they realise what is happening but society treats them like they are crazy. If you point out that you live in the "matrix" everyone would think you are crazy too.

The matrix like existence we all live in is a kleptocracy for the few with owners of capital giving people the illusion of freedom. Freedom comes when decisions are out in the open, when the people in power care about the majority rather than minority; when we can all name and shame individuals who try and game the system and they suffer real costs for doing so.

This debt cycle has happened time and time again since earlier than 500AD...Bankers were hanged and cities were burned when people found out the truth (feel free to look it up). Each time the bankers move and setup in new Cities, Greece--> Rome --> Venice --> Netherlands --> Britain --> USA --> China next? The cities they leave behind become a relic to the more hedonistic days when bankers used other people's money to create and build infrastructure for themselves. Its so obvious we need unilateral controls on banking that its almost hilarious but as long as the small minority control the system and the silent majority buy into it there is nothing we can do.

Xbox One vs PS4 specifications - simple table chart comparison

2013-08-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

	Xbox One	PlayStation 4
CPU (Computer)	AMD SOC 8 Core Jaguar x86 processor custom built	AMD SOC 8 Core Jaguar SOC x86-64 processor
GPU (Graphical Processor)	AMD Radeon 768 Shaders (peak output 1.23 TerraFlops) 853Mhz	AMD Radeon 1152 Shaders (peak output 1.84 TerraFlops) 800Mhz
Memory	8GB of GDDR3 RAM (plus 32Mb of eSRAM as cache)	8Gb of GDDR5 RAM
Hard Disk Space	500Gb (some space used for Operating System)	500Gb (some space used for Operating System)
Connectivity	Wi-FI, Wi-Fi Direct, Ethernet,3 x USB 3, Optical Out, HDMI input, HDMI 4K output	Wi-FI, Ethernet, 3 x USB 3, Optical Out, Bluetooth 2.1, HDMI 4K output, Mystery AUX port
Disk Type	Blu-Ray	Blu-Ray 6x CAV /DVD 8x CAV
Controller	1 Controller – redesigned but similar to Xbox 360 in look with “Impuse Triggers” for better feedback Batteries	1 DualShock Controller – similar to PS3 in size and look but with trackpad instead of Start and Menu buttons Integrated motion control Light bar on top edge Charged via Micro USB on console
Spec sheet		PS4 Spec Sheet: Link
Fan mounting	Single Fan on Top of the device (TBC)	Dual Fans at the rear (TBC)
Included Game	FIFA 14	The Playroom AR game (uses light bar on controller but needs PS4 Eye camera (sold separately))
Other Features	· Kinetic - allows voice control and games based on user movement · HDMI Pass Through – allows TV watching and voice control through the Xbox · Use any phone or tablet to control Xbox or TV using Xbox SmartGlass app	· Can charge phone or tablet through Micro-USB ports · Suspend Game mode – resume where you left off – no loading time · Play demos before fully downloaded – PS4 downloads first level and core code first and the rest in the background · No power brick as PSU is internal · Share button on controller allows instant sharing and live streaming of current gameplay online Facebook/PSN · Allow others to take over your character (if you need help on a level) · Stream gameplay to Sony Vita if television is in use for other purposes
Price	£429 (includes Kinetic sensor/camera) $499 USD	£349 (not including PlayStation Camera) EUR 399 $399 USD
Size	343x80x263mm	305x53x275mm 2.8kg
Release Date	USA - 8^th Nov 2013 UK – 22^nd Nov 2013 (TBC)	USA – 15^th Nov 2013 UK & Europe - 29^th Nov 2013
Trade in Game capability	Able to sell game discs and play your downloaded games at a friend’s house when logged in to Xbox Live	Able to sell game discs and play your downloaded games when logged into the PSN Network
Games at launch only available on one platform	Halo Minecraft: Xbox One Edition Below Crimson Dragon D4 Dead Rising 3 Forza Motorsport 5 Killer Instinct Kinect Sports Rivals LocoCycle Quantum Break Project Spark Rabbids Invasion Ryse: Son of Rome Sunset Overdrive Titanfall Zumba Party Fitness Zoo Tycoon Untitled Black Tusk game Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare Fantasia: Music Evolved	Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Gran Turismo Blacklight: Retribution Daylight Deep Down Don't Starve DC Universe Online #DriveClub Infamous: Second Son Killzone: Shadow Fall Knack Mercenary Kings Oddworld: New n' Tasty The Order: 1866 Outlast PlanetSide 2 Primal Carnage: Genesis Ray's The Dead Transistor War Thunder Warframe

Measures for reducing youth unemployment in UK and the West

2013-08-28T08:20:00.001-07:00

High youth unemployment has been exacerbated by three key trends, changing population dynamics, unsustainable fiscal policy and higher education misalignment.

From the graph below we see those in the previous generation have lived in a generational pyramid passing debt to the age group below to enable above average growth expectations for the last 40 years.

This system has now broken for those aged below 30. Growth through debt is not a solution for long term sustainable value.

Increasingly older members of society live longer and realise they have not saved enough for prolonged retirement they are in competition for jobs with the younger generation by not retiring. We can see this trend in US statistics where unemployment is falling much faster for those aged 50 and above.

These demographic factors combined with unsustainable fiscal and monetary policy have meant that capital is not passing through to a new generation of economic activity as fast as it once did. Contributing to this is an unsustainable company tax regime that benefits companies with debt by enabling loans to offset tax and transfer pricing (the practice of moving corporate profits to lower tax regimes) to lower government tax receipts forcing reductions in spending on education amongst other public services.

Lastly, the educational system has been accepted as a means to an ends not providing students with the risk taking mentality required to innovate, test and market new ideas in any industry. Learning through failure, indeed failure itself, was seemingly watered down to enable large numbers to “pass through” the system. The profound mismatch between the educational model and the more entrepreneurial job market of the 21^st century is resulting in a slow down in innovation and therefore a reduction in jobs at all levels of education.

In order to reverse these trends we need to “productionise” the “value of striving” and build the case for innovation. Every business needs innovation and this needs energy, new ideas and direction. Continuous failure leads to innovation and I propose we build innovation spaces though out towns and cities in this country. These large scale warehouses will provide workshop machinery and donated software and hardware from large scale companies to enable anyone in the population to validate their ideas and take them from concept to design and prototype construction. Building and assisting development will give young men and women confidence to develop new skills not only science and engineering but also marketing, intellectual property and branding. Life skills like mental arithmetic, prioritising, and delivering task orientated results can be learned through these schemes. Lectures from serial entrepreneurs like James Dyson have long talked about the need to generate interest in learning to succeed by prototyping. Google and Apple will welcome the adoption of their collaborative design culture and want to look for students in these centres for the next generation of talent. With NEETs costing the UK economy £56,000 each we can afford to invest government and private funds in this endeavour. Any inventions brought to market in these innovation spaces will have a portion owned by the businesses that donate as well as the government. Like all private equity funding there will be many failures but there will also some truly spectacular successes. Take the simple example of the digital camera. The core component of cameras today, the CCD, was created by a young student given a menial side project at Kodak. Although it was not capitalised upon by the company it spawned an entire industry. We need to give people access to the tools required to turn ideas into reality. This can truly generate sustainable innovation as word spreads of success and previous inventors used their success to feed investment back into the scheme. Youtube have recently created a similar concept for movie creation. By building state of the art studios and enabling anyone to use them they are looking for the next Spielberg to capture the imagination of the world. They cannot do better than provide the canvas and the paintbrush and wait for the Picasso. It has become an all too common sight for young graduates to undertake service industry degrees, which generate little economic value. This is doing a disservice to our young men and women who should be taught that ideas executed well can give them a real sense of purpose as well as helping their country back to growth.

Although it can be argued that government has little role in shaping innovation we can see that the private sector is hoarding capital as it has been driven to reduce risk at all cost by developing an outsourcing model which only seeks to generate greater return through reduced employee costs and regulation arbitrage rather than fostering true innovation. Very few R&D tax credits are actually used to facilitate true research and development, the HMRC definition is so broad that tax accountants have been using these tax breaks to grow profits rather than let companies invest in the future. It is only government that can endure to see the profit in long term skills growth. It can use fiscal policy to enable companies to pool their resources into innovation spaces, into real projects, that have a high chance of return with pooled risk. At the moment the retrenchment in the economy means that this money is simply going to share buy backs as companies cannot find a place to generate high returns for shareholders.

In summary a three pronged approach. Create innovation centres through government and private sector investment that can bring a sense of design and creation to the youth of today. Use fiscal policy to force private capital to invest in ideas of the future with government taking on some of the risk and reward. Lastly, develop higher education policy that is linked to the economic needs of the country. These elements will increase the velocity of money from one generation to the next.

We are going to have to make money the old fashioned way – creating what people want.

Getting to Worthy View campsite for Glastonbury festival - sat nav / Tomtom/ Garmin instructions

2013-07-02T02:14:00.001-07:00

For some reason the instructions for Worthy view in the Glastonbury guide are hopeless. Here are some Sat Nav friendly instructions:

You can type in Middleway Road (post code BA4) into your Sat Nav - this is the closest road.

Here are the GPS coordinates of the Worth View car park - N 51.13880, W 2.59190 9 (you can type these directly into your Sat Nav / Tomtom/ Garmin if needed)

When you arrive near Glastonbury you will be directed past many car parks (in 2013 they used different colours to highlight each one).. Depending on the direction you arrive from, drive past all of these on your way to Middleway road. None of the people in high visibility jackets seemed to know where it was so you can try and ask but we didn't have much luck.

Link to google maps click on this and then hit directions and select "current location" on your smart phone to find your way: Worthy View Campsite

MAP OF LOCATION IF NEEDED:

View Larger Map

The consequences of short term profit goals

2013-02-27T10:05:00.003-08:00

I’ve been thinking that business is fundamentally a zero sum game. People create ideas to be more economically efficient but rarely care about the long term consequences of their entrepreneurship. Ideas which have generated “value”or increases in GDP have often preyed upon the immediate wants and desires of people decimating the collective good that we believe exists when human beings come together in a society.

Perhaps there are now two different classes of people, those that are hunters and those that are preyed upon. As a society we hire the Government, who are meant to give hunters balance and perspective but they have long since been bought off by the hunters to do their bidding. If not bought off then the election cycle forces then to cater to the immediate wants of society rather than long term benefits.

As a society we work on a system of incentives and we can see that the political centre right believe this whole heartedly. They have an ideology that suggests the private sector drives innovation – which is correct.. But that only works in the short term and any long term issues caused by profit maximisation are ignored or left for the next government to deal with.

Below I list some examples of observations where short term profit is made boosting the country’s GDP but longer term they are simply storing up problems for the future that are always resolved by the collective taxpayer making our society weaker. The perennial back stop is the taxpayer created Government- the one that everyone wants to make smaller and less inefficient. Ironically, the taxpayer is often the only organisation big enough to contain the fallout from the short-term “get rich quick” schemes. I am not advocating big government, far from it. We need efficient government who put in place frameworks which look at long term consequences not short term election requirements They have to play the elder statesman role while the private sector only looks to fulfil the short term urges of the people.

Short Term Profit	Who benefits	Long Term Problem for the general population	Result	Who has to clean up the mess that “no one saw coming”
Cheap Buy to Let Mortgages & making loan interest tax deductible for buy-to-let landlords	Those few top earners with large deposits “Old Money” families	No long term housing plan Not enough cheap housing for the majority	Higher house prices and more homeless More government subsidy for the working poor to live in cities where jobs exist	Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
Cheap Alcohol	Alcohol company shareholders & employees	Diabetes,heart disease and general health issues Increase in violence and policing costs	Higher healthcare costs Broken Families in a social cycle of decline	Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
Cigarettes	Cigarette companies’ employees and shareholders	Lung Cancer and related diseases	Higher cost of healthcare for all	Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
Cheap fast food	Lots of small business owners Mass market food producers Retail company employees and shareholders	Increased litter collection Diabetes, general health issues	More expensive healthcare and local taxes for litter collection	Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
Sugary Drinks / Cheap Fructose syrup added to all processed food	Food company shareholders and advertising companies	Obesity Higher cost of healthcare	Higher healthcare costs	Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
Cheap Loans to enable more transaction fees and larger loan sizes	Banks employees and shareholders	Massive mis allocation of capital to non productive resources	Extended periods of decline in the business cycle which lead to depression and suicide rates rising in the general population	Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
NHS staffed with short term agency staff	Agency owners	No skilled carers with long term experience	Poor customer service and more healthcare mistakes	Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
High charges for fund managers to allocate your pension	Fund management firms, employees and shareholders	Not enough money to live in retirement	General population in poverty	Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
Short term entertainment over long term development and skills	Advertisers, television and game companies and shareholders	Children who grow up to have a constant need for short term entertainment with no useful skills to add to their society	Fewer ideas and a a weaker society as we create less products to sell to the world	Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
Prison containment based on short term goals - "quick sentences" or no rehabilitation	Outsourcing companies and share holders	Parts of society that can never be reformed Constant cycle of crimes against society	Re-offending Higher policing costs Destroying the lives of offenders	Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)

How to perform untethered jailbreak on iphone iOS 6 (iOS6.1 or IOS 6) - simple tutorial using envasi0n

2013-02-07T06:53:00.000-08:00

This Works for all iPhones, iPod Touchs and iPads with iOS 6.X, but not for the Apple TV.

TO START - Backup your iPhone - Upgrade to the latest version of iOS 6 - at present this is 6.1 - you can do this by connecting your phone to itunes and synching your phone. A textbox will pop up asking if you wish to download and install the new version of iOS

Go make a cup of coffee and and wait. Once this has completed. Unplug your iphone from your computer.

Step 1 . Download evasi0n for Windows or Mac from their official website , click on the SHA1 long code that next to your operating system. Once downloaded extract the contents.

Step 2 . Double click the application to start it.

Step 3 If you have a pin lock on your phone. Disable this by going to Settings -->General --> Passcode Lock --> "turn Passcode off"

Step 4 . Connect your device to your PC/Mac using the USB cable.

Step 5 . You should see a message on the tool that says your device has been detected. At that time, the option to jailbreak will be available.

Step 6 . Click on the Jailbreak button and the process will begin. It will run a series of steps in which you have to do nothing. This takes a good few minutes, so be patient.

Step 7 . Keep an eye on the enVasi0n application. After a while it will prompt you for action. At this point all you need to do is unlock the device - i.e swipe your finger - look for a Jailbreak Icon (picture below) on your iphone and touch it once. It will run and return immediately to the iOS home screen.

Step 8 Some messages appear on the iphone screen and there are several automatic reboots

Step 9 Go back to itunes and restore your last backup by selecting the restore option

Step 10 Restore your passcode on your Iphone

If you want free apps after that use the Cydia application installed on your homescreen.
Go to--> Manage --> Sources--> Edit --> Add and add http://www.sinfuliphonerepo.com. This repository contains lots of iphone apps for free (you should always support app developers and pay for your items at some point after testing them!)

Its time to change the record: Our future society

2012-08-01T01:24:00.002-07:00

I for one am sick and tired of living in this fake capitalism. Since 2008 we have been living in a ridiculously convoluted world where we have been wagging the dog by its tail. Here are some examples:

1. The economy is terrible and demand from 99% of consumers has been truly destroyed - yet profit margins are up and companies have reported record profits due to low interest rates, lay-offs lack of salary increases, channel stuffing and cash hoarding

2. None of these low interest rates have been passed on to the real economy - y'know, the one that creates wealth and generates innovative ideas for future generations. All we seem to care about is keeping fake money in a system which is desperate to deflate so we can pass it around in a carousel and reward ourselves with a pat on the back for "generating" a profit.

3. China is continually lying about its progress and failing to actually implement demand led changes that would allow its society to grow more affluent. This is mainly because the ruling parties are terrified of losing control once the population has enough time and money to escape the tight rule of fake laws for the poor.

4. US Congress is continually doing nothing whilst waiting for the US economy to fall of its inevitable fiscal cliff. There will be one because mathematics, unlike humans, can't lie forever. Again, it seems better to do nothing so you don't get blamed than to try and fail. I always thought trying and failing was the cornerstone of American culture - it seems they have been subverted by the 1% of the population who are perfectly happy with the inequality that exists.

5. Europe is in a constant state of bailing itself out. Every 3 months the same countries receive a bail out from themselves! Again, its obvious this doesn't lead to anything that generates value - but I think a certain part of the baby boomer population just wants to get to retirement so its not their problem any more - hence the constant requirement to keep the system going at all costs on 3 month intervals.

We're all pretty tired of trying to make sense of a world that doesn't make sense. Capitalism kind of died in 2008. Its historic aim - to generate future wealth by investing older people's supply of capital in younger people's ideas to generate demand seems to have been completely disrupted.

On the news, talking heads still discuss everything as if this is a momentary blip suggesting "in a few years time when we are back on the road to growth...." things will be different". How long before people realise that this system, set-up only one generation ago, clearly isn't fit for multiple generations in a globalised world? We now have immediate information transparency through social media, constant global travel and automated computer driven productivity. These things break the models of the past. For instance, imagine a world where we could generate energy for free - it would totally destroy this economic model currently build on raw material wealth. As we work out more ways of implementing our energies in a more efficient manner we destroy the society construct we created in the Bretton woods agreement. This kind of thinking reminds me of the future in the HG Wells book, The Time Machine. Set in the far off distant future where a small minority of humans are looked after with food and leisure time by an underclass that simply maintains them like cattle as they toil underground committed to the labour system we have today. They slaughter the humans as their food source but provide them with humane grazing conditions - at least its organic produce! Unless we sit down as a human race and discuss our long term future requirements we will never reform this economic mess.

We are clearly not meant to live as long as we do now. Where is the discussion on Euthanasia for the elderly or chronic pain sufferers? We are not able to sustain the levels of immigration into Europe and US borders via Eastern Europe and Mexico. Where are the conversations about building up these economies so there is less mass migration? We obviously cannot continue to expect constant world growth above population growth. Where are the new economic models to discuss tax havens and successive increases in money supply which dilute the purchasing power of everyone?

I'm sure the human race will continue but we do make these things painfully difficult for ourselves. Whilst this zombie economy keeps going millions will go hungry; lose sleep; and lose the essence of living life whilst they worry about their futures.

.

Quick review: Tesco shaving foam

2012-07-19T03:06:00.001-07:00

Review Date: 19/7/2012

I bought some Tesco everyday value shaving foam after realising the extortionate cost of branded shaving foams these days. As an example:

Gillette Series Shaving Foam (their cheapest foam) is £2.80. Tesco shaving foam is £0.26 - thats 11x more expensive! I decided to trial the Tesco Foam for a month. Prices continue to rise for gels which have become fashionable but actually make you do the work to create foam!

PROS

Very cheap!
Lathers very well
Allows a close shave
Didn't give me dry skin or irritation
The bottle does not rust if left in the shower

CONS

Has no smell or fragrance

Overall

9.5/10 - Good product, which shouldn't need advertising to sell. These days people's heads have been turned by celebrities endorsing products but the reality is there is very little difference between mass manufactured products and most are sub-contracted to other factories. I wouldn't be surprised if Tesco everyday foam was made in the same factory as Gillette shaving foam.An excellent product if you wish to bring your house hold budget under control. If you want your shaving foam to "say who you are" buy Gillette or King of Shaves for 11x- 20x the price. If you're content to realise that shaving is a chore and hydration simply comes from washing your face - just get on with it and buy Tesco everyday value shaving foam.

Stock Market Crash 2012

2012-06-26T04:55:00.000-07:00

Will the stock market crash in 2012? With all the bad news the S&P 500 and FTSE still seem to be remarkably high. Why is this?

There is a school of thought that suggests we are in such bad shape that the very foundations of our debt based monetary system is unravelling. Capitalism ( i.e borrowing from the future to invest wisely in the present to continue growth ahead of general population growth ) is in crisis. We have invested our capital badly into projects of little future vaue and given power to a minority who are hell bent on skimming as much as they can - because they don't know any other way to act. The system has been left in tatters. Every time it tries to self-regulate e.g failing banks (RBS, Citigroup etc) , failing business models (US solar energy, General Motors), failing accounting standards (IFRS banking book rule changes in 2009) the bankers use their politican friends to re-write the rule book and bail everyone out.

Life just doesn't work this way. We are just prolonging the inevitable reset of the system. Math is not influenced by cunning political debate or bonus increases - society in the West has become too unproductive to provide anything of value to the rest of the world. FACT. Instead of spending time educating our workforce and actually teaching them to enjoy learning and creating "new" great things - we put them into Finance to scam the system a little more. We need to make R&D not only acceptable but cherished. Researchers should come on TV and show children cool things. They should tour factories and laboratories to see and hear scientists talk about the cool science that people are looking into. Forget about Finance - the journey of designing and creating will be what they live for. Money after all, never used to buy you happiness. I know its hard to believe but the get rich quick schemes only really benefit those selling them. Even bankers realise their bonuses are peanuts compared to what those at the top of society receive.

You need to follow your passion to be happy.

Why is the economy so bad 2012? - simple

2012-06-26T04:53:00.001-07:00

Here are the simple facts:

1.Most people who have jobs in the West are not creating value that is required by the rest of the world

2. More and more people just don't have any jobs because their education level is not high enough (a combination of poor degree choices and lack of unskilled jobs).

3. We, the western nations, have spent so much on non profitable endeavours (mis-allocated capital) that we can never hope to pay back the debt we have collected.

4. The East will never be able to buy stuff at the rate the West did from 1999-2007 (stimulate demand). It is ingrained in Chinese/Japanese culture to save.

5. The Euro will collapse in its present form due to excessive debts and an entitlement welfare state that no longer provides a cushion in hard times but an alternative to actually working for the economic benefit of the nation!

6. There are less people (as a percentage %) in work today than ever before since the 1920s.

It doesn't take a genius to see that the Kelptocracy that has been run as a pretend "Democracy" for the last 25 years is collapsing under the strain of its own lies.

We are in the end game of this political and monetary system. It cannot go on like this - the masses need to break free and educate themselves without the supervision of the "chosen few" elites in government

If you are reading this as a UK citizen here are the harsh realities you will face:

1. Working much harder for less
2. No state benefits or pensions unless you are actually fully disabled
3. A movement down in your quality of life to something approaching 1970s levels - e.g many grown up children living in a small house with fewer people owning their own properties and a lack of credit to purchase anything in advance e.g furniture, clothes, appliance repair
4. Watch the lives of "celebrities", politicians general capitalists diverge from your own to a point which will become un-recognisable. You will be ruled by a class which does not face the same hardships you do and that will really be the final nail in the coffin as widespread looting and rioting will begin.

How to fix these issues:

1. There is no quick fix. There are some options which we as a society need to decide upon

a. Have a war which brings increased production and reduces consumption
b. Generate exports & jobs through innovation and real engineering to fulfil this demand in the economy
c. Ensure our children are given the skills to innovate, risk and learn from failure without destroying their hopes of having a stable family life
d. Cut the welfare state and non-means tested pensioner benefits

Should I keep my money in Santander UK?

2012-05-19T14:59:00.000-07:00

Should I keep my money in Santander UK?
Is my money safe in Santander?
What will happen to Santander?
Should I move my money from Santander?

These are all ligitimate questions. Many people are asking if their money is safe in Santander UK. Of course Santander tell you all about their subsidiary account structure and lack of European exposure. The reality is slightly different.

Once a market participant loses confidence in the market place counter-parties will not deal with you.Full Stop. Think about your regular dealings. If you dealt with a tradesman who has a bad reputation in the market are you more likely to commit to a transaction? No, you'll wait until he proves himself.

If the Spanish Santander fails most banks will begin to examine their position against all Santander subsidiaries and any monies owing will be clawed back from anywhere they can get their hands on it. They will not honour any payments to/from Santander regardless of where in the world they are made. How do I know? The same thing happened with Lehman Brothers. Remember how Lehman said it wouldn't go bust even one week before it actually did? As soon as it did go bust, banks evaluated their global risk against Lehman and even liquidated client accounts they held on behalf of the failed bank to claw back anything that was owed. Why should it be any different? If you are owed money and you have the chance to take it you will - you can be asked questions later, but its in your possession. Yours to lose. In my opinion there are too many Spanish property losses and it's only a matter of time before Spanish banks are nationalised or allowed to fail.

Of course retail deposits are covered by the FSCS guarantee of £85,000 but how long will it take to get back? Have you ever known a government organisation to react quickly especially in a crisis? You could lose you're money for 6-9 months. What about the interest? Whilst a larger Eurozone crisis rages on in the background do we really trust the government to think of the Santander deposit holders when banks across the world will be struggling? And do we remember MF Global where they "discovered" that the bank had used client money as collateral for risky derivative bets? Or the recent JP Morgan "hedging" loss of $2bn where they used Chase Manhattan retail deposits to hedge the risk in the investment bank?

If it were my money I would be moving it to a bank with more of a global presence - HSBC or Standard Chartered. Or better yet a building society or credit union that does not get involved in high risk derivative bets like Nationwide or Yorkshire Building Society.

It is slowly dawning on the UK population that there are real structural problems within the Western economies. Printing money because no one wants our debt. Stock markets rising and falling 1% on a daily basis. Nothing getting better years after the supposed short lived great moderation. They are slowly beginning to realise that debt takes a long time to wipe out. This will last for a decade or longer as long as our politicians protect banks over their own populations. If we had let them fail but continue operating as deposit taking institutions we would have purged the system of crazy underwriting and terribly bad loans that should never have been extended. Instead we continue the socialist capitalism where everything banks do must be protected! But the ultimate question is what if your government goes bankrupt protecting the banks? What then?

Good luck Santander deposit holders!

Innovation: Simple diagram - How to execute an idea

2012-03-20T09:56:00.001-07:00

The execution of an idea is the most difficult thing to master. It takes many soft and hard skills to take something from your head to a drawing board, and finally into real life production. Just having a vision is important, but its not enough. In the western world we have been given to tools to create just about anything we want with the right amount of time and dedication we should be able to accomplish amazing tasks.

Simplistically, you need to have the conviction to tackle any problems put in your way; multi-task and cajoule and use any means necessary to deliver your objective.

Firstly, take a blank sheet of paper and write down the 10 or so high level tasks you believe you would need to accomplish to complete your idea.

Break each task down into a series of 20 steps marking down what you need to do in order to complete your high level task. Then start executing the simple ones in parallel and begin to recruit people to your cause for the tasks you don't have the skills to accomplish. Set small deadlines for each mini task and keep the list handy so you can move from one task to another easily when you hit a bit of a brick wall.

Find the experts who can help you on sites like www.rentacoder.com or find people to help build a prototype of your idea. Its all possible don't give up just put your head down and go for it!

The question of funding this grandiose plan comes firmly into view when you realise that prototypes and services cost money. If you're in a full time job that pays reasonably well then you can assign some of your savings into fulfilling your ideas. Count it as a hobby. If you need a lot of capital, you need to create a proof of concept and a business plan and take these to private financiers or your bank. In the current market although banks aren't lending, there are a host of private equity firms looking to invest in a good idea. They expect to lose 60-70% of their investment money because they invest in many different ideas. They're playing the numbers game, and hoping that one of the ideas pays off providing a return that more than covers their losses on initial investments. Finding and meeting these companies is a challenge but they do exist - especially in California.

Delete mass or multiple sms on iphone ios 5

2012-01-20T04:34:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, there isn't a way to delete all your SMS messages in one go unless you have "hacked" or "jailbroken" your iphone. (For those that have a jailbroken phone search for "Clear all SMS" in Cydia repository)

For those that have a regular iphone you have a few options.

1. Side your finger in a backward motion on each message you want to delete. A red delete button will appear after your gesture.

2. Or hit the edit button and select the tick boxes for those messages you want to delete and hit the red delete button that appears at the bottom of the screen.

That's it I'm afraid. This is the downside of letting Apple control your experience. You have to wait until they upgrade their system rather than thousands of developers doing it for them concurrently.

Britain’s failed service economy

2012-01-20T04:13:00.000-08:00

Have you ever looked around and wondered if your job or even your friend’s jobs add any value to UK PLC? Excluding jobs that actually provide a tangible service i,e hairdressers, newsagents etc. Lets take a look at middle class jobs. You may have a good education, a wealth of ideas and a degree in engineering/ astrophysics etc. But, more likely than not, you will be in an office somewhere typing letters or slides, discussing orders or writing powerpoint involved in “IT projects” improving existing processes. Occasionally, you will be involved in capital allocation discussions but as an employee these are rare – its not your capital!

Britain’s ever growing list of services jobs continues and you wonder if we need so many?

Gym instructors, lawyers, accountants, asset managers, retail assistants, traffic wardens, social service “consultants”. [not an exhaustive list – nor am I singling out these professions]

Are these people actually do’ers? Do we gain more benefit from these professions than say, an inventor, or a trial researcher? I mean, we do need them, but should they be so large as to eclipse our manufacturing staff? Or our teachers and research & development facilities? Do we really care more about what T-shirts people buy over developing the next fibre optic breakthrough? Do we need people to police the rules rather than simplifying them and creating the on-line technology to aggregate and improve?

Wouldn't it make sense to allow more people to create, invent and develop? Actively encourage the masses to do this rather than just “get a job”. Everyone isn't capable of this but yet the human brain is a feedback system, give it enough information and knowledge and its capabilities seem limitless. How do we manage our people to deliver this value to society? Do all people even want to create marginal social benefit? Or are they happy with a roof over their head, a well fed family and a nice television program for entertainment?

We sell each other groceries, houses, effort, time and even money (with interest), yet at the basis of all of this are just a few simple resources. Time, natural resource and invention. We need to focus on these and never allow ancillary services to overtake them. For instance, management consultants provide different ways of viewing the same problem, but how often do they genuinely create something new? How often are they simply performing the functions which management should be doing themselves, namely, aggregating business information and analysing this to develop new strategies for shareholder value? Why have they abdicated fiduciary responsibility for their business? You could argue that these ideas and strategies are created by competition driven consultants which should create more ideas, but is this actually happening?

The world is full of potential how we tap into that depends on the system human beings use. Capitalism on the face of it seems like a good way to allocate resources in a “perfect world”, but what economics doesn’t seem to discuss is that human beings are very adept at breaking any system. We find loopholes, develop strategies to cope and manage situations to our advantage – we are – ingenious! To fight this, we need constant change to stop the status quo gaining a foothold and forcing a change in mentality. We need this because inherently we all wish to settle in equilibrium but this creates fulfilment which, if it lasts too long, destroys humanity’s hunger and ingenuity. We are like the oil that settles at the bottom of the lava lamp. Without energy we stagnate but with enough momentum we use the energy to create a beneficial cycle that is virtuous.

Britain will continue to have the same divide which exists in every country. Those that want to achieve something and those that want to just use up the time given to them until they die. I for one certainly want to create more people in the former category through better education and a clear path from ideas, prototyping and market execution. Socialism always seems doomed to failure because of human greed at the top of any pyramid and a reflectance to reward human innovation. How do we get the middle class to innovate? As Steve jobs said - he was middle class so he never would have starved if he started a business and failed. He also wouldn't have had a house, family or a decent job if he'd failed - that is the dread that most people cannot contain when thinking of starting a business.

What will get our economy going again? Using time, natural resource and innovation. Namely material sciences, oil, gas and renewables, genetic, medical and software computer innovation. These are the things that other countries will really pay us for in the long run. Not financial services. Elements of both socialism and capitalism is probably what we need to create a well balanced economy but then - who would lead? How would the political class not be corrupted by vested interests? I don't have an answer to that.

The number one principle is "Don`t believe anything; think for yourself." - Ray Dalio [Bridgewater Capital]

2012-01-20T03:58:00.000-08:00

The talking heads and commentators around the world want to be paid to tell us what they think. But what if its all talking just for talking's sake? What if the information is just data? Simply telling us data points without the "so what" or the "what if"? Is this why no one ever checks the predictions these people make? Will any current affairs programme spend January 2012 going through the predictions they made in January 2011 to check if they were right? No they won't. Why? Because it is not in their interests. They are simply providing a repeatable gimmick, a promise of correct future predictions with no accountability or rigourous analysis. No different to a common con man.

We have created a society where we value the attention of crowds. We simply take their economic value and pass it on to a smaller group of wealthy individuals/corporates. The concept of "society" for the middle classes is being eroded and no longer exists except for the wealthy high society. We raise money for charity only to give most of it to the administrators and corporates who provide the services to the poor at prohibitively expensive rates thus ensuring people in the middle class have jobs; whilst the wealthy have assuaged their guilt and the poor will continue to remain on hand outs forever.

Would it not be better to enable the masses to apply their talents for economic benefit. Surely it is a numbers game, ensure enough of them develop a mindset to solve problems and then adapt people who learn to apply their talent to commercial applications. Its a grand social engineering challenge that politicians have tried to create but they have never managed it. In an age of instant communication we need less and less innovators to benefit the world. It just takes one idea and prototype and the whole world can copy and benefit from it. As information is set free and the world learns through distributed networks like www.khanacedemy.org and http://www.codecademy.com/ we are beginning to create a world in which we can all learn. The cheap computers from http://www.raspberrypi.org/ will be the final puzzle to engage the poor. We just need more electricity from sustainable renewable resources and we will create a virtual society where economic value will no longer be dictated by where you were born and more about what you can do for society. Every bit of economic value can we generated from using your on-line skills to attract crowds to your virtual shops, games, consulting or engineering. Once we get a few people doing this a flood will follow and the status quo may begin to be up for debate. If its a numbers game the children in the West certainly aren't the ones who could capitalise on this opportunity. Can we create this virtual society? I think we can, we just need to by-pass the vested interests. Remember, have an idea, write down the final goal and the steps you need to execute it - then try and do it! Failure along the way makes you better - and when you look back it will be fun!

Desktop search without administrator rights access

2012-01-03T06:32:00.000-08:00

Ever needed a desktop search on a work or remote computer where you don't have admin rights? I've found one -

Its called Puggle Desktop Search. Its Java based. You can download a windows/linux/mac installer or the portable version which can just be run as an executable file on windows machines without installation.

You might also want to try DocSearcher which is also Java based but a little less user friendly.

Quick Review: Bobble water bottle

2011-12-21T03:48:00.000-08:00

I, like most people find reviews a bit tedious. You never know how biased internet reviews are and they end up being too long. What you need is a simple review that gives you pros and cons and a final verdict.

Here's my first review. I received a bobble water bottle for Christmas 2010:

<This is not an advert and I have received no renumereation from any corporation to write this>

PROS

Looks good
Filters water
Small & light

CONS

Filter makes annoying loud hissing sound every time to take a drink
Plastic is "too hard" when you need to squeeze it for water
If you squeeze the plastic too hard (easy to do) the bottle deforms permanently
High chance of losing the lid as it is not attached to the bottle
Expensive filters - albeit after 1000 refills

Overall

5/10 - Good design, but most work places have filtered water anyway and the bottle is difficult to drink from in a hot desk environment because of the hissing noise and difficulty in squeezing the bottle. A cheap 1L volvic bottle would do the same job - only buy this if you need to actually filter your water.

"No country can defend itself if bankrupt." - head of Britain's armed forces, General Sir David Richards (2011)

2011-12-15T01:57:00.000-08:00

Like all empires before it, USA and the UK is now crumbling because of their need for growth. Rome collapsed bacause of government greed and their inability to pay their armies. To the victor go the spoils and as an army keeps expanding and winning new resources they can continue to reap the benefits. But ask yourself this - when you have expanded and there is nothing left to take over how do you continue to increase pay? How do you continue above inflation pay growth when the low hanging fruit is gone? You pray for technology or invention but that is sporadic at best.The same will happen to the West. Without innovation we are dead in the water and the government is praying for something because right now the "plan" is a blank sheet of paper

The mainstream media will suggest that it is impossible to predict another financial collapse and eventual world war but it is coming. Timing is difficult to predict but the wheels are in motion. The political elite are only in it for themselves. Despite what they say, its what they do that counts. The UK has sided with the US and left Europe entangled in a web of debt. The politicans know their children will never be in the firing line in a war, and their fat salaries and pensions will be all but guaranteed in a war situation. They have nothing to fear. What do we receive for the £50m a day that we provide to "Europe"? The groupthink herd mentality has good and bad. We could walk blindly off a cliff if we don't think for ourselves. I'm not affiliated to any political party because they are all useless but David Cameron has released that the European system may need Britain more than Britain needs it! Yes, we need the free trade zone, but we can negotiate our own agreements with standalone countries, we're used to doing it. In fact it creates more work for our business services, legal and accountancy workforce!

If you are in the army you will be sold the "for king and country" line but the harsh reality is that the war is really for the political manipulators who have no intention of giving up power and will use any tricks to convince a desperate public that they "must fight" for "the good of the nation and freedom" . Rhetoric over substance. In the end, the absolute crux will always be personal survival.

The title of this blog post really summarises where we are. We are fast approaching the point of bankruptcy with high fixed costs and massive debt to repay. Germany was in a similar position after WW1 (albeit they were losers of WW1) before they embarked on an assault on Europe to gain growth. Our army will be contingency planning, first to protect their masters in the event of wide spread civil disobedience and second to determine how to prevent the system from collapsing by giving the public growth.

The Failing London Tube system - why reform will come soon

2011-12-07T01:29:00.000-08:00

The London tube network is falling apart at the seams.

Everyday most of the workers in London can see the trains becoming too crowded, the delays becoming more frequent, disruptive and for spurious reasons like leaves on tracks. Using the network every day I can only foresee a catastrophic accident occurring which will bring this commuter mouse trap its day of reckoning.

The unions will use such an event as a way to exert even more power, hiring more of their staff to fulfill non-roles.

Its time to get serious about automation on the tube service. Other signalling systems around the world can fit twice the number of trains into a one hour window. Driverless carriages will become the norm because the cost of drivers is rising too fast. The DLR works perfectly fine with this system, the tube will too. If something is trapped in the door, the train won't run, this has been an automatic safety feature since automatic doors, they rarely require human intervention. Platform staff can handle other issues.

The Olympics will be the catalyst for these future improvements. It will finally show the world that the tube system is well beyond capacity and any major breakdown or accident will require herculean man management and planning to prevent world wide coverage of London Transport failure. [see update below]

Part of its failure is due to its overriding success. More and more people are using the tube system for shorter journeys We need to remedy this with more than just the bike system ("Boris Bikes"). We need to allow commuters the ability to have small electric transport that can carry them through London quickly and safely without pedal power. I think the YikeBike is ideal for this purpose. A small bike that can be folded and fit into a ruck sack which weighs 10kg! Its the best idea I've seen, unfortunately our laws in the UK do not permit this or the Segway to be driven on public fairways because they do not have pedals! Eventually the government will have no other choice as the tube network will reach capacity faster than they can build more track or homes. Neither of which they have been very proficient at in the last two decades.

Its a shame people don't launch preventative change until there is an incident which damages members of the public. What ever happened to long term planning?

Update: Having attended a few events at the Olympics I have to admit I was wrong. Although it was full to capacity the Tube service did an admirable job preventing a transport disaster. Although, this was achieved by what looked like a trebling of staff and a assertive campaign to prevent normal commuters coming to work with horror stories of terrible congestions.

Corporate Governance is a complete joke in the western world

2011-12-06T07:19:00.000-08:00

The principal-agent problem surfaces time and again with public companies. Management in no way have the collective guts to shout when the "emperor has no clothes".In fact none of them are incentivised to do so. The myriad of committees, Audit, Remuneration, Risk , Income, Sales etc. are all just talking shops. The sad truth is that everyone in lower rungs who works at these companies knows this but they aren't given the voice to tell anyone. If you are a "normal" employee and you're reading this, have you ever wondered what the senior management do in their board meetings? Or even the non-executive directors who are paid your yearly wage for 3 days work? We were told that these wages come with great responsibility. Where is the repercussions that come with failure then? I haven't seen any board members accused or sent to prison for their fiscal failures. Surely, we tell even our children that actions have consequences. Well, where are the consequences to presiding over management failure? Even if you are fired you keep your benefits and the ill gotten gains of million dollar salaries to tide you over whilst you look for your next "consulting role" from one of your other management pals? Would you care about your decisions if you knew you would walk away with your pension and a million pound salary for the rest of the year?

If you think about it, mid level employees (managers etc) have the most to lose from a bankruptcy or fraud, they are the people with values most in alignment with the retail shareholders and pension fund owners. The management are simply paid too much to care. We've all seen the obvious scenarios, longer term incentives are bought out in cash/incentives when a senior employee moves from one organisation to the next. They have no long term skin in the game as they can simply cash in whenever they take a new job. With the removal of long term job security, we now have a merry-go-round. The latest I saw the other day was the CFO of RSA Insurance moving to Lloyds Bank as the new CFO. So, Lloyds Bank (now the taxpayer) has to pay to "buy out" the employee of his previous long term incentive plan.

Why is this not obvious to everyone? The gravy train has been running for years, through remuneration committees recommending each other's pay or "recruitment professionals" announcing market rates and persuading staff to constantly look at other job. These shenanigans are plain to see and benefit the upper middle class and elites who run companies which are owned by pension funds (whose owners are teachers, nurses and policemen). What a ridiculous system. With current social media shareholders should be able to broadcast and evaluate all decisions a board makes within minutes not in an annual report and we should physically tie compensation to a role. If they choose to leave the role, they can forfeit their compensation and make it a rule that their future company cannot replace it through salary or additional compensation.

I think its time to truly tie generational performance, pay and responsibility to monetary remuneration. Without this, the agents will simply skim into their own pockets using stooges to make it look legitimate. Put rotating workers from each corporate level on the board so they can understand and disseminate what the board are doing and where they are taking the company - 99% of decisions aren't market moving.

What a joke we have become - the systems set up to safe guard our investments in society have been circumvented for rich rewards for the few and a lifetime of debt servitude for the many.

UK heading for collapse within a few years

2011-11-25T02:22:00.000-08:00

Nov 2011

As we continue "austerity" the public has no idea that we haven't even started yet. For the last 40 years we have spent more than we have earned! They just don't understand, the media and politicans ensure that they don't find out so no one gets the blame. The small cuts we have had in 2011 is nothing compared to the reall cuts we need for the next 10 years. I think we will be in the same place as we were in the 1970s when we had to call the IMF in and introduce capital controls to prevent money leaving the country.

Already, Goldman Sachs clients have begun shorting UK based companies and banks (they were doing the same to Italy in June 2011 and we can see where that ended). Since politicians can't or won't tell people the truth we will end up with technocrats controlling our budget so the politicians can finally say they have no control and shouldn't be blamed. Sadly, for all their wailing about responsibility they will lump the future of the country on our children by increasing deficits. Its not a Labour or a Conservative problem, its a systemic problem. Our politics in broken. New governments don't change anything.

We are in a depression. Even in 1920s they didn't talk about a "depression" until later. One further question to ask you all - Would you ask an unqualified surgeon to operate on you? Then why do we give control of the economy to people who have no basic training in economics expect to please the people by telling them what they want? We complain about politicians, but its the system thats broken. People need to stop asking to be told what they want to hear!!

I like to mention solutions along with highlighting issues (unlike our politicians):

Here's an idea - Cut Winter Fuel Allowance for those earning more than 30K a year. It'll save around £500m, or put another away most of the money needed to prevent tuition fees in universities. Simples.

Comments welcome.

Why the stock market will fall for the next couple of years (2011-2015)?

2011-11-21T06:01:00.000-08:00

An impasse has been reached. In your heart of hearts most of you know when you're getting a deal that's too good to be true. That's what we've had for about 20 years now. We lurch from crisis (1975) to crisis (2008) without fixing any underlying problems. Our system just doesn't seem to cope well with the idea of steady growth (with occasional growth spurts). Everyone in the population wants to be part of the "spurt" this in turn leads to a lurching economy that rolls from one extreme to another.

How sad it is that millions have to suffer because of our own inadequacies. Maybe Tom Cruise was right in the film A Few Good Men - "We just can't handle the truth!". So politicians can't tell us the truth. I'm not blaming them, I'm blaming the Western world. The whole idea of politicians is to have someone deal with issues that we have no interest in. I don't blame them for taking advantage. If they told us the truth (like Ron Paul in the US and some of Vince Cable in Britain) we just don't elect them. Divided we will fall - and the rich shall continue to inherit the Earth. By rich I mean the old moneyed class who simply use labour as a productive asset to gain a large inequity between the working class (if you work, thats you!) and them. The money they have is essentially wasted unless it is funnelled to entrepreneurial ventures. Don't get me wrong - if we taxed them, the Government would also waste the money so I don't think they should be taxed to death either.

The problem lies with TRUST. Gaining trust always takes time, but losing it take a nanosecond. As we lose trust in our governments the very system we have created to create our security blanket will fail around us. We will lose faith in other systems too, such as corporations and the stock market. These will plumet as our fear intensifies and we realise that there are no quick fixes to our debt problems. Only time, i.e default through inflation or massive debt write downs could save us. These will inflict too much pain on the monied classes, our pensions (i.e baby boomers) and are politicians (they need an explanation to enable re-election).

So, the stock markets will fall, probably overshoot their actual real losses due to paralysis. But don't fear, after that the era of private growth will begin again just as it has done countless times in history (fall of the Chinese, Roman empires). We will slowly enable real capitalism again e.g survival of the fittest with proper risk management and rewards for success rather than the status quo. In the new period the stock market will race to new highs as the money which used to sit in government bonds comes flooding into the growth areas of society. It'll take a while to get there, and there will be pain along the way but like each cycle, for every trough there will be a peak, as long as human beings exist and continue to strive for uneven gains over solid sustainable growth - the grass is always greener syndrome drives us to new lows as well as new highs!

The failure of France within 3 months

2011-11-11T03:57:00.000-08:00

11.11.2011
Its all kicking off folks. As the mass media controlled by politics and wealthy media moguls continues to hide the truth from the people; they are increasingly unable to explain the events that are occuring in Europe.

Next to fail. France!

The markets (from whom France has borrowed all its money) are raising rates for French bonds - basically where Italy was 3 months ago.

Herbert Hoover’s Memoirs are available free online. He opens Chapter 7
concerning the Sovereign Debt Crisis of 1931 explaining:

“In the spring of 1931, just as we had begun to entertain well founded hopes that we were on the way out of the depression, our latent fears of Europe were realized in a gigantic explosion which shook the whole foundations of the world's economic, political, and social structure. At last the malign forces arising from economic consequences of the war, the Versailles Treaty, the postwar military alliances with their double prewar armament, their frantic public works programs to meet unemployment, their unbalanced budgets and the inflations, all tore their systems asunder.”

Chapter 7, pg 61
http://www.ecommcode.com/hoover/ebooks/browse.cfm

[Source: Thanks to Armstrongeconomics.com]

Is Austerity the answer? Not really. Its a vicious circle. By making your population lose confidence they will "try" less. This will lower productivity and entrepreneurship and therefore decrease tax returns which will mean France will find itself in a debt spiral. The rules of mathematics don't change.

How long before our entire consumerist and housing based economies comes to a screeching halt and we revert back to productive assets? Those engineers, farmers and content producers who have been sidelined by banking wealth for the last 20 years will finally have their day in the sun!

How do we fix this mess? Well, we need to have massive bank right downs and let banks fail. People with their money in bank accounts won't lose anything but everyone who lent cheap money without assessing risks properly will go bust - that's how capitalism should work! Its been poisoned by bankers who have supported politicians election campaigns! They have systematically lied to everyone to retain power, wealth and influence. To stop countries going bust we need innovation and education, lets reduce defence spending and increase energy innovation and education spending (we have enough nukes in the world for defence!). We can all see that asset prices are too high! What kind of society do we want to live in? One in which wealthy people continue to take more and more for less risk or where we reward for new and innovative ideas which benefit all of society not the chosen few?

As I've said in my previous posts - this will all end badly. Remember make your own decisions after you listen to everyone, use the facts and understand them yourself. That is the key to breaking this cycle.

Update: 20.1.2011: France lost its AAA rating in Jan 2012 - the IMF, ECB, FED continue to enable European countries to sell debt in the securities market. Without insolvent institutions with no need for profit and loss propping up the false economy the periphery countries in Europe would have failed. This cannot last forever. Something has to be allowed to fail!

Update 31.05.2012: The world is in turmoil. Sarkozy lost the election in France and Spain is on the verge of "total emergency". Amazingly the central banks are keeping it all together. This can't last.

Update 11.10.2012: Well, the central banks went "all in". The Federal Reserve promised to print $40bn per month forever and the ECB said it would buy any Eurozone country bonds if they asked for help. Does this look like a system that runs without intervention? What is the difference between this and Russian/Chinese communism. The ECB/Fed now decide what you will buy who will pay you and what you will pay for items as market prices. Sounds like central planning to me. Its never worked.

Update 27.02.13: Well the UK just lost its AAA rating....the dominoes are falling one by one. How long before Germany decides they are better off without the drag of Italy, Spain and France?

Update 30.08.2013: France attempting to distract the public by starting a war with Syria and replacing the UK as America's poodle. Nothing has changed economically for France they are barely surviving and any minor economic instability will signal a return to crisis mode for them.