Growing up in the post-war thrift era, the mentality was to save money. "Economising", as a noun it's used to cover up a growing number of evils, and as a verb is the act whereby poor or middle class people save a little every month until they're too old to enjoy living a lot. After this life of penury, they're also not expected to spend too much lest their layabout offspring miss out on the chance to really enjoy living off what mum and dad managed to save.
We live in a state that Rousseau would recognise now, although the poor of the third estate probably had fewer worries in his time. We're overrun with being merchandised and we don't realise that we're not just bound with chains but we're voluntarily pulling a freight train worth of debt, worry and stress behind us with them. If you've been to Uni you'll be thousands of pounds in debt. If you'd graduated in the last three years and managed to get a decent job you've probably taken out a mortgage of 125% of the value of your home. Then there's the mandatory credit card debt to fund the lifestyle that the grey suited market men think you should have. You can have it all they say, just spend it on the never-never because you're house will always go up in value.
Well according to Elliott and Atkinson "The Gods that Failed" (Random House, 2008), these last few years we've seen unrestrained growth in the debt market in the West because our New Olympians demand that economies must grow. We've seen record levels of wealth created in economies of the East, Malaysia, Russia, China and India. Thailand did everything the International Monetary Fund (IMF) demanded and their economy is screwed. The others did their own thing and are hugely wealthy and powerful. Their conclusion is that we're in big trouble, unless a miracle saves us.
Bankers created a new class of toxic waste known as "Collateral Debt Obligations" (CDOs) that smeared this instrument of doom across the planet and the regulatory bodies stood by and watched it happen. They made millions in bonuses and commissions from doing this, the clever little boys that they are.
Now times are tough, they're bleating to the governments to bail them out of their misery and help keep their yachts moored in Caribbean resorts.
Next time you're wondering why the supermarket bill looks big and your struggling to pay the mortgage, spare a thought for this group of hard working money changers, collectively known as a wunch of bankers.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Things a girl needs to understand about moving in with a boy
There are fundamentals that girls need to know before they decide to co-habit with most boys. Ideally they should share a mixed sex flat. This will allow a girl to get an objective understanding before taking the plunge. This will allow them to see the true habits of boys when they feel they are the alpha males in a house.
The primary issue is that boys struggle with personal hygiene issues. They particularly struggle to understand why toilet seats should be lowered after use, why it's rude to dribble all over the rim and not clean it up and they show little concern when the occasional drop or seven hits the bathroom floor. This is a very nasty habit, especially when the bathroom floor is carpeted.
Boys also think that clean washing is any article of clothing worn for less than three hours. This includes underpants they put on after sex in order to go to the loo to avoid frightening their flat mates. They'll happily pick them up off the floor in the morning and wear them to work.
These "clean" items do not need to be taken neatly folded from a standard storage space, such as a chest of drawers or a cupboard shelf. No, for a boy items of clothing can come straight from the washing line or the pile of clothes you've left lying around for the last week in the vain hope that your boy might just figure out he should fold them up and put them away.
Items left on the floor for up to one month are considered clean if they pass the three hour usage test. At some point, particularly in the case of jeans, items of clothing will appear close to the dirty laundry basket. It is important to establish at this time if the clothes are in fact ready to wash because being too keen to get the clothes washed leads to disputes about the environmental impact of using the washing machine too hastily.
Items are considered used if they are work clothes that were worn all day. These are normally lobbed in the broad direction of the dirty laundry basket. Causal shirts are considered used if they are worn twice over the weekend. These are usually left on the floor to indicate that they are not yet ready to wash.
Sporting apparel is a different matter. Summer is normally ok as washing occurs on a regular basis. In the winter, socks, shorts and jumpers are considered usable for up to four weeks. Normally these items are left in a bag that lies unopened in the corner of the room during the week. If the boy is particularly fussy, sporting clothes will see the inside of a washing machine once a month. Like a good French cheese, sports gear will stink once it reaches its wash-by date. If your room starts to smell like the London Underground, it's time to get that sports bag into the laundry.
Laundry is not considered to be a man's task. Real men don't do this. If you wish to avoid problems with your future man, you need to train him well as soon as you can. Next time we can talk about how to ensure you house standards are maintained.
The primary issue is that boys struggle with personal hygiene issues. They particularly struggle to understand why toilet seats should be lowered after use, why it's rude to dribble all over the rim and not clean it up and they show little concern when the occasional drop or seven hits the bathroom floor. This is a very nasty habit, especially when the bathroom floor is carpeted.
Boys also think that clean washing is any article of clothing worn for less than three hours. This includes underpants they put on after sex in order to go to the loo to avoid frightening their flat mates. They'll happily pick them up off the floor in the morning and wear them to work.
These "clean" items do not need to be taken neatly folded from a standard storage space, such as a chest of drawers or a cupboard shelf. No, for a boy items of clothing can come straight from the washing line or the pile of clothes you've left lying around for the last week in the vain hope that your boy might just figure out he should fold them up and put them away.
Items left on the floor for up to one month are considered clean if they pass the three hour usage test. At some point, particularly in the case of jeans, items of clothing will appear close to the dirty laundry basket. It is important to establish at this time if the clothes are in fact ready to wash because being too keen to get the clothes washed leads to disputes about the environmental impact of using the washing machine too hastily.
Items are considered used if they are work clothes that were worn all day. These are normally lobbed in the broad direction of the dirty laundry basket. Causal shirts are considered used if they are worn twice over the weekend. These are usually left on the floor to indicate that they are not yet ready to wash.
Sporting apparel is a different matter. Summer is normally ok as washing occurs on a regular basis. In the winter, socks, shorts and jumpers are considered usable for up to four weeks. Normally these items are left in a bag that lies unopened in the corner of the room during the week. If the boy is particularly fussy, sporting clothes will see the inside of a washing machine once a month. Like a good French cheese, sports gear will stink once it reaches its wash-by date. If your room starts to smell like the London Underground, it's time to get that sports bag into the laundry.
Laundry is not considered to be a man's task. Real men don't do this. If you wish to avoid problems with your future man, you need to train him well as soon as you can. Next time we can talk about how to ensure you house standards are maintained.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Go forth and fill the earth
The famous line in Genesis uttered by god to Adam and Eve revealed to humanity that women are supposed to breed until they drop to ensure that we fulfill god's natural law.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." 29
This quote is taken Genesis, Chapter 1 using http://www.bibleontheweb.com/Bible.asp .
Being brought up as a Catholic I'm quite familiar with this text and recently wondered how it fits with the population crisis we see today. There are three places on this earth that contain the bulk of the 7 billion or so people who exist today. China and India are two of them and South America is the third and the one most affected by the bilious religious nonsense introduced by St Augustine based on this quote.
If your not familiar with Catholicism, there's a doctrine known as "Propagation of the Faith" whereby the primary purpose of sex is to produce children. Contraception is forbidden, the only approved method is known as the "rhythm" method, designed by Dr Billings.
And everyone knows that this method doesn't work.
Where does this live humanity? Hanging on the edge of existence.
Browsing through a Google search using the terms "Go forth and multiply" I found the prescient article by Aaron Hiller. Written in 1984, he cites research of the day showing that the Earth's population would hit 6.9 billion by the year 2000. Not far off the mark and quite scary when you think about how many human children were born in the intervening 24 years.
In this articles there's a reference to the fact that contraceptive practices were well known, with the Babylonian Talmud even providing details of how to prevent unwanted pregnancies from occurring. It shows that 5,000 years ago people were concerned with the effects of too many mouths to feed.
The effect of religion on the state is quite marked and Hiller's article highlights the pernicious nature of letting religious edicts entering the legal structures of a society. There's the pointed reference to the non-fiction section starting at 200.0 in your local library. Western religious history is difficult to absorb when you are presented with atrocities against humanity page after page.
What else is interesting is the delegation of notable intellectuals who, in 1964, attempted to persuade Pope Paul VI that the Roman Catholic position on sex and procreation were creating untold misery for millions and billions of people. They were rejected out of hand as it was not god who had revealed this unpalatable truth.
There is an out for the Roman Catholics in this situation. There's little dispute that we've filled the letter of god's requirements. The two food revolutions in the last 10o years allowed the number of humans on the planet to multiply from 1,000,000 to 7,000,000 and it continues to rise. There are very few places left untouched by human hand.
Saint Augustine appears on Wikipedia, but you need to dig more into what he achieved in his time to fully appreciate the impact his thinking has on our world today.
We have dominion over all creatures and are now contributing in a major way to the destruction of the only home we own. It's time the Roman Catholic church woke up to its responsibilities.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." 29
This quote is taken Genesis, Chapter 1 using http://www.bibleontheweb.com/Bible.asp .
Being brought up as a Catholic I'm quite familiar with this text and recently wondered how it fits with the population crisis we see today. There are three places on this earth that contain the bulk of the 7 billion or so people who exist today. China and India are two of them and South America is the third and the one most affected by the bilious religious nonsense introduced by St Augustine based on this quote.
If your not familiar with Catholicism, there's a doctrine known as "Propagation of the Faith" whereby the primary purpose of sex is to produce children. Contraception is forbidden, the only approved method is known as the "rhythm" method, designed by Dr Billings.
And everyone knows that this method doesn't work.
Where does this live humanity? Hanging on the edge of existence.
Browsing through a Google search using the terms "Go forth and multiply" I found the prescient article by Aaron Hiller. Written in 1984, he cites research of the day showing that the Earth's population would hit 6.9 billion by the year 2000. Not far off the mark and quite scary when you think about how many human children were born in the intervening 24 years.
In this articles there's a reference to the fact that contraceptive practices were well known, with the Babylonian Talmud even providing details of how to prevent unwanted pregnancies from occurring. It shows that 5,000 years ago people were concerned with the effects of too many mouths to feed.
The effect of religion on the state is quite marked and Hiller's article highlights the pernicious nature of letting religious edicts entering the legal structures of a society. There's the pointed reference to the non-fiction section starting at 200.0 in your local library. Western religious history is difficult to absorb when you are presented with atrocities against humanity page after page.
What else is interesting is the delegation of notable intellectuals who, in 1964, attempted to persuade Pope Paul VI that the Roman Catholic position on sex and procreation were creating untold misery for millions and billions of people. They were rejected out of hand as it was not god who had revealed this unpalatable truth.
There is an out for the Roman Catholics in this situation. There's little dispute that we've filled the letter of god's requirements. The two food revolutions in the last 10o years allowed the number of humans on the planet to multiply from 1,000,000 to 7,000,000 and it continues to rise. There are very few places left untouched by human hand.
Saint Augustine appears on Wikipedia, but you need to dig more into what he achieved in his time to fully appreciate the impact his thinking has on our world today.
We have dominion over all creatures and are now contributing in a major way to the destruction of the only home we own. It's time the Roman Catholic church woke up to its responsibilities.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
If you are a Philippine farmer, here's what you'd eat in a week.
The Guardian, the UK's mainstream bastion of the liberal left, is doing a great series on the current food crisis.
I'm impressed by the quality of the articles that it delivers. The Telegraph, the right wing equivalent, has its own Earth page at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/index.jhtml . Unfortunately there's a picture of bonnie Prince Charlie wanting to save the rain forests of Brazil. A nobler goal no doubt, but it doesn't compare to the information provided by the Guardian.
Go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/28/food.philippines to check out the story. They follow a local farmer who now spends double on his food bill compared to twelve months ago. At the moment it's about 90 - 100 Philippine Pesos a day. That's about USD2.27 or about GBP1.17 or EUR 1.48 on a good day. Mostly it seems he spends about half that, around 50 Pesos a day. The family diet consists mainly of rice and vegetables with the odd bit of chicken if they're lucky.
To find out what it's worth in your currency, try the fantastic converter at http://coinmill.com/PHP_calculator.html.
Our food bills are about £20 pounds a day, sometimes higher. Part of the cost is in the service provided to deliver it to your cupboard but I'm sure that most people living in big city's don't know how food is produced and couldn't say what it costs.
Moving onto the food summit in Rome we've witnessed another sniveling display of country's promoting and protecting their own agendas without consideration for others. I'm not disappointed by this, it's expected that this grand stages produce any great changes.
What I want is for someone to start talking rationally and logically about how 6.7 billion people extricate themselves from our own mess.
Any takers?
I'm impressed by the quality of the articles that it delivers. The Telegraph, the right wing equivalent, has its own Earth page at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/index.jhtml . Unfortunately there's a picture of bonnie Prince Charlie wanting to save the rain forests of Brazil. A nobler goal no doubt, but it doesn't compare to the information provided by the Guardian.
Go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/28/food.philippines to check out the story. They follow a local farmer who now spends double on his food bill compared to twelve months ago. At the moment it's about 90 - 100 Philippine Pesos a day. That's about USD2.27 or about GBP1.17 or EUR 1.48 on a good day. Mostly it seems he spends about half that, around 50 Pesos a day. The family diet consists mainly of rice and vegetables with the odd bit of chicken if they're lucky.
To find out what it's worth in your currency, try the fantastic converter at http://coinmill.com/PHP_calculator.html.
Our food bills are about £20 pounds a day, sometimes higher. Part of the cost is in the service provided to deliver it to your cupboard but I'm sure that most people living in big city's don't know how food is produced and couldn't say what it costs.
Moving onto the food summit in Rome we've witnessed another sniveling display of country's promoting and protecting their own agendas without consideration for others. I'm not disappointed by this, it's expected that this grand stages produce any great changes.
What I want is for someone to start talking rationally and logically about how 6.7 billion people extricate themselves from our own mess.
Any takers?
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
70's retro feeling
As a kid in the 70's I was consistently told three things by my parents.
His argument was that children should eat all the food on their plate to ensure that they learn to value it. This is because the cost of food will remain high for years to come and we need to learn to stop wasting "about £10 billion worth of food every year". So says this mighty minion of our nanny state.
These statements strike me as absurd. Surely if we're wasting that much money on food each year we should just stop spending the money and consequently eat less?
I'm sure there are thousands of people out there approaching middle age like me unable to walk away from a plate of food because of this screwed up logic. We diet and binge and diet again.
If the developed nations are eating too much food, judging by the size of some people squashed against me on public transport there are quite a lot of them, and the NHS is overwhelmed with patients who have eating disorders then surely this is the simplest solution to the problem. Or maybe I'm just naive?
I'm off to find out exactly what Filipino farmers do eat for a week and stick to something close to it. I'm sure that it involves rice, a food that is becoming more expensive every day, and vegetables. I'll post some recipes along with calorie count, cost and total wasted.
I'm hoping this will be the start of a movement to reduce our food foot print in the developed world.
- Petrol was very expensive and would run out before I grew up.
- The population of China would one day exceed 1 billion people.
- The left over food on your plate was enough to feed a starving family for a week.
His argument was that children should eat all the food on their plate to ensure that they learn to value it. This is because the cost of food will remain high for years to come and we need to learn to stop wasting "about £10 billion worth of food every year". So says this mighty minion of our nanny state.
These statements strike me as absurd. Surely if we're wasting that much money on food each year we should just stop spending the money and consequently eat less?
I'm sure there are thousands of people out there approaching middle age like me unable to walk away from a plate of food because of this screwed up logic. We diet and binge and diet again.
If the developed nations are eating too much food, judging by the size of some people squashed against me on public transport there are quite a lot of them, and the NHS is overwhelmed with patients who have eating disorders then surely this is the simplest solution to the problem. Or maybe I'm just naive?
I'm off to find out exactly what Filipino farmers do eat for a week and stick to something close to it. I'm sure that it involves rice, a food that is becoming more expensive every day, and vegetables. I'll post some recipes along with calorie count, cost and total wasted.
I'm hoping this will be the start of a movement to reduce our food foot print in the developed world.
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