The rich get richer…

Money is good. There, I have said it. Just in case many of you think I am some mini-socialist on a computer, I am not I am a damn capitalist pig. I like capitalism, I like the way it, over other forms of monetary policy, gives the most freedom to the individual and reduces government dictates into your life. But I hate government managed capitalism. In the sense that during the good times, government keeps out and during the bad times, they prop up the system.

The whole point of getting capitalism to work is that the bad companies, the individuals who are incompetent are made to go bankrupt and loose their ability to con and swindle the public (I may like capitalism, but I am under no illusions to what its purpose is), while the good companies can continue to screw the public for what they are prepared to pay.

Good governments save up the tax receipts in the good times, so that in periods of slumps, they can manage the fall out, keep essential services running and keep the tax rate stable so that companies that are surviving, do not have the horrible shock of rising taxes during a recovery.

California has completely failed in this. Look closely, as what is happening over there, will be happening in the UK after May next year. At the moment, there is a lot of posturing due to the upcoming election. Once that is over, all hell will break loose and this ‘phoney recession’ that we are living through will suddenly bottom out.

If our politicians had any guts, they would have let those banks hit the wall. But there would have been a regulatory process in place to ensure that governments could have taken over the running of the essential services such as transfer of wage payments, withdrawals & deposits and debt repayments. Instead, the ‘light touch’ economy of the UK is hopelessly inadequate at doing anything much other than skimming taxes from business and enjoying long lunches in The City with the boys in suits.

And so these banks continue to survive, with the same people who f**ked about with our money, now screwing about with our taxes. Those long lunches are still going on, and the rich, well, they are getting richer.

The average house price in London is £260,000 (about $420,000). The average London wage per year is £26,000. Sensible lending gives a guide of three to four times the annual wage for the handing out of a mortgage to ensure affordability and guaranteed repayments. For an average worker he must take out a mortgage TEN times his salary in order to buy the average house in London.

I hate to be blunt, but house prices will not be coming down anytime soon. And let us be honest, if I wanted to live an ‘average life’, I would have to slave in a fantastically paid job to be able to afford just an average dwelling. I am very happy to see the fruits of success, but something tells me, there is still a huge lopsidedness in the economy of the UK. After all, why are house prices so high in London? Did we find oil, is there a gold rush, was some new technology invented that made Tower Hamlets the new Silicon Valley?

No. House prices went up because, firstly, there are a lot more singletons in London (either marrying later or divorces), thereby driving up demand. Secondly, people are living longer, which means there are more elderly people who remain in their house. Thirdly, the population has gone up, both through births and migration (internally, EU and beyond the EU). Fourthly, the Green Belt, a hackneyed 70 year old piece of planning means that London cannot expand naturally to cope with its population. All of this has lead house prices to be higher. But TEN times higher than the average wage? Surely, the income of people would have kept a check on demand?

Oh yes, those banks. How else can people get a mortgage? Well, they go to their bank. Fill out a few forms. Chat, discuss over coffee/wine and then get the keys to their new abode. The renovate it according to the latest TV programme’s style and wait to sell at a higher price. Except…well, there is only a finite amount of money in the bank.

At the moment, I am one of the ‘lucky’ ones. I did not rush to buy a house, and so I am debt free (although, not exactly living ‘well’, I am living within my means). However, there are a lot of people who are struggling right now to live. And that is with interest rates at a record low. They will increase in the future, no currency can continue to take a battering like Sterling has in recent months. And then what?

There will be a lot of repossessions. A lot of people made homeless. Yet, somewhere, somehow, those crooked banks that have supplied the mortgages in the first place will get their cash back. They are the ones who helped to inflate house prices to ten times the average wage, since, after all, without a mortgage, you cannot afford to buy that property. And so, while there will be the destitute and the homeless, barely covered by the state, someone will be in that winebar on Friday night, sipping champagne with friends and thinking how smart they are.

It’s nice when you have a government subsidy backing you up, isn’t it?

Royal Mail, RIP?

For those in the UK, the big news is that the workers of Royal Mail are planning a nationwide strike this week. This has actually been quite a nasty little dispute with plenty of drama unfolding over the Autumn.

Now, I am in two minds over this strike. Already, because of the local wildcat strikes, a lot of my letters have not got to their final destination, forcing me to register and redeliver them. Annoying, and expensive. I do not mind them getting to the destination late, I just think it sucks that they do not turn up at all.

However, the postal workers represent one of the last truly national industries left in the UK. The Royal Mail is one of the few symbols left of British pride. And it is managed by a bunch of muppets.

I have worked for the Royal Mail as a Christmas casual. Yeah, the permanent staff will eye them with suspicion, believing that you are there to undermine their position. But the bulk of casuals are there to scrape some cash for Christmas, and only a few actually ‘graduate’ to the coveted position of a real postman. I was one of those casuals, and I remember being so broke at one point that I had to walk home in the snow, as it was a few days before I was paid. Cold memories!

But yeah, the management are idiots. I remember standing in line for an hour so they could sign me onto their list. Although I was getting paid to stand there, as I had turned up on time, because they had to verify that I turned up, I was effectively doing nothing. There is also a lot of harassment of the casual staff, with permission needed to go to the toilets and other really petty issues. I do not know what it is like with the permanent staff, but there was always a union rep on the floor. A bit of 1970’s lunnacy methinks.

So do I have an opinion on this strike. Well yeah. In a way. Royal Mail does need modernising, it is a simple fact that they are carrying less letters. At the same time, with the huge explosion in parcel delivery due to online shopping, Royal Mail has really cocked that up. Come on, you essentially have a monopoly on the UK’s postal system, HOW can you be loosing money?

But also the workers do have to fight for their rights. We are quite happy to give billions away to bankers who are now turning a handsome profit, but as a nation we seem loathe to support the ordinary man on the street if they dare to rise above the parapet and shout ‘enough is enough’.

We have seen it happen before in the UK during the 1980’s, how an industry is fiddled by government and its public service remit then utterly destroyed until it is there to serve shareholders, leaving the customer with crap. Water companies, bus services and airports are great examples of utilities that have been privatised and utterly beaten into the ground, providing surly service for a high cost. Living in London, I have to put up with Thames Water’s overcharging for stuff that falls from the sky (in bucketloads), grumpy bus drivers who are worked into the ground (doing what a generation ago was the job of two people – conductor and driver) and the lunacy that is Heathrow (or the awful, falling to pieces Gatwick).

(Conversely phone companies and airlines have actually worked quite well from a consumer point of view as competition has been easily introduced).

The only place I see the government taking Royal Mail is to the knackers yard to be broken up and sold off to their buddies in The City for a tidy profit. In that way I do support the staff of Royal Mail, as if they do not fight for their jobs, then no one else will. Unfortunately, there is only one was that this is going to end. Badly, for all concerned.

Royal Mail: Born 1660. Died 2009. Killed by a bankrupt and utterly corrupted government. R.I.P.

Those green shoots…

Recovery.

Hope.

Stability.

Cutbacks.

Don’t believe the hype, wait until after the next election. Then, the real fun begins…

A little bit of world madness today…

Don’t choke into your cereal bowls, but it has bee a while since I have got so political on this blog. Of course there is no surprise that Suu Kiyi is back under arrest. The junta is hoping that she will die under house arrest. Burma, has the potential to be a rich country, but, well, we all know the state of affairs there at the moment. Swinging round the proverbial corner, the Nepali government has decided to launch a shame whereby potential brides can be sold off. State sponsored traficking or a way to deal with a demographic crisis. Considering both next door China and India have an overpopulation of men, this is probably not the best system the Nepali government could have come up with.

Talking about China, at least one country has realised that it is not a province of the People’s Republic. And closer to home, this is not the views of a small minority.

The Lost Generation…

Let’s cut the bullshit. There is no fast economic recovery, we are well and truly in a depression. There cannot be this many unemployed in a recovery, so let me go back to my original claim and stick by it – this is a full blown depression.

I do not know if we are going into soup kitchen mode, but definitely, people are loosing jobs and work is hard to come by. I am one of the lucky ones, I still have a job. It may not be great, but at the moment I know that I have an income coming in. I have no debts and to be honest, my spending has actually increased since the depression began, as I have been taking advantage of the price reductions. Things I could not afford during the boom years (expensive electronics, cool holidays) have suddenly become accessible to someone on my income again.

So yeah, we, as a generation. Anyone from 20-40, but particularly those born between 1975-85 are fucked. This is a time when we came in too late to take any real advantage of the boom years and if we latched onto the system at that time (such as bought property), we are now getting shafted by the depression. But then, one thing, we actually chose to go into this system. And there in, lies the rub.

We only suffer as a generation, as we are not brave enough to change our own lives. We have all chosen to follow a system that is quite clearly broke and more seriously, will not provide us with any happiness. Look around you on the tube on your commute, you know that no one is happy with their lives. I am certainly far from happy, but I know that happiness will not come from a politician’s lies, nor will it come from following the crowd. However, it will take real courage for all of us to change our lives. Otherwise, the best years of our existence on this planet are to be lost chasing a life that is no longer there…

John Major talks sense?

Not often do I agree with a politician, especially a former PM of this country, but Uncle John does some say some interesting things…

Of course a lot of hypocrisy in what he says, accusing the current government of eroding trust in Parliament – anyone remember cash for questions?

But anyway, I like the way that the former PM talks about reducing the size of Parliament (fire the bastards) and downsizing the public sector. Oh yes, to look forward to a less interfering government…if only!

Sri Lanka War – Endgame or just the beginning?

There really isn’t much to say about it. On the one hand, I am ecstatic that the LTTE is finished as an organisation, but the cost to civilian lives puts Sri Lanka on par with Rawanda in the 1990’s and today’s Sudan as one of the most repulsive governments on the planet. No thanks to support by the governments of its neighboring countries and the incompetence of the UN. Thank God I do not have to live in that junta.

The American’s may bomb blast civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, but compared to the Sri Lankan army, they are angels.

Now that the military have won, are they going to give up all that power and money? I don’t think so…

Will the last person left in Sri Lanka please turn off the lights?

A nice St George’s Eve

So, in case anyone missed out on the obvious, today is the feast day of England’s patron saint. But as yesterday, the sun was shining, essential as our esteemed Chancellor had a lot of bad news to deliver in his budget. So you can see, with these two factors firmly in people’s minds, no one gave a toss about getting out a flag for George, or other jingoistic tat. There was far more important things to think about.

Really, I have no opinion on the budget. The government is shafted no matter what it does, although all that bailing out has screwed us for generations to come. As a nation we are heavily in debt, and that it is a millstone around our necks. Interestingly, something I thought I would never see in my lifetime, is the re-introduction of the Super Tax. With state intervention occurring everywhere, I think it is safe to say that Thatcherism is pretty much dead in the water at the moment…to be honest, although the headlines scream out 50%, that figure is not going to affect the bulk of us (although I disagree with punitive tax rises). What is a shocker is to see how much as a nation we are borrowing. Oh well, will the last person in Britain please turn out the lights?

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All right, the blogs have been pretty thin on the ground this week, and all for good reason. Jay and Kay Save the World. Yes, very busy editing that little number…

The Rise of Google’s Censorship

I do not like to comment on the internet or so called conspiracy theories too much, as after all, the companies on here are out to make money, like anyone else (also, the irony is that I use google to host one of the incarnations of this blog). But anyhow, take a moment to watch this video:

Now, before I discuss this vid, take a look at the stats for that video. Today, they look like this:

Despite the impressive stats, it is nowhere on youtube’s ‘most viewed’ page and in fact, only makes it to most discussed, with a much deflated stat roll:

So, it is clear that google does not appreciate discussion or criticisms about its role. Fair enough, youtube is hosted by it, so why should it take criticisms on its server. But remember one thing, google cannot obviously be trusted as an impartial web service in terms of searching etc…just remember that the next time you use it to search for criticism of it or another of its corporate buddies.

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But onto the vid itself. If you have taken the time to watch it, you can see that google plans to turn youtube into what is essentially a commercial site with legitimate broadcasts of American TV shows being streamed online. Very good I think, it would be great to catch up or even see the shows online at my own convenience. The sad thing is that google seems to be marginalising what made youtube special; its social interaction, the complete randomness of the videos and the sheer depth of what is on offer. In other words, what made youtube unique compared to other video sharing websites is to be thrown to the wind. This is sad as it is going to scupper a lot of the ‘partner’ channels.

For those not in the know, partners are ordinary guys who have a sufficient number of followers and viewers and are partners with google in ad sharing schemes next to their videos. I think it is a great idea and here are some partners to click on and view. I think it was one of the best things about youtube, because it monetised people’s talent.

The partner channels are going to get sidelined in favour of the big boys, the Disneys, the MTV’s etc. In other words, the ordinary guy and gal making videos are going to get scuppered and the big boys and gals are finally getting onto youtube and cream off the top. In the past youtube worked on a ratings system. The higher rated your video, the more it shot up in the viewer rankings, onto the front page. Very democratic. Now, these ratings are being ignored, mainly due to the fact that corporate vids are usually rated very low by the viewers. It’s mentioned in the video embedded in the blog, take a look at it, it is far more eloquent than this post.

While it is up to google to take its service where it wants to go (and that is a commercial decision it has to make), what I find particularly insidious is the apparent ‘wool covering’ that google tries to pull over the viewers eyes. Such as the burying of this video, or the the promotion of so-called amateur channels, such as ‘Fred’ which was mentioned in this video. In a little over six months it has leap frogged over other ‘partner’ channels, due to consistent promotion by google on youtube’s front page. And yes, Fred does have corporate sponsorship and product placement. It is a nice earner for google, but its disguise as an amateur channel, as one of those ‘youtube phenomena’ is quite glaringly misleading. Again, if you use google because of its impartiality, than think again.

I set up a youtube channel as a method of hosting videos on an external site, so I don’t have to use up my bandwidth. So, whatever they do with youtube is not really my business, nor do I really care. However, during my useage of youtube, I have met some really great people (in real life, shockingly for the internet) and I have discovered many great talents online. However, that uniqueness of ‘the toob’ is about to go AWOL. As is clear by google’s censorship if this video.

Youtube seems to have been a big mouthful for google to swallow. In the past, google has been shockingly innovative with its inventions and that is one of the reasons why it has come to dominate internet useage. However, its apparent lack of innovation in the video sharing arena will be a serious blow to its stature and eventually, people will jump to other internet services. After all, who uses yahoo anymore?

My law breaking photographic skills

Fellow readers, let me share with you a guilty secret I have been hiding al this time. I am apparently a law breaker. You see, a couple of months ago, I took some photos of Vauxhall bus station, as part of the series of Crossings along the Thames. Here is the offending photograph again, in all its glory.

But I was lucky, the pigs were on their doughnut and tea break. Not so lucky for Klaus and Lorris” who were also in Vauxhall and also Walthamstow. Go on, read the article, it is bloody hilarious, it is almost an April Fool’s joke, only 17 days too late. Yep, that’s right, a pair of Austrian tourists were bullied by a couple of piggies at Walthamstow (obviously it must have been a quiet day in terms of crime in E17) and were told to delete the contents of their camera. Not surprising, they do not want to return to the UK and I say to them, don’t bother.

I think the comments from the article were some of the best I have seen in a long while and here are a few of them, just because they were priceless:

This was a comment from the same article, and I want to quote it in full as I pretty much agree with what has been said here (the reader logged in as ‘arturopimiento’):

‘Unbelievable. Five years of total war with Germany, London being showered with high-explosives night after night, 25 years of IRA bombs exploding in London-these didn’t break London’s spirit or turn the police into terror-crazed martinets, soiling themselves with fear and suspicion at anyone with a camera or holding a sign.

When did the police become chronically deranged by fear? When they’re not shooting innocent Brazilian electricians in the head or beating innocent men to the ground (leading to said man’s subsequent death) or slapping and clubbing women in the street, they’re terrorising tourists and dragging this country’s reputation down into a totalitarian gutter.

The police are out of control and of course, as with virtually everything else that has gone catastrophically wrong with this country, the scum that are New Labour are to blame.

The incessant fear-mongering- tanks at the airport, reports of threats that never materialise, the most spyed-upon nation on earth, more oppressive powers demanded-and all these things cynically used in an attempt to distract the populace from the fact that we are governed by the seediest, most corrupt, most inept, most mendacious regime in living memory…

We desperately need root and branch reform-of the entire system. It’s broken beyond repair. The state and its apparatus have become enemies of the people. If we don’t act soon, it may well be too late.’

That pretty much sums up what the MET like to get upto on town.

Oh, and this comment was also a classic (posted by wheelsofire):

‘I fear that the leadership of the Met have simply got the wring end of the stick. (Oh,sorry, I mean the peace-loving gentle-men of the police have simply misunderstood. Or misheard.
It was meant to be a War on Terrorism, not a War on Tourism. Maybe someone should explain it to them. Ideally before 2012.’

If nothing, then wit still abounds.

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And remember, if one of those guys come up to you, then here are a couple of choice quotes for you to throw back at them (again from the comment section of the article):

‘The Association of Chief Police Officers has released statements several times to the effect that police officers have no authority to delete or confiscate photographs without a court order. If the police are unwiling or unable to listen to their own bosses, we are all completely f**ked’.

and there is this one:

‘Remember, no police officer or PCSO has the right to make you delete an image from a digital camera. If they think you have committed an offence then the image is evidence.’

but most importantly, here is some legal backing for all the photo happy Londoners out there:

The Terrorism Act 2000 does not prohibit people from taking photographs or digital images in an area where an authority under section 44 is in place. Officers should not prevent people taking photographs unless they are in an area where photography is prevented by other legislation.

If officers reasonably suspect that photographs are being taken as part of hostile terrorist reconnaissance, a search under section 43 of the Terrorism Act 2000 or an arrest should be considered. Film and memory cards may be seized as part of the search, but officers do not have a legal power to delete images or destroy film. Although images may be viewed as part of a search, to preserve evidence when cameras or other devices are seized, officers should not normally attempt to examine them.

Cameras and other devices should be left in the state they were found and forwarded to appropriately trained staff for forensic examination. The person being searched should never be asked or allowed to turn the device on or off because of the danger of evidence being lost or damaged.

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Osama must be laughing in his cave right now…