OFF TO THE U.K.
I am off to the U.K. for a couple of days, so no blogging for a while.
Back on Monday.
Walter Blotscher
Tuesday, 27 September 2011
Monday, 26 September 2011
A BIG NUMBER (2)
Some eighteen months ago, I wrote a post mentioning the word trillion, and pointing out how that rather large number was beginning to sneak its way, not into everyday parlance as such, but at least into the appendices of budget documents issued by the British Treasury.
Since then, we have had the debate about raising the U.S. federal debt ceiling, which is over US$14 trillion, and lots of plans for raising or cutting trillions from federal revenues or spending programmes.
The latest people to get in on the act are European finance ministers and officials, who are apparently putting together a plan to increase the size of the bail-out fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, from Euro440 billion to Euro2 trillion.
As I said earlier, a trillion, or 1,000,000,000,000, is a very large number indeed. My prediction is that by the end of this decade, it will have become commonplace.
Walter Blotscher
Some eighteen months ago, I wrote a post mentioning the word trillion, and pointing out how that rather large number was beginning to sneak its way, not into everyday parlance as such, but at least into the appendices of budget documents issued by the British Treasury.
Since then, we have had the debate about raising the U.S. federal debt ceiling, which is over US$14 trillion, and lots of plans for raising or cutting trillions from federal revenues or spending programmes.
The latest people to get in on the act are European finance ministers and officials, who are apparently putting together a plan to increase the size of the bail-out fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, from Euro440 billion to Euro2 trillion.
As I said earlier, a trillion, or 1,000,000,000,000, is a very large number indeed. My prediction is that by the end of this decade, it will have become commonplace.
Walter Blotscher
Sunday, 25 September 2011
TEENAGE BOYS (2)
Since my two sons have left home, I can notice the difference in the houshold bills. Food bills are way down; but so too are the electricity bills and the amount of rubbish put out every week. Even the septic tank manages to last the year before it is emptied by the local authority.
I use the savings to visit them in their current big city domiciles. Today I was with my elder son and some 250,000 other people in Copenhagen, watching the world cycling championships live in one of the northern suburbs. In brilliant late summer sunshine, Mark Cavendish confounded the pundits who said he couldn't win an uphill sprint to give Great Britain its first world champion since Tom Simpson in 1965.
Walter Blotscher
Since my two sons have left home, I can notice the difference in the houshold bills. Food bills are way down; but so too are the electricity bills and the amount of rubbish put out every week. Even the septic tank manages to last the year before it is emptied by the local authority.
I use the savings to visit them in their current big city domiciles. Today I was with my elder son and some 250,000 other people in Copenhagen, watching the world cycling championships live in one of the northern suburbs. In brilliant late summer sunshine, Mark Cavendish confounded the pundits who said he couldn't win an uphill sprint to give Great Britain its first world champion since Tom Simpson in 1965.
Walter Blotscher
Saturday, 24 September 2011
THE RUGBY WORLD CUP
The rugby world cup is currently taking place in New Zealand. Rugby is the country's passion, and the All Blacks are expected to win virtually every time they take to the field. However, since they won the inaugural World Cup on home turf in 1987, they have in fact been the tournament's big chokers. Despite never having lost a pool game, they have lost twice in the knockout stages to France and twice to Australia. The only defeat that perhaps could be defended was the narrow loss - after extra time - in the 1995 final to South Africa in South Africa, shortly after the latter's emergence from the shadow of apartheid (the subject of the film Invictus).
Now the All Blacks are playing at home again, and are again the favourites to win. This morning I watched their pool game against France, a match that some had feared could provide a repeat upset. However, apart from a ferocious opening 10 minutes, where France had all the pressure, yet failed to score, New Zealand picked them apart to win convincingly. The cup is definitely theirs to lose.
Walter Blotscher
The rugby world cup is currently taking place in New Zealand. Rugby is the country's passion, and the All Blacks are expected to win virtually every time they take to the field. However, since they won the inaugural World Cup on home turf in 1987, they have in fact been the tournament's big chokers. Despite never having lost a pool game, they have lost twice in the knockout stages to France and twice to Australia. The only defeat that perhaps could be defended was the narrow loss - after extra time - in the 1995 final to South Africa in South Africa, shortly after the latter's emergence from the shadow of apartheid (the subject of the film Invictus).
Now the All Blacks are playing at home again, and are again the favourites to win. This morning I watched their pool game against France, a match that some had feared could provide a repeat upset. However, apart from a ferocious opening 10 minutes, where France had all the pressure, yet failed to score, New Zealand picked them apart to win convincingly. The cup is definitely theirs to lose.
Walter Blotscher
Friday, 23 September 2011
FOOTBALL SHIRT NUMBERS
Is it just me who is irritated by the trend in football shirt numbers? In the old days it was simple; there were eleven people on each side, and they had the numbers 1 to 11, starting with the goalie and ending up with the left wing. The one substitute allowed had the number 12. Now however there are "squads", so numbers go from one to perhaps 40. It's all very confusing.
Other sports don't do this. Both forms of rugby have numbers from 1 to 13 or 15 (though, somewhat oddly, rugby league starts with the fullback, whereas rugby union ends with him). Cricket doesn't have any numbers at all, at least in the test match version. The exception seems to be American sports, where everybody has personalised numbers anywhere between 1 and 100. Some numbers, belonging to particularly famous players, even get "retired". It is this trend that is moving across to European football.
The reason, as with most things American, is money. It's much more difficult to market a Cristiano Ronaldo number 7 Real Madrid shirt to hundreds of thousands of football-mad kids, if he keeps changing his shirt number. That never seemed to be a problem with (say) George Best, who always wore a number 7 shirt. But I suppose the stakes are higher today.
Anyway, as I say, I find it irritating when a football player has the number 32 on his back. I must be getting old.
Walter Blotscher
Is it just me who is irritated by the trend in football shirt numbers? In the old days it was simple; there were eleven people on each side, and they had the numbers 1 to 11, starting with the goalie and ending up with the left wing. The one substitute allowed had the number 12. Now however there are "squads", so numbers go from one to perhaps 40. It's all very confusing.
Other sports don't do this. Both forms of rugby have numbers from 1 to 13 or 15 (though, somewhat oddly, rugby league starts with the fullback, whereas rugby union ends with him). Cricket doesn't have any numbers at all, at least in the test match version. The exception seems to be American sports, where everybody has personalised numbers anywhere between 1 and 100. Some numbers, belonging to particularly famous players, even get "retired". It is this trend that is moving across to European football.
The reason, as with most things American, is money. It's much more difficult to market a Cristiano Ronaldo number 7 Real Madrid shirt to hundreds of thousands of football-mad kids, if he keeps changing his shirt number. That never seemed to be a problem with (say) George Best, who always wore a number 7 shirt. But I suppose the stakes are higher today.
Anyway, as I say, I find it irritating when a football player has the number 32 on his back. I must be getting old.
Walter Blotscher
Thursday, 22 September 2011
THE DEATH PENALTY
Last night a man named Troy Davis was put to death by lethal injection by the State of Georgia. He had sat on Death Row since 1991, when he was convicted of killing an off-duty policeman. He had always maintained his innocence, and did so again in his final speech.
The policeman was shot dead in 1989, when he tried to help a homeless man being attacked in a burger restaurant car park. The prosecution case was that Davis was beating the man with a gun, after demanding a beer from him. However, no gun (i.e. no murder weapon) was ever found, and there was no conclusive DNA evidence linking Davis to the murder. Furthermore, seven of the nine witnesses who testified against Davis subsequently either recanted or changed their evidence. It should also be said that Davis was black (research shows that blacks and other minorities are disproprotionately represented on Death Row).
Because of these facts, thousands of people, ranging from ex-President Jimmy Carter to the current Pope, called for the case to be reopened; Davis had been subject to a miscarriage of justice. At a minimum, the death sentence should be commuted. However, the whole U.S. appeals system, including at the very end a review by the Supreme Court, the nation's highest judicial body, refused to overturn the original judgment. Sentence was carried out immediately after the Supreme Court's decision.
The United States' practice of putting its own citizens to death is one of the major differences between it and other rich-world countries. Although support for the death penalty exists in other countries (notably the U.K.) amongst the general population, their Governments have abolished it, not least because of well-publicised miscarriages of justice. Similar miscarriages of justice, brought to light because of the more widespread use of DNA testing, have caused rethinks and abandonment of the death penalty in some U.S. states. But it is still a long way from the position in the E.U., where it is illegal under E.U. law for a Member State to impose the death penalty.
Taking a long view of history, there have been very few developments, which indubitably show that the human race has improved over time. The only one that I can think of is a gradual downward trend - ending in zero - in the number of situations where authorities (whether kings, Parliaments or courts) can legally put one of their subjects to death. Against that background, I have to say that the U.S. position is barbaric, uncivilised even. It's a great country to visit, but I could never live there.
Walter Blotscher
Last night a man named Troy Davis was put to death by lethal injection by the State of Georgia. He had sat on Death Row since 1991, when he was convicted of killing an off-duty policeman. He had always maintained his innocence, and did so again in his final speech.
The policeman was shot dead in 1989, when he tried to help a homeless man being attacked in a burger restaurant car park. The prosecution case was that Davis was beating the man with a gun, after demanding a beer from him. However, no gun (i.e. no murder weapon) was ever found, and there was no conclusive DNA evidence linking Davis to the murder. Furthermore, seven of the nine witnesses who testified against Davis subsequently either recanted or changed their evidence. It should also be said that Davis was black (research shows that blacks and other minorities are disproprotionately represented on Death Row).
Because of these facts, thousands of people, ranging from ex-President Jimmy Carter to the current Pope, called for the case to be reopened; Davis had been subject to a miscarriage of justice. At a minimum, the death sentence should be commuted. However, the whole U.S. appeals system, including at the very end a review by the Supreme Court, the nation's highest judicial body, refused to overturn the original judgment. Sentence was carried out immediately after the Supreme Court's decision.
The United States' practice of putting its own citizens to death is one of the major differences between it and other rich-world countries. Although support for the death penalty exists in other countries (notably the U.K.) amongst the general population, their Governments have abolished it, not least because of well-publicised miscarriages of justice. Similar miscarriages of justice, brought to light because of the more widespread use of DNA testing, have caused rethinks and abandonment of the death penalty in some U.S. states. But it is still a long way from the position in the E.U., where it is illegal under E.U. law for a Member State to impose the death penalty.
Taking a long view of history, there have been very few developments, which indubitably show that the human race has improved over time. The only one that I can think of is a gradual downward trend - ending in zero - in the number of situations where authorities (whether kings, Parliaments or courts) can legally put one of their subjects to death. Against that background, I have to say that the U.S. position is barbaric, uncivilised even. It's a great country to visit, but I could never live there.
Walter Blotscher
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
FINANCIAL CRISIS II
A string of recent snippets of bad economic news (debt downgrades, falling share prices, budget cuts, low growth) are leading a number of commentators to suggest that we are about to enter a repeat of the financial crisis of 2008.
I disagree with this view. For the simple reason that I don't think the earlier crisis has ever stopped. That crisis was caused by a lot of private banks making a lot of very, very silly decisions. Such as selling mortgages to people with no income. After Lehmann Brothers went bust, Governments were forced to step in and rescue financial institutions deemed too big to fail.
But that did not "solve" the problem, it merely transfered it from the private to the public sector. For at the heart of the current worries is the one that these Governments can't now service the debts they have taken on. Greece certainly, Portugal and Ireland almost certainly, Spain, Italy, even the U.S. possibly.
This is not Financial Crisis II, but the final reel of Financial Crisis I.
Walter Blotscher
A string of recent snippets of bad economic news (debt downgrades, falling share prices, budget cuts, low growth) are leading a number of commentators to suggest that we are about to enter a repeat of the financial crisis of 2008.
I disagree with this view. For the simple reason that I don't think the earlier crisis has ever stopped. That crisis was caused by a lot of private banks making a lot of very, very silly decisions. Such as selling mortgages to people with no income. After Lehmann Brothers went bust, Governments were forced to step in and rescue financial institutions deemed too big to fail.
But that did not "solve" the problem, it merely transfered it from the private to the public sector. For at the heart of the current worries is the one that these Governments can't now service the debts they have taken on. Greece certainly, Portugal and Ireland almost certainly, Spain, Italy, even the U.S. possibly.
This is not Financial Crisis II, but the final reel of Financial Crisis I.
Walter Blotscher
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