MORTGAGE INTEREST RATES (4)
Is there no end to the decline in interest rates? I have today received a letter, telling me that the interest rates for the next six months on the two loans on our house (30 years, interest only for the first 10) are 0.86% and a staggering 0.51% respectively.
Great for us; not so good if you are a pensioner living on savings.
Walter Blotscher
Thursday, 30 April 2015
Wednesday, 29 April 2015
INDONESIA
There's something more than slightly unsavoury about the recent executions in Indonesia. I understand the fact that the country has a very big drug problem, and that foreigners smuggling drugs make that problem bigger. However, killing a few people is not going to end that problem, as evidence from elsewhere in the world shows.
Ultimately, the death penalty is a moral issue; do you think it's OK that the state has the right to take someone's life? I think not.
Walter Blotscher
There's something more than slightly unsavoury about the recent executions in Indonesia. I understand the fact that the country has a very big drug problem, and that foreigners smuggling drugs make that problem bigger. However, killing a few people is not going to end that problem, as evidence from elsewhere in the world shows.
Ultimately, the death penalty is a moral issue; do you think it's OK that the state has the right to take someone's life? I think not.
Walter Blotscher
Tuesday, 28 April 2015
PINK (2)
Despite my daughter's reservations, I still like Pink. I am in fact learning to play some of her songs on the guitar, so that the girls at my school can give a little concert.
Walter Blotscher
Despite my daughter's reservations, I still like Pink. I am in fact learning to play some of her songs on the guitar, so that the girls at my school can give a little concert.
Walter Blotscher
Monday, 27 April 2015
CITIZENSHIP
Denmark is getting itself into a right pickle about foreigners. On the one hand, it is worried silly about asylum seekers, economic migrants and other undesirables entering the country and not integrating. On the other, its rich but infertile couples are busily adopting Chinese, Vietnamese, African and Columbian babies whenever they can. And the authorities are giving out citizenship left, right and centre, and not to people like me (who don't need it, since I am already an E.U. citizen, and who wouldn't want it anyway).
Figures for the latter make my point. The list of new citizens is decided on twice a year, and the figure for the first half of 2015 is 3,314. That is more than twice what it was in the second half of last year, and almost five times what it was in the first half of 2013.
Doubling for the full year, and it is still only around 0.1% of Denmark's current population. However, new citizens tend to be younger than average, have more babies than average, and are darker skinned than average. Over time, this is going to have a big effect on what it means to be a Dane.
Walter Blotscher
Denmark is getting itself into a right pickle about foreigners. On the one hand, it is worried silly about asylum seekers, economic migrants and other undesirables entering the country and not integrating. On the other, its rich but infertile couples are busily adopting Chinese, Vietnamese, African and Columbian babies whenever they can. And the authorities are giving out citizenship left, right and centre, and not to people like me (who don't need it, since I am already an E.U. citizen, and who wouldn't want it anyway).
Figures for the latter make my point. The list of new citizens is decided on twice a year, and the figure for the first half of 2015 is 3,314. That is more than twice what it was in the second half of last year, and almost five times what it was in the first half of 2013.
Doubling for the full year, and it is still only around 0.1% of Denmark's current population. However, new citizens tend to be younger than average, have more babies than average, and are darker skinned than average. Over time, this is going to have a big effect on what it means to be a Dane.
Walter Blotscher
Sunday, 26 April 2015
THE WARS OF THE ROSES
1420 marks the high-water mark of English influence on the continent of Europe. The famous battle of Agincourt in 1415 had been one of those relatively few mediæval battles (Hastings, Bannockburn, Bouvines, Tannenberg) that had been utterly decisive, with large numbers of the French nobility killed. It took the English king Henry V a few more years of campaigning; but in the Treaty of Troyes, he was recognised as regent and heir to the French throne, a position he cemented by marrying the daughter of the French king Charles VI. Since Charles was old, often ill, and suffered from bouts of insanity, it would not be long before Henry ruled both England and France.
One of the great "what if?"s of history. Because against all expectations, Henry died of dysentery at the age of 35 in 1422, some two months before Charles. True, he left an infant son Henry, who was legally entitled to inherit his father's claims. However, royal infants were always a problem in those times, especially when Charles had an adult son, the Dauphin, who unsurprisingly thought that he ought to inherit the throne and who could rally French support. Backed by the messianic Joan of Arc, the French soon started nibbling away at English territorial positions in northern France. Within 30 years, the only English possession left on French soil was the port of Calais and an enclave around it.
English nobles used to strutting their stuff abroad were annoyed at their loss of lands, titles and prestige. A strong English king could probably have kept them in hand. But the problem of the royal infant grew up to become the problem of the royal king, since Henry VI had inherited his grandfather's tendency to ill health and periodic insanity. The stage was set for 30 years of civil war, as those nobles who supported the royal house of Lancaster battled against those who supported the house of York, the most powerful dukedom.
Might was important in the Middle Ages, but so too was legitimacy. A man might be strong enough to become king, but he also had to have some sort of right, and here the respective rights of York and Lancaster become complicated. Go back from the fifteenth to the fourteenth century, and King Edward III had seven sons, two of whom died in infancy. The line of the first survivor ended in Richard II, who was pushed from the throne and murdered by Henry IV (Henry V's father), originally the Duke of Lancaster, the line of the third. The Duke of York's line was the fourth son, and so should have been subordinate under the rules of primogeniture. However, the line of the second son (the Earl of March) ended in a girl, who eventually married the Duke of York. So the slightly abstruse question became whether York could leapfrog Lancaster in the hierarchy by taking over the rights of March, which he had acquired through his marriage.
A similar question had resulted in the Hundred Years' War between England and France, of which Agincourt was a part. Now the battles were on English soil. They went one way and then the other before Henry Tudor won at Bosworth Field in 1485 and founded a new dynasty, the Tudors. All that remained were the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster, which are still sported today at cricket matches between the two counties.
Walter Blotscher
1420 marks the high-water mark of English influence on the continent of Europe. The famous battle of Agincourt in 1415 had been one of those relatively few mediæval battles (Hastings, Bannockburn, Bouvines, Tannenberg) that had been utterly decisive, with large numbers of the French nobility killed. It took the English king Henry V a few more years of campaigning; but in the Treaty of Troyes, he was recognised as regent and heir to the French throne, a position he cemented by marrying the daughter of the French king Charles VI. Since Charles was old, often ill, and suffered from bouts of insanity, it would not be long before Henry ruled both England and France.
One of the great "what if?"s of history. Because against all expectations, Henry died of dysentery at the age of 35 in 1422, some two months before Charles. True, he left an infant son Henry, who was legally entitled to inherit his father's claims. However, royal infants were always a problem in those times, especially when Charles had an adult son, the Dauphin, who unsurprisingly thought that he ought to inherit the throne and who could rally French support. Backed by the messianic Joan of Arc, the French soon started nibbling away at English territorial positions in northern France. Within 30 years, the only English possession left on French soil was the port of Calais and an enclave around it.
English nobles used to strutting their stuff abroad were annoyed at their loss of lands, titles and prestige. A strong English king could probably have kept them in hand. But the problem of the royal infant grew up to become the problem of the royal king, since Henry VI had inherited his grandfather's tendency to ill health and periodic insanity. The stage was set for 30 years of civil war, as those nobles who supported the royal house of Lancaster battled against those who supported the house of York, the most powerful dukedom.
Might was important in the Middle Ages, but so too was legitimacy. A man might be strong enough to become king, but he also had to have some sort of right, and here the respective rights of York and Lancaster become complicated. Go back from the fifteenth to the fourteenth century, and King Edward III had seven sons, two of whom died in infancy. The line of the first survivor ended in Richard II, who was pushed from the throne and murdered by Henry IV (Henry V's father), originally the Duke of Lancaster, the line of the third. The Duke of York's line was the fourth son, and so should have been subordinate under the rules of primogeniture. However, the line of the second son (the Earl of March) ended in a girl, who eventually married the Duke of York. So the slightly abstruse question became whether York could leapfrog Lancaster in the hierarchy by taking over the rights of March, which he had acquired through his marriage.
A similar question had resulted in the Hundred Years' War between England and France, of which Agincourt was a part. Now the battles were on English soil. They went one way and then the other before Henry Tudor won at Bosworth Field in 1485 and founded a new dynasty, the Tudors. All that remained were the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster, which are still sported today at cricket matches between the two counties.
Walter Blotscher
Saturday, 25 April 2015
A.P.McCOY (4)
The incomparable A.P.McCoy retired this afternoon, after riding his last horse race at a packed Sandown Park. 20 years as a jump jockey, 20 jump jockey titles, more than 4,300 winners, and more than 40 broken bones.
An incredible record. He was at the top of his sport for 1,040 consecutive weeks. That compares with 545 for Tiger Woods in golf, and a measly 302 for the great Roger Federer in tennis.
The only thing missing was a winner in his last race. Perhaps fittingly, that race was won by a horse ridden by Richard Johnson, the man who has been runner-up to McCoy in the championship a remarkable 16 times. Hopefully Johnson will finally get to win the title next year, now that McCoy is finally gone.
The incomparable A.P.McCoy retired this afternoon, after riding his last horse race at a packed Sandown Park. 20 years as a jump jockey, 20 jump jockey titles, more than 4,300 winners, and more than 40 broken bones.
An incredible record. He was at the top of his sport for 1,040 consecutive weeks. That compares with 545 for Tiger Woods in golf, and a measly 302 for the great Roger Federer in tennis.
The only thing missing was a winner in his last race. Perhaps fittingly, that race was won by a horse ridden by Richard Johnson, the man who has been runner-up to McCoy in the championship a remarkable 16 times. Hopefully Johnson will finally get to win the title next year, now that McCoy is finally gone.
Walter Blotscher
Thursday, 23 April 2015
TRANSFER INCOMES (3)
There are a lot of people in Denmark who are on transfer incomes, that is they are of working age, but are not working. In the third quarter of 2014, the number was 772,400, or roughly a fifth of the population. Economists and politicians spend a lot of time worrying about how to get these people into work, since if they could, there would be a positive double whammy to the state's finances; higher taxes and lower benefits. Is it possible?
Of the total, 221,500 of them were on "before time pensions"; in other words they have been medically diagnosed as being incapable, either physically or mentally, of ever working again and so get a pension for the rest of their lives. 86,600 were on efterløn, in their 60's but having retired early. 56,300 were sick and 53,800 were on maternity leave. A further 68,300 were working part-time, because they are not capable of holding down a full-time job.
Not much can be done about any of these groups. Of the remainder, roughly 160,000 were on kontanthjaelp, the lowest possible state benefit; and roughly 120,000 were unemployed. There are many reasons why people end up on kontanthjælp. One is that they lose their job and don't find another one, before their right to unemployment benefit (which is higher than kontanthjælp) ends. Another is that they are drug addicts, or have similar social problems, but are not considered in such a bad way that they can get a before time pension. Another is young people who have neither an education nor a job. Whatever the reason, getting these people off kontanthjælp is not easy.
Which leaves the unemployed. The 120,000 is a gross figure, meaning that some of those classed as unemployed will find a job in due course (and may well already have done so). Reducing the figure further depends - realistically - on the state of the economy, which is getting slowly better. So that figure could fall, albeit slowly.
All of which shows that if you have built up a big welfare state, it is extremely difficult to dismantle it. The only way the number on transfer incomes will fall markedly is when those people become pensioners, itself a transfer income, but not included as such. There are difficult times ahead.
Walter Blotscher
There are a lot of people in Denmark who are on transfer incomes, that is they are of working age, but are not working. In the third quarter of 2014, the number was 772,400, or roughly a fifth of the population. Economists and politicians spend a lot of time worrying about how to get these people into work, since if they could, there would be a positive double whammy to the state's finances; higher taxes and lower benefits. Is it possible?
Of the total, 221,500 of them were on "before time pensions"; in other words they have been medically diagnosed as being incapable, either physically or mentally, of ever working again and so get a pension for the rest of their lives. 86,600 were on efterløn, in their 60's but having retired early. 56,300 were sick and 53,800 were on maternity leave. A further 68,300 were working part-time, because they are not capable of holding down a full-time job.
Not much can be done about any of these groups. Of the remainder, roughly 160,000 were on kontanthjaelp, the lowest possible state benefit; and roughly 120,000 were unemployed. There are many reasons why people end up on kontanthjælp. One is that they lose their job and don't find another one, before their right to unemployment benefit (which is higher than kontanthjælp) ends. Another is that they are drug addicts, or have similar social problems, but are not considered in such a bad way that they can get a before time pension. Another is young people who have neither an education nor a job. Whatever the reason, getting these people off kontanthjælp is not easy.
Which leaves the unemployed. The 120,000 is a gross figure, meaning that some of those classed as unemployed will find a job in due course (and may well already have done so). Reducing the figure further depends - realistically - on the state of the economy, which is getting slowly better. So that figure could fall, albeit slowly.
All of which shows that if you have built up a big welfare state, it is extremely difficult to dismantle it. The only way the number on transfer incomes will fall markedly is when those people become pensioners, itself a transfer income, but not included as such. There are difficult times ahead.
Walter Blotscher
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