MY MUM (2)
My Mum is staying with me this week, having come to be present at my daughter's "translocation" (the ceremony where Danish children leave the sixth form). Now 86, any sort of travel is a bit of an ordeal for her these days, particularly mentally. The physical side is, in many ways, a lot easier for old people, since there is someone to help you on both the railways and through Stansted Airport. But there is always a risk that it doesn't work out as planned, I suppose.
We had a pretty gentle day today, not least because it was tipping down with rain. So I gave her a private sitting at the local cinema. She watched the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a lovely film about pensioners decamping to India, which seemed appropriate. Then this evening we watched the England - Italy football quarter final. She thought that Italy deserved to win, which was a fair comment, even if she is not really a sports fan.
We'll try to take things easy this week, since she gets tired. But there's always Wimbledon to make her relaxed; tennis is the one sport she really likes.
Walter Blotscher
Sunday, 24 June 2012
Friday, 22 June 2012
FOOTBALL AND ECONOMICS
I suspect that a lot of people, and not just Greeks, were hoping that Greece would upset Germany in their Euro 2012 quarter final this evening, particularly since Angela Merkel was present at the game. But although the Greeks equalised after an hour or so, the outcome was never really in doubt, and a 4-2 result fairly reflected Germany's superiority. As in economics, strength in depth matters.
Walter Blotscher
I suspect that a lot of people, and not just Greeks, were hoping that Greece would upset Germany in their Euro 2012 quarter final this evening, particularly since Angela Merkel was present at the game. But although the Greeks equalised after an hour or so, the outcome was never really in doubt, and a 4-2 result fairly reflected Germany's superiority. As in economics, strength in depth matters.
Walter Blotscher
Thursday, 21 June 2012
SEX DISCRIMINATION
Denmark puts a lot of weight on the equality of the sexes, notably in the job market. But results don't always end up equal.
Research shows that women are moving to the cities, leaving men behind in the rural areas. In the suburbs of Copenhagen, the ratio of women to men of working age (15-64) is more than 106 : 100; while in parts of West and North Jutland, it can be as low as 90 : 100. On the southern islands such as Ærø, it is even lower.
"So what?" you might say. But if you are a man, you ought to be worried. Because the areas where there are a preponderance of men are also the areas which have above average mortality. Basically, there are fewer doctors and other healthcare providers in these areas; and men tend to go to the doctor much less often than women. These factors, combined with men's lower life expectancy, result in poorer health.
I live in a kommune which has 94-98 women for every 100 men, and above average mortality. Something to ponder as I pedal on my bicycle.
Walter Blotscher
Denmark puts a lot of weight on the equality of the sexes, notably in the job market. But results don't always end up equal.
Research shows that women are moving to the cities, leaving men behind in the rural areas. In the suburbs of Copenhagen, the ratio of women to men of working age (15-64) is more than 106 : 100; while in parts of West and North Jutland, it can be as low as 90 : 100. On the southern islands such as Ærø, it is even lower.
"So what?" you might say. But if you are a man, you ought to be worried. Because the areas where there are a preponderance of men are also the areas which have above average mortality. Basically, there are fewer doctors and other healthcare providers in these areas; and men tend to go to the doctor much less often than women. These factors, combined with men's lower life expectancy, result in poorer health.
I live in a kommune which has 94-98 women for every 100 men, and above average mortality. Something to ponder as I pedal on my bicycle.
Walter Blotscher
Wednesday, 20 June 2012
ACCOUNTING
The good thing about accounting is that accounts should balance, down to the final penny. The bad thing about accounting is that if they don't balance, even if only by a penny, then you have made a mistake.
I thought about that a lot this morning as I redid the accounts for the local cinema. Two major changes took place on 1 January this year; the cinema got a new person to do the accounts, and it also got a new accounting programme, which is much more up to date and user-friendly. The problem caused by the two changes was that the year-end results and adjustments for 2011 had to be manually put into the new system by the person managing the transition (i.e. me). This took some time, but eventually it was done, and off we went with the new system.
Then disaster struck. I got a panic-stricken sms from the new accountant last week, saying that the new accounts had somehow "disappeared". Exactly how this happened has not been revealed; but it meant that all those results and adjustments had to be reinserted into the new programme, with the added complication that it is now more than five months after the event and memories are fading fast.
Still, nothing like a challenge. And I am pleased to be able to report that I got everything to balance in the end, down to the last penny (well, øre). We are back on track.
Walter Blotscher
The good thing about accounting is that accounts should balance, down to the final penny. The bad thing about accounting is that if they don't balance, even if only by a penny, then you have made a mistake.
I thought about that a lot this morning as I redid the accounts for the local cinema. Two major changes took place on 1 January this year; the cinema got a new person to do the accounts, and it also got a new accounting programme, which is much more up to date and user-friendly. The problem caused by the two changes was that the year-end results and adjustments for 2011 had to be manually put into the new system by the person managing the transition (i.e. me). This took some time, but eventually it was done, and off we went with the new system.
Then disaster struck. I got a panic-stricken sms from the new accountant last week, saying that the new accounts had somehow "disappeared". Exactly how this happened has not been revealed; but it meant that all those results and adjustments had to be reinserted into the new programme, with the added complication that it is now more than five months after the event and memories are fading fast.
Still, nothing like a challenge. And I am pleased to be able to report that I got everything to balance in the end, down to the last penny (well, øre). We are back on track.
Walter Blotscher
Tuesday, 19 June 2012
HOUSE OF LORDS REFORM
Many people (not just me) might think it odd that, when most European countries are experiencing the most difficult economic situation in a long long time, the U.K. coalition Government has chosen to spend time reforming the House of Lords, the upper chamber of Parliament.
Let's be honest, if the House of Lords did not exist, then you would not invent it. Its origins, as the name suggests, go back to the earliest days of Parliament in the fourteenth century, when the nobility (the Lords) met separately from the representatives of the middle classes (the Commons). Although during the Civil Wars of the 1640's between King and Parliament, the Lords were generally on the royalist side, they were not uniformly so. And when peace was restored, both houses retained their importance. Indeed, for most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the British Prime Minister was just as likely to be a peer as a commoner.
The crucial battles between the two chambers came in the years just before the first world war. After a series of skirmishes between the Liberal Government and the (Conservative-dominated) House of Lords, the Lords vetoed the 1909 finance bill based on the Government budget. This broke a long-standing convention that the Lords would not stand in the way of money bills, the traditional remit of the Commons, and was justified on the grounds that the budget did not reflect the will of the people. The Liberals tested that theory by holding a general election in January 1910; and although they did badly, they retained a majority thanks to the support of Irish nationalist M.P.'s. The budget was duly passed.
After that exhausting dispute, the Liberals decided to assert the supremacy of the Commons once and for all. A Parliament Act was introduced, which would do just that. Again it was rejected by the Lords, after tortuous discussions in joint committees. Again there was a general election, this time in December 2010; the outcome was pretty much unchanged. The King was then persuaded to say that if the Lords continued to defy the Commons on the Parliament Act, then he would create as many Liberal peers as necessary to get it through. The Lords backed down and the Parliament Act became law in the summer of 1911. Since then, the Lords have had no power over money bills; other public bills, generally those mentioned in the Queen's Speech setting out the Government's legislative programme, can not be vetoed indefinitely, but they can be delayed by up to two years.
The main effect of the Parliament Act was to make the Lords an advisory and amending, as opposed to a deciding, chamber. And in my view, it worked pretty well. Sure, there were a load of hereditary peers, whose only right to be there was an accident of birth. But there were also life peers, people who had been given a title. Some of those people were extremely knowledgeable on certain subjects, so it sometimes made a lot of sense to have them suggest amendments and improvements to bills put forward by hot-headed political zealots in the Commons. Bills which potentially affected everybody in the community - social care, for instance - were sometimes introduced in the Lords first, for that very reason.
So, the Lords became - in democratic terms - an anomaly. On the one hand, it was the guardian of democracy (notably under Margaret Thatcher, who was opposed more by the Lords than by the Commons); on the other, it was completely undemocratic itself. A curiously British solution.
There's a lot to be said for the saying "if it ain't broke, then don't fix it". Tony Blair, anxious to promote constitutional reform along with devolution to Scotland and Wales, decided that the Lords needed reforming. The obvious answer, if you were going to reform seriously, was to abolish the hereditary peers and have some sort of election for the whole house, making the Lords similar to other second houses in other countries. But that is not what happened. The 1999 reform got rid of most of the hereditary peers, except for 92 (I don't know where that precise number came from) as part of a reduction in the size of the house from 1,330 to 669; nothing was said about elections. Ten years later, Gordon Brown's Government put forward proposals to get rid of the remaining hereditaries, but it did not have time to implement them before it lost power.
And so here we are today, with a few hereditaries, a lot of life peers, and still no elections. Within the coalition Government, the Liberal Democrats, long-time experts on constitutional matters, are itching to put in place the comprehensive reform that (in their view) should have taken place long ago. In other words, an elected second chamber, as happens elsewhere. The Conservatives, on the other hand (and possibly the Labour opposition, though nobody is quite sure), are more sceptical. Although they accept that the current system is hard to defend, they worry that a fully elected House of Lords will become assertive, and aim for equal weight with the Commons, as (say) the Senate does with the House of Representatives in the United States. That would go against the history of Parliament, and in particular the Commons' victory by way of the Parliament Act.
So, difficulties for the Coalition, and difficulties for the two major parties. But at the end of the day, does it really matter to the man on the Clapham omnibus? I would say, probably not, but it should. I would not have reformed the Lords in 1999 in the way it was done; and I would not do it now, because the timing is all worng. The way forward in my view would be for each party to include a proposal in their election manifestos for the next general election, and have the resulting Government implement a comprehensive reform at that time. However, I also predict that that is precisely what will not happen.
Walter Blotscher
Many people (not just me) might think it odd that, when most European countries are experiencing the most difficult economic situation in a long long time, the U.K. coalition Government has chosen to spend time reforming the House of Lords, the upper chamber of Parliament.
Let's be honest, if the House of Lords did not exist, then you would not invent it. Its origins, as the name suggests, go back to the earliest days of Parliament in the fourteenth century, when the nobility (the Lords) met separately from the representatives of the middle classes (the Commons). Although during the Civil Wars of the 1640's between King and Parliament, the Lords were generally on the royalist side, they were not uniformly so. And when peace was restored, both houses retained their importance. Indeed, for most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the British Prime Minister was just as likely to be a peer as a commoner.
The crucial battles between the two chambers came in the years just before the first world war. After a series of skirmishes between the Liberal Government and the (Conservative-dominated) House of Lords, the Lords vetoed the 1909 finance bill based on the Government budget. This broke a long-standing convention that the Lords would not stand in the way of money bills, the traditional remit of the Commons, and was justified on the grounds that the budget did not reflect the will of the people. The Liberals tested that theory by holding a general election in January 1910; and although they did badly, they retained a majority thanks to the support of Irish nationalist M.P.'s. The budget was duly passed.
After that exhausting dispute, the Liberals decided to assert the supremacy of the Commons once and for all. A Parliament Act was introduced, which would do just that. Again it was rejected by the Lords, after tortuous discussions in joint committees. Again there was a general election, this time in December 2010; the outcome was pretty much unchanged. The King was then persuaded to say that if the Lords continued to defy the Commons on the Parliament Act, then he would create as many Liberal peers as necessary to get it through. The Lords backed down and the Parliament Act became law in the summer of 1911. Since then, the Lords have had no power over money bills; other public bills, generally those mentioned in the Queen's Speech setting out the Government's legislative programme, can not be vetoed indefinitely, but they can be delayed by up to two years.
The main effect of the Parliament Act was to make the Lords an advisory and amending, as opposed to a deciding, chamber. And in my view, it worked pretty well. Sure, there were a load of hereditary peers, whose only right to be there was an accident of birth. But there were also life peers, people who had been given a title. Some of those people were extremely knowledgeable on certain subjects, so it sometimes made a lot of sense to have them suggest amendments and improvements to bills put forward by hot-headed political zealots in the Commons. Bills which potentially affected everybody in the community - social care, for instance - were sometimes introduced in the Lords first, for that very reason.
So, the Lords became - in democratic terms - an anomaly. On the one hand, it was the guardian of democracy (notably under Margaret Thatcher, who was opposed more by the Lords than by the Commons); on the other, it was completely undemocratic itself. A curiously British solution.
There's a lot to be said for the saying "if it ain't broke, then don't fix it". Tony Blair, anxious to promote constitutional reform along with devolution to Scotland and Wales, decided that the Lords needed reforming. The obvious answer, if you were going to reform seriously, was to abolish the hereditary peers and have some sort of election for the whole house, making the Lords similar to other second houses in other countries. But that is not what happened. The 1999 reform got rid of most of the hereditary peers, except for 92 (I don't know where that precise number came from) as part of a reduction in the size of the house from 1,330 to 669; nothing was said about elections. Ten years later, Gordon Brown's Government put forward proposals to get rid of the remaining hereditaries, but it did not have time to implement them before it lost power.
And so here we are today, with a few hereditaries, a lot of life peers, and still no elections. Within the coalition Government, the Liberal Democrats, long-time experts on constitutional matters, are itching to put in place the comprehensive reform that (in their view) should have taken place long ago. In other words, an elected second chamber, as happens elsewhere. The Conservatives, on the other hand (and possibly the Labour opposition, though nobody is quite sure), are more sceptical. Although they accept that the current system is hard to defend, they worry that a fully elected House of Lords will become assertive, and aim for equal weight with the Commons, as (say) the Senate does with the House of Representatives in the United States. That would go against the history of Parliament, and in particular the Commons' victory by way of the Parliament Act.
So, difficulties for the Coalition, and difficulties for the two major parties. But at the end of the day, does it really matter to the man on the Clapham omnibus? I would say, probably not, but it should. I would not have reformed the Lords in 1999 in the way it was done; and I would not do it now, because the timing is all worng. The way forward in my view would be for each party to include a proposal in their election manifestos for the next general election, and have the resulting Government implement a comprehensive reform at that time. However, I also predict that that is precisely what will not happen.
Walter Blotscher
Sunday, 17 June 2012
GREECE (8)
My last post on Greece got me into trouble with one of my regular readers; I was accused of sloppy thinking. Yet my prediction that a) the previous election would not result in a Government, so b) there would be a new election, in which c) the Greek electorate would "sullenly" give New Democracy/Pasok a narrow Parliamentary majority, turned out to be spot on. In the second election today, the two parties increased their total seats in the 300-strong Parliament from 149 to 162, enough to form a coalition. New Democracy, as before, bagged the extra 50 seats given to the winning party, and increased their total by 21; Pasok continued to slide, losing 8.
I also think that sullen was a pretty good description. As a percentage of the vote, Pasok/ND got 42% between them, which is hardly a ringing endorsement of their pitch to back the bail-out. Furthermore, the abstention rate rose from 34% on 6 May to 40% today, which suggests a certain apathy or disgust with the whole political process. The big winner was the left-wing Syriza party, which had campaigned on the (in my view, fanciful) policy that Greece could both stay in the euro and tear up the existing bail-out deal. They came second with 27% of the vote, and increased their representation from 52 seats to 71. Fringe parties on both the right and left were the big losers.
Because of their lukewarm support, Pasok/ND are talking about trying to renegotiate the terms of the bail-out. Headgirl Angela Merkel has already said publicly that this isn't on, and I suspect that she means it. Any concessions made to the new Greek Government will be cosmetic. There will be no alternative to the austerity medicine prescribed by the Germans.
Walter Blotscher
My last post on Greece got me into trouble with one of my regular readers; I was accused of sloppy thinking. Yet my prediction that a) the previous election would not result in a Government, so b) there would be a new election, in which c) the Greek electorate would "sullenly" give New Democracy/Pasok a narrow Parliamentary majority, turned out to be spot on. In the second election today, the two parties increased their total seats in the 300-strong Parliament from 149 to 162, enough to form a coalition. New Democracy, as before, bagged the extra 50 seats given to the winning party, and increased their total by 21; Pasok continued to slide, losing 8.
I also think that sullen was a pretty good description. As a percentage of the vote, Pasok/ND got 42% between them, which is hardly a ringing endorsement of their pitch to back the bail-out. Furthermore, the abstention rate rose from 34% on 6 May to 40% today, which suggests a certain apathy or disgust with the whole political process. The big winner was the left-wing Syriza party, which had campaigned on the (in my view, fanciful) policy that Greece could both stay in the euro and tear up the existing bail-out deal. They came second with 27% of the vote, and increased their representation from 52 seats to 71. Fringe parties on both the right and left were the big losers.
Because of their lukewarm support, Pasok/ND are talking about trying to renegotiate the terms of the bail-out. Headgirl Angela Merkel has already said publicly that this isn't on, and I suspect that she means it. Any concessions made to the new Greek Government will be cosmetic. There will be no alternative to the austerity medicine prescribed by the Germans.
Walter Blotscher
Saturday, 16 June 2012
PROPERTY IN DENMARK
Denmark had a property boom during the noughties. Prices, particularly in Copenhagen, rose spectacularly; though they would still seem low by (say) U.K. standards. And when the financial crisis hit, the property market nosedived. Particularly out here in the countryside, there are lots of For Sale signs, as I saw on my recent pilgrimage.
New data released this week show just how depressed the property market is. One in ten of all house sales at the moment is due to a repossession; and on Zealand outside of Copenhagen, the figure is a staggering 27%.
The overhang of properties trying to be sold will take a long time to work its way through the system. This financial crisis still has a long way to go.
Walter Blotscher
Denmark had a property boom during the noughties. Prices, particularly in Copenhagen, rose spectacularly; though they would still seem low by (say) U.K. standards. And when the financial crisis hit, the property market nosedived. Particularly out here in the countryside, there are lots of For Sale signs, as I saw on my recent pilgrimage.
New data released this week show just how depressed the property market is. One in ten of all house sales at the moment is due to a repossession; and on Zealand outside of Copenhagen, the figure is a staggering 27%.
The overhang of properties trying to be sold will take a long time to work its way through the system. This financial crisis still has a long way to go.
Walter Blotscher
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