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Archive for the ‘Economies’ Category

I have just spent almost 4 weeks away from home visiting my 86 year old Uncle who lives in Washington State on the West Coast of the USA. Because his most convenient airport is Portland just across the Columbia River, it means using a connecting flight from Heathrow and that all adds up to a long day going both ways.

But that said, I had a great time and some interesting ideas came out of it all which I will continue to explore and bring to fruition over the next few months but there is one realisation that I thought I might nail down right now…

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Although I often find even the European edition of Time magazine, far too “American” in terms of its content, from time to time, there are some really excellent articles and this past weekends edition is a case in point particularly with regard to Defence Spending. Entitled “How to Save a Trillion Dollars”, it is well worth reading: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2065108,00.html

Those who know me, might well say that I liked this article because it accords with many of the views I have been expressing and particularly with regard to Aircraft Carriers for some years now. However, I would suggest that it is far more than that because throughout history, there comes a moment in time when military thinking needs a radical overhaul, I would suggest that we have reached that point right now.

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Having recently got involved in another waste of time argument about the EU with overseas readers who commentate on the Economist discussion boards and find it impossible to understand why many in the UK want out and from there…It is all a total waste of energy.

However, the useful thing that sometimes emerges from these things is the opportunity to rationalise your own thinking and concentrate on the core reasons for why you hold the opinions you do. Sometimes, your “object”, in my case the EU, is little more than a token for the real problem, something that represents an ‘obstacle’ to solving real world problems but of itself, is probably just not that important.

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I notice that now the daylight hours are drawing out, Dawn comes slightly earlier, the Earth stirs again and interestingly, so do some ‘thinkers’ in the Media about our technical ‘tomorrow’, my first example being : http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/adrianhon/100006362/soon-you-wont-need-permission-to-make-films-set-up-tv-channels-publish-books-or-try-out-inventions-no-wonder-the-old-industries-are-scared/

But there is something as fascinating in this link from the Economist : http://www.economist.com/node/18114221

These are exciting times…

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Christmas really loses its charm once your children have passed the age when their presents change from “Yuletide Treats of Delight” to a list of the latest “Consumer Goodies” they want which certainly takes place by the time they become teenagers.

Also this year, freak weather saw the Town covered in heavy snow and whilst you may say, “No surprise there then !” in a sense, it is because we have a bit of a micro-climate around Bridgewater Bay so that bad weather normally passes to the North and South of us and snow events when they happen, tend to be 48 hours and gone, this was very different.

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The Economist is one of the most “Pro-Eu/Euro publications I have ever seen, all no doubt justified upon an idea of their “readership constituency” – all business, selfish etc. But today, they published a series of interesting articles with regard to the current crisis in the Euro Zone and explained quite well, the difficulties facing any country that wanted to withdraw from it.

http://www.economist.com/node/17629661/

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There seems to be a general assumption that “The West” is in a terminal decline and that the “Power Base” for the future will inevitably be centred on China and India. Evidence for this is pointed to in both the outcome of the US Mid-Term elections and the UK and France rather hastily, it seems signing defence treaties on sharing Aircraft Carriers, other military assets and nuclear weapons research.

But a “Decline of the West…” I’m not sure that is correct because I don’t think that it is that simple. I would agree that the US Mid-Term results and the Anglo-French Treaties do represent an all too obvious loss of national certainty and self-confidence by the countries involved. Following the virtual collapse of our financial system of recent times, the “Capitalist System” that defeated Communism, a bit of humility would seem appropriate along with the realisation that nothing is a universal panacea and change is the only constant.

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As yet another major EU Summit is upon us, there is the usual uproar in the right wing British Press about ‘loss of sovereignty” and EU Budget increases, on the whole I agree with much of the sentiments, the EU is a crock of shit. However and oddly, I’m starting to see it increasingly as less of a threat to us in the UK because I suspect that it is crumbling and like the Hapsburg Empire, will before long be but a thing of the past.

Will it leave a legacy ? Perhaps in terms of a very reduced Eurozone based around Northern European countries that can be “trusted” by the Germans not to “Go Greek” on them. There is a very interesting article on the BBC site by Gavin Hewitt that is worth a read : http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/gavinhewitt/2010/10/unpopularity_and_the_eu.html

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Obviously the Sunday Papers continue to mull over the details of last week’s Spending Review and the impacts of each announcement. In one of those wonderful bits of schizophrenia that the great British Public are capable of, whilst Labour has bounced above the Coalition in the opinion polls, the majority of people agree that the Government is right on its cuts policies, ho hum.

However, with four and a half years to run, the current opinion polls are not really that relevant, what happens over that period alone, is. But our current situation can really be summed up as one of those jokes about asking directions and being told: “Well, I wouldn’t start from here…”

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As someone who reads the newspapers online, today’s headlines concerning all the budget cuts have been quite amusing if not to say a little disingenuous. It is impossible for anyone to project what the outcomes of the spending reviews and cuts will be in terms of, “Does it solve the problem or will it of itself cause further problems in the future ?”

The equation is very simple. If government spending is too high then basically that spending must be cut by the same percentage that it is too high compared with government revenue. But in dealing with it, there are really only two options either cut expenditure on things like social security and public service jobs (the software) or/and cut any capital projects that the government might pay for be it in civil engineering, infrastructure or defence (the hardware)…

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