Posts by I ain't Spartacus

Re: True poverty still exists in the UK

Good heavens, someone's rattled you cage today.

Chris W,

Indeedy. And every day. Certain people in politics, often on the left but not exclusively, like to try to lay claim to the moral high ground. It is very annoying. I choose to challenge it. It's often used as a device to close down debate on topics they don't like. Or to try and win the debate by painting the opposition as 'nasty'. I think they should grow up, and try to win the debate by showing their ideas will work better than the oppositions'.

So I defend UKIP, even though I don't like populism or single-issue parties, because they have some valid points to debate, that have been pushed aside too often. And a right to make their point without being shouted down. I defend politicians (and politics in general) from lazy, childish faux-worldly-wise-cynicism pretending to be wisdom, about them "all being the same/corrupt/whatever". And I hope thereby to improve the quality of the discussion.

Re: True poverty still exists in the UK

Economists fix the world?! I've not laughed so hard in ages. Where were all the economists predicting the recent global economic crash, or 'fixing it' by stopping it from happening in the first place.

There were plenty of economists predicting that the last boom would end in a big crash. But then there's a saying, "economists have predicted twenty of the country's last two recessions"...

However some did. If you were reading The Economist any time after the late 90s, they were talking about how the imbalances in the global economy were causing problems. And how China (and the rest of East Asia to a lesser extent) were recycling their growing export surpluses into the Western capial markets. This was leading to an asset price boom and also lower interest rates. The "price of money" being artificially reduced would therefore lead to mis-investment, and inefficient use of capital. Of course calling the problem doesn't tell you when the disaster will actually kick off, or what form it will take when it does.

But there were plenty of voices saying that European and US governments were spending too much during the boom (or at least not taxing as much as they spent), and that consumers and companies were taking on too much debt.

This problem is now easing off thankfully. China's balance of payments is becoming more balanced, the drop in oil price means that OPEC and the Russians are now going to have to spend some of the money they made in the boom times, and hopefully that will rebalance the global economy somewhat.

Also, give economics some credit. It predicted that the Eurzone wouldn't work (to much derision at the time). Turned out that was correct. Our understanding of how economics works is far from perfect, but it does at least act as a guide.

Re: True poverty still exists in the UK

I think the reason people get so angry at your articles is that it's economics without compassion

How the fuck do you know that? What gives you the right to ascribe motives to other people?

Political debate would be a lot easier if people would start from the idea that other people are reasonably decent and trying to come to the best solution - even if they disagree on methods. You can start to make the case that somone's motives are amoral, immoral or even evil - when you have some actual evidence to back that up.

Economics is only ever going to be a blunt instrument anyway. It's not very good at looking at individual cases, because it's not very precise. It's hard enough just guesstimating GDP levels from 4-6 months previously, let alone working out the effects on individual members of society.

We'll never have a perfect benefits system that treats everybody equally and gets them what they're entitled to. Because all our systems are imperfect, because they're run by people. Even if we had a perfect system, that was fair, generous and properly run, we'd still then have to deal with the people claiming from it. Some of them are likely to be greedy, foolish or just accident prone (also being people) - so even after being helped perfectly., might still end up in a worse situation. I've known people to do really self-destructive and stupid things, and I've known parents to act incredibly irresponsibly and fail in their duty to their children.

We spend something like £2,000 per person per year on healthcare in this country. A kid born today has got a life expectancy of close to 100, so we've basically got a government insurance policy that is worth £200k for each of us. Add to that a promise of various benefits, including unemployment insurance, housing benefit and pensions. What's the basic pension now £6k for every year over 67? So that's another £200k of pension to add to the £200k of healthcare - and the other stuff you might be lucky enough not to use, and free education for your kids - and whatever the costs of the fire brigade and police would be. We have a minimum wage of £13k a year, and a national median wage of about £25k. Tell me again we're not one of the richest places there's ever been?

Re: Free market nut stew

To our anonymous friend,

You'll find that most free market economists will talk about market failures. Government has the job of dealing with these areas.

For example, a free market can't function properly without the rule of law. Otherwise you make a profit, and some bugger nicks it, so you stop investing. So by definition you can't have a truly free market without a government. And I've not seen any free market economist try to dispute that. Whatever the caricatures you may see made of the arguments. Stopping monopolies, making companies pay for pollution etc. are other cases in point.

In the case of the El Reg Nosh Posse, we're raising money for Malaria no more. Poor people who are also ill will struggle to improve their own lives. Poor people who have died obviously have no hope. So as well as the basic humanitarian reasons for wanting to help people avoid malaria, helping poorer people with basic healthcare should give them a better chance to farm or earn, a better chance to get a decent diet, and maybe more free resources to educate their kids, and/or get a business going that can allow them to help themselves.

I remember reading lots of stuff ten years ago about how Western governments should stop targetting their aid cash at infrastructure projects, and push it into improving healthcare. The drop in child mortality and illness would be both a good thing in itself, and also help people to sort out their own economies in their own ways. Drops in child mortality and the growth in the young end of the population also tend to lead to growth in the economy - when those extra kids grow up and start working.

I don't quite agree with you on politics be damned. One of the points that Tim Worstall has made in several of his articles is that not only are we in the developed world immensely rich, by both relative and historical standards. But also that globalisation has made a few billion people also immensely rich by relative and historical standards.

I think this is an important thing to chuck into the current political debate. There's various arguments on when it happened, but wage growth for the ordinary working person has recently stalled. I don't think it's a new permanent thing, but you could argue that it kicked in sometime in the middle of the last boom. Or there's an argument, for the US/UK, that purchasing power growth petered out some time in the 90s because of rocketing housing costs (more the UK), and soaring healthcare costs in the States.

Globalisation has chucked an awful lot of money into the Chinese economy in particular, also the rest of Asia, South America and quite a lot of African economies have been doing pretty well too. Much better than was previously thought, now that people have gone back and looked properly (partly becasue governments in Africa weren't spending enough money on their statistical offices).

So one thing that this might be telling us is that aid is less useful than trade. Which then leads to another political discussion. We've increased the global workforce, and therefore outsourced quite a lot of jobs, and that's made a lot of our stuff cheaper. Although has also hit wages. This has happened with industry and services. But we're still protecting our agricultural sectors, with lots of subsidies, tariffs and trade barriers. Even though agriculture is likely to be a way that the very poorest can get a chance of starting to improve their lives.

So how many more people's lives in the developing world could we improve if we traded fairly with them in agriculture too? In the EU we use the Common Agricultural Policy to increase the food prices to our consumers in order to enrich our farmers (and impoverish farmers in Africa). If we feel we need to protect our rural economies, might it not be better to have fair trade, drop the tariffs and therefore our food prices. And then use taxation to deal with the rural issues. Theoretically it should be possible to make almost everyone better off, and nobody worse off, if done right.

Re: Any other 5 Eyes El Reg readers forming vulture teams?

Lester,

If you go to your own user page, it has the group shown in it. And only the donate button for that. They also do a popup saying your goodies to to the group.

Which is a shame. My charity was going to be the relief of distressed Englishmen unable to afford 50 year old whisky...

Re: Day in Day Out

armyknife,

It's an excuse for a charity fundraiser. Which you are free to ignore, as you wish. As a campaign it also makes a point, in an easily digestible manner, about how little some people have got.

You're over-thinking it though. As with all things, it should be approached with a sense of proportion, and a sense of humour.

From my planning for this year, and reading about the guys who've done it before, it's clear that this is not a good diet. Which is, after all, another point of the challenge.

It is true that you can easily live on £15-£20 a week, if you have time to spend cooking and budget carefully. Not only that, but you can eat well too. The fact that people don't is more a failure of education. We as a society haven't been passing those skills on to kids, either at home or at school. Only about half of my friends can cook, and I'm in my early 40s. I don't think schools have re-started teaching home economics since my day. They stopped teaching it before my day, round here.

Re: Fair warning...

its a shame I don't make jam. Perhaps it's time to make an emergency visit to the market, in hopes of cheap end-of-day fruit.

I'm planning to make bread during the week. I'm wondering what's cheap that goes with it. Other than baked beans? The correct answer is bacon, but that's not affordable.

Re: Any other 5 Eyes El Reg readers forming vulture teams?

From signing up to the website, which bizarrely seems to favour pale orange text on a white background (Aaargh!!!!!), it might be ignoring my charity setting - as a member of the El Reg group. So I think all donations go to the group, not me. I shall test this by donating to myself later on.

I don't know how other countries do it. But another reason for the UK site, is that charities can reclaim income tax paid on donations using Gift Aid. I think it requires the donor to declare themselves a tax payer, and give their address.

Re: @Anakin He twists and he turns

The High Court in the UK assessed the allegations and said that at least 2 of them would amount to rape under UK law.

Re: Statute of limitations ...

The Italian system doesn't work that way. In Italy you can have been convicted, but still get off on statue of limitations if you've managed to tie the appeal up for long enough that it doesn't go through and confirm the verdict of the lower court.

That's a particularly bizarre system. I know nothing about how it works in Sweden. However he's not been charged. Whether they could just charge him anyway, and claim special circumstances, I've no idea. Laws are a funny old thing.

It's a good point. But they probably can't force him to be interviewed unless they arrest him. And I'm not sure what the legal implications of that are. The police can't enter an embassy without permission of the ambassador or government. But if they've been given permission to arrest someone, does the embassy still have the power to stop them walking out of the door with them? I'd have thought they don't. You can't be a bit pregnant, and in the same way I suspect you can't be a bit arrested.

Although that's one for diplomats to settle, not me. And is probably another many hours of negotiation and timewasting they're going to have to sit through over this.

Re: Telling quote

I think a dot.biz is better than a dot.co - unless you're Colombian of course.

But, even if unfairly, I do tend to take both as a bit of a bad sign about a company.

Re: Is it wrong?

You're going to give all your money to someone you've never heard of before just because they have a "dot bank" web site? Seriously?

What would happen if someone manages to poison Google so that a search for hsbc gives hsbc.scam, instead of hsbc.com? I'm presuming ICANN will have launced a dot.scam by now, given the high demand for it, and their high demand for cash... I doubt my Mum has her bank's website bookmarked, and so will be going through Google every time. A dot.bank domain would be useful for that.

Again, people often find out who's giving the best savings rates by looking at the tables in the paper. Obviously if they go online, they can click directly on a link (assuming that's working properly). But otherwise they're going to be typing cahoot (or whatever other odd term) into Google. Then probably doing their usual level of checking - i.e. clicking on the first link.

Whereas if everyone knew that dot.bank was where reputable financial institutions were, and you weren't allowed to register a dot.bank unless you were regulated by a legitimate national central bank (or banking regulator), then you'd have one less bit of guessing in the dark to do. If they were really on the ball the registrar could operate a national page, with best-of tables and the like, and then get cash out of the banks in the same way people like Money Supermarket do.

I don't think it'll take off, as there are so many hurdles. But it could work. Basically you could end up with curated bits of the internet - with more or less strict controls on who's allowed to register. Dot.xxx is already a bit of a model for this, I've no idea how it's worked out though.

Re: Devonian?

"We don't need to theorise what would have happened if dinosaurs had evolved brains, we can just look at crows"

That doesn't really work though. The evolutionary pressure was different after the extinctions.

Beforehand, there was evolutionary advantage in biggness - and being good at eating other things. So we had plenty of hugeosauruses and hungrysauruses. But was there an evolutionary niche for a brainysaurus? Someting like the Jurassic Park version of the velociraptor perhaps? Mid-sized, so needs to use other abilities to avoid getting eaten. By cooperative hunting perhaps, which might lead to the development of language and tool using. Given the right physical evolution. Just think how much better the Natural History Museum would be, if some of the dinosaurs were carrying rifles?

Re: Looks like the mother ship is still there...

It's a rule of science fiction that anyone who drills into the earth's crust in order to do 'geothermal research', is either lying and it's actually a secret government project to cause earthquakes, or dies horribly due to alien/supernatural horrors hiding at the bottom of their shafts.

It's a bit like going to an old isolated house/castle for help after your car has broken down in the rain. Something you just shouldn't do.

Re: Now we know...

Personally, I'm much more interested in finding a treacle mine.

Re: surely there was a reason that IE became so popular?

"Users" will do nicely. Everyone knows what you mean.

It has all the connotations of incompetence you require, without the childish nastiness.

"Sheeple" is a word used by arseholes and conspiracy nuts.

Also, non-IT people don't care about computers. They just want them to work. Technology is just the name we give stuff that doesn't work properly yet...

Both the US and the USSR's first spacewalks nearly went horribly wrong. I believe NASA hadn't put enough handholds on the spacecraft, both of them had problems with the suits over-inflating - and so struggled to get back into the ship.

In space, no-one can hear you scream. But on the radio, everyone can hear you say, "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!"