If it's good enough for us ...

From The Telegraph:

In August, the Government converted £3bn of its loan to Northern Rock into equity to bolster its core tier 1 capital ratio, which had slipped to the dangerously low level of 2.9pc. The Government may have to inject "£2bn pounds to £3bn more," into Northern Rock, a source close to the Government has told The Daily Telegraph.

Fine. In the grander scheme of things, it shouldn't make much difference in the long run whether you invest in a bank as shareholder or bondholder, and the taxpayer is both in this instance. But as I have pointed out before, debt-for-equity-swaps are the only sensible way to sorting out the banking 'crisis'. If the gummint is cheerfully swapping our loan for equity, why isn't it asking all bondholders to do the same?

Observation of the decade

Right at the end of a fine article titled "House builders' write downs could rise to £13 bn" in ContractJournal.com:

The FT explains that the £13.3bn write-off outlined by Merrill would exceed the £11.3bn of pre-tax profit reported over the past decade... “You have to question whether house builders delivered any added value by building houses as opposed to just reaping profits by sitting on their land banks. Until the whole write-down exercise is over, we won’t know.”

Regular readers of this 'blog will be well aware that land values fell by about three-quarters between 1988 and the mid-1990s. I see no reason to assume that it will be any different this time around, possibly worse as we appear to be starting from a much higher level.

Observation of the week

Mr. Lilley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Given that we are passing the Climate Change Bill, which is based on the supposition that the climate is getting warmer, let me point out that it is now snowing outside, in October.

The only MPs who voted 'No' to this tomfoolery were: Christopher Chope, Peter Lilley and Andrew Tyrie. Tellers for the Noes were Ann Widdecombe and Philip Davies. A fairly unsavoury bunch, by my standards, but at least they have retained some semblance of sanity.

Disappointingly, UKIP MP Bob Spink voted 'Yes'.

The Curse Of Jonah Is Lifted!

Guido Fawkes has documented The Curse Of Jonah in some detail, which appeared to be true. I had assumed, for example, that the success of Team GB at the 2008 Beijing Olympics was in part due to The Goblin King's refusal to attend the opening ceremony.

Just before the final Formula One Grand Prix race this afternoon, ITV broadcast a brief congratulatory message from The Goblin King, at which my heart sank. Presumably they didn't broadcast this in Brazil, because, I am happy to announce, Lewis Hamilton has just managed to win the World Championship.*

* As long as he is not subjected to a post-race penalty, as happened to him after the Belgian GP two months ago. Fingers crossed!

Two days to go ...

In case any of the twenty-seven readers from the USA who are likely to visit this 'blog between now and Tuesday evening* are reading this , I beseech you, in the name of All That Is Unholy, please vote McCain/Palin on Tuesday. Yes, I know that they are awful, but as ever it is a question of The Lesser Evil.

* Per FlagCounter, 3,534 visits over 260 days = 13.6 per day x 2 days = 27.

Adoption joke

Interviewer: So when did you find out that you were adopted?

Adoptee: Well ... [launches into moving and heart-warming anecdote]

Interviewer: Fascinating, fascinating. And how long had your adoptive parents known before they told you?

Pond life

My sister took that photo' with one of those point-and-click digital cameras. I think it is awesome.

The best air race pilot ever

On YouTube (1 min 7 secs).

Via EUReferendum.

Deeply gratifying Google searches (6)

Second out of 379,000.

DoublePlusGood! CSA is now CMEC!

Ho hum.

The Child Support Agency is handing its powers to a new body, after years of complaints over delays, errors and with £3.8bn still owed by absent parents. The new Child Maintenance Enforcement Commission has already said while £2bn may be recoverable, the remaining sum will most likely never be paid.

Dude, WTF? It will be the same useless civil servants, simultaneously persecuting the easy targets (responsible ex-husbands who try and keep in touch with their kids) and turning a blind eye to yer proper Underclass Absent Dad. Who possibly lives with the mother, but discreetly, so's not to endanger the extra money she gets for being single. And then failing to hand the money over to the mother anyway.

But it's not just the civil servants to blame, it's whoever invented the rules on how to calculate the maintenance due. For two kids, absent Dad is supposed to hand over, broadly speaking twenty per cent of his net income, which pushes up the marginal tax rate on a basic rate taxpayer to forty-five per cent. And what if Dad does a bit of overtime? Or takes a few days unpaid leave?

Why don't they just decide a 'fair' flat rate, weekly figure, as in Germany and quite possibly lots of other countries and have done with it? I have been paying, for example €605 a month to my cheating fat bitch of an ex-wife for the last eleven years (and about €300 a month for the three years before that) and that is the end of that, how much I earn or the fact that I have remarried and started again are irrelevant (and rightly so). £50 a week per child seems about right, to be honest.

For sure, women will always whine and say the figure should be higher; men will always moan and say it should be lower. But there again, nobody is forcing women to take the children. If the amount is too low, then women could just let Dad bring up the children and have the pleasure of paying maintenance to him instead, eh?

That's that fixed.

And in future, things like who gets custody and how much the other parent has to pay should be agreed freely between the contracting parties, as explained by Harry Haddock.