Casper Economic and Political blog

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=145132&in_page_id=34&expand=true#StartComments

Monday, April 28, 2008

A family who made a desperate 999 call as axe-wielding burglars broke into their home were kept waiting for hours by police who were ‘too busy to help’.

and this is not an isolcated incidence:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/4367297.stm

Monday, 21 March, 2005, 09:22 GMT
Police ‘too busy’ to check attack
A mother from Notts whose 10-year-old son was allegedly assaulted outside his school claims the police told her they were too busy to deal with the case.

And looking at the comments some other readers posted on metro website, I am despair.

Metro newspaper today (29 april 2008) reported that NHS targets are more about saving money than patients, a nursing leader claimed yesterday.

The health service should focus on patients, not money, said Dr Peter Carter, cheif executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing.

Of course health sevice SHOULD to care more about patient, but given the current model, whether it CAN do that is another matter.  Free healthcare with open borders and rights without obligations will not work, and that is why it is collapsing.  And of course, the doctors and nurses had just demanded a giant payrise (relative to the 2% public sector wage target).  NHS has already sollowed up about £80-90bn  per annum (including PFI etc, probably > £100bn), with many non paying customers (i.e. those who never pay any tax, or very little tax), the reality is that NHS has no choice but to focus on conserving cash and drag on as long as possible its eventual collapse (or close the border and balance out rights and obligations)

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2008/04/23/230392/hsbc-validates-uk-websites-in-face-of-increased-phishing.htm

The bank’s retail division in the UK is using the Extended Validation SSL from Verisign to give its three million online customers reassurance that they are using a genuine HSBC website.

Yes, this will help a bit. But this is no protection against key logger. Just give out random number generating token and we are done (as HSBC Asian operations - Malaysia etc have been doing for a few years.)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/europe/meps-to-keep-audit-of-wage-abuse-secret-814169.html

Voting in Strasbourg yesterday, MEPs not only refused to release of the report but also rebuffed calls from the Ombudsman to publicise the names of the 407 MEPs who are enrolled in a voluntary pension fund, subsidised by the taxpayer, The Independent reports.

The European Parliament pays more than €25,000 (£20,000) a year into the pension funds of the subscribing MEPs, who are required to contribute another €13,860 (£11,100).

All funded by contribution from the members state, which derive the money from..errr.. the tax and you and I paid !

From Tax Payer Alliance newsletter:

Fiona MacTaggart (of Fabian Society) wants YOU to pay MORE inheritance tax. She wants YOU to be allowed only £80,000 of untaxed assets in your lifetime, as set out in the Fabian Society report calling for more Inheritance Tax.

Ms MacTaggart, however, is very rich. She inherited her substantial wealth from her father. Now, with her money safe in her account, she wants to make it even more difficult for you to pass on your wealth should the worst happen.

It’s time we showed these high-taxing hypocrites how wrong they are. Feel free to contact Ms MacTaggart at fiona.mactaggart@gmail.com or here. Tell her the Inheritance Tax hits ordinary people when they are at their most vulnerable. Explain to her how wrong it is for the government to add insult to injury in a time of grief. Let her know how little support there is for this inheritance tax and that you, as a TaxPayers’ Alliance supporter, want to kill the Death Tax!

I am not sure what her motivation is but many uber rich have voice their support for higher income tax or inheritance tax but then donate their wealth to some tax exempt foundations (rather than hand it over to the treasury). Also, if you a very wealthy, if is actually good to have 90% tax around…then one can be sure that there is no inflation and the money in the account will go very far.

Hyprocracy

The following ,extracted from the RBS right issue annoucement - showing the sharp deterioration of prices of the credit products. Mezzanine CDO that was worth 70 cent in a dollar is now only worth 20. Scary.

£ million            Net Exposure  31      Average      Current Estimated     Average              Estimated
                     December 2007 (1)     Price %       Net Exposure (2)     Price %     Write-downs Before
                                                                                                     Tax (3)

ABS CDOs
High Grade CDOs                  2,581          84                  1,608          52                  (990)
Mezzanine CDOs                   1,253          70                    361          20                  (902)

Monoline                         2,547         n/a                  3,174         n/a                (1,752)
Exposures (4)

US Residential
Mortgages
Subprime (5)                     1,292          72                    600          38                  (405)
Alt-A                            2,233          83                  1,007          50                  (666)
Other Non-Agency                   794          94                    660          82                  (100)

US Commercial                    1,809          97                  1,397          83                  (201)
Mortgages

Leveraged Loans
Funded and Unfunded             14,506          96                 12,354          88                (1,250)
(6)

CLOs                             1,386          93                  1,214          87                  (106)

CDS Hedging                                                                                              470

Total Net of CDS Hedging                                                                             (5,902)

Therei is lots of talk about moral hazard nowadays as Fed and BoE take unprecedented steps to save the banks.

Actually… moral hazards happen frequently in our day to day life and frequently, in moment of weaknesses, we encourage it.  It takes a lot of thinking to do the right thing and remember that Warren Buffet refused to bail out his sister who had lost lots of money from derivative speculation.

For example :

(a) A kids has been playing all summer and now seek help (errr..more like do it for me) for home work that should have been done ages ago

(b) A sibling who have spend all the money on partying and now ask for money to meet monthly expenses

(c) A collegue who had been busy attending glamorous meetings but left his work uncompleted towards a deadlines..

Life is not exactly simple…

This is a Message received from a friend:

I don’t know what you guys are paying for petrol… but here in Durban, we are also paying higher, up to 47.35 per litre. But my line of work is in petroleum for about 31 years now, so here are some tricks to get more of your money’s worth for every litre.
Here at the Marian Hill Pipeline, where I work in Durban, we deliver about 4 million litres in a 24-hour period thru the pipeline.
One day is diesel; the next day is jet fuel, and petrol, LRP and Unleaded. We have 34-storage tanks here with a total capacity of 16,800,000 litres.

ONLY BUY OR FILL UP YOUR CAR OR BIKKIE IN THE EARLY MORNING WHEN THE GROUND TEMPERATURE IS STILL COLD. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground, the denser the fuel, when it gets warmer petrol expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening…. your litre is not exactly a litre.
In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the petrol, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products play an important role. A 1degree rise in temperature is a big deal for this business. But the service stations do not have temperature compensation at the pumps.

WHEN YOU’RE FILLING UP, DO NOT SQUEEZE THE TRIGGER OF THE NOZZLE TO A FAST MODE. If you look, you will see that the trigger has three (3) stages: low,middle, and high. In slow mode, you should be pumping on low speed, thereby minimizing the vapours that are created, while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapour return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapour. Those vapours are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you’re getting less worth for your money.

ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT TIPS IS TO FILL UP WHEN YOUR TANK IS HALF FULL. The reason for this is, the more fuel you have in your tank, the less air occupying its empty space. Petrol evaporates faster than you can imagine. Petroleum storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the petrol and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation.
Unlike service stations, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated, so that every litre is actually the exact amount.

ANOTHER REMINDER, IF THERE IS A FUEL TRUCK PUMPING INTO THE STORAGE TANKS, WHEN YOU STOP TO BUY, DO NOT FILL UP - most likely the petrol/diesel is being stirred up as the fuel is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.

Hope, this will help you get the maximum value for your money.
DO SHARE THESE TIPS WITH OTHERS! LET’S SHARE INFORMATION AND BENEFIT ALL, FOR THE BETTER OF MANKIND.

A mother of 45 and a nurse at a Malvern St James Girls School  was sacked after smacking her 10 year old son at home because he swore at her.  The older brother of 15 then took his younger brother and reported the incident to the police.

Result :  The mother was arrested for 3 hours, and then later sacked from the school

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=541948&in_page_id=1770

This is absolute madness. Yops on the streets and no adults dare to touch them.  Yops swear and destroy properties or harm others and then the police are helpless - to a huge part due to reluctances of judges to put these yops in prison (there is no space left in the prison anyway).

Now, a decent middle class parent wanting to ensure her kids grow up on the right path and we have the system kicks in the prevent her from teaching her.

The school probably sacked her for fear of breaching the latest “Vetting and Barring Scheme, which is designed to protect children and vulnerable adults from the risk of harm by employees and volunteers working in care activities”  (implementation now postponed to Oct 09)

The school said:

“In a letter to Mrs Pope explaining the decision to sack her, the school bursar said social services’ decision to place her children on the Child Protection Register under the category of “emotional abuse” cast significant doubt on her suitability to hold her position, and said the school “cannot afford to take any chances.” “The school’s reputation could be significantly damaged in the event that parents or potential parents were to discover that your children are on the Child Protection Register.

As a parent I am despair…

Brown is telling the world in his press conference with the US president Bush that UK has never had it so good, low inflation blah blah blah.

He was also telling the bankers to come clean and disclose all debts.  I seen this respond in daily telegraph and I like it.  The reader said:

“OK Sir. But you first”.