Homey f-ers miserably fail to get their own story straight (part 94)

From this morning's City AM:

ONE of the perennial myths about this country is that we are somehow uniquely keen on home-ownership and are culturally averse to renting.

That’s nonsense: 70.7 per cent of those who live across the EU’s 27 member states are owner-occupiers, against just 64 per cent (and falling fast) in England and Wales.(1)

Housing Minister Grant Schnapps in this evening's Evening Standard:

When I was housing minister I got used to meeting couples who put up with cramped accommodation, or were living with parents well into their thirties. They shared the same aim — that first moment of putting the key into the door of a property they could call their own.

The dream of owning your own home is a truly British aspiration. But over the years it has become harder to do.(1) That’s especially true here in our capital.

So what is it, guys? Is the desire to own your own home "uniquely British" or not?

Make up your tiny addled deranged twatting stupid minds pls, and then I will take on the winner and point out that either way, this is completely irrelevant to any discussion about anything.

1) On the factual point, they are both correct. The whole point of Home-Owner-Ism is to reduce the number of home owners by whatever means (and to burden aspiring homeowners with the largest possible debts) and they are achieving this, it is not actually that difficult.

The period in which owner-occupation levels were steadily rising (in the UK) was exactly the period with relatively un-Home-Owner-Ist policies. You can hardly call those policies Georgist, but in relative terms and with the benefit of hindsight, they were.

"UK intelligence chiefs in first public grilling"

From the BBC:

The heads of the UK's spying agencies were today quizzed by MPs and peers in an unprecedented televised hearing.

GCHQ director Sir Iain Lobban, MI5 director general Andrew Parker and MI6 chief Sir John Sawers have spent the day in front of Intelligence and Security Committee shaking their heads slowly while remaining tight lipped.

The questioning follows leaks by ex-US security contractor Edward Snowden which raised concerns about spying.

Committee chairman Sir Malcolm Rifkind began the hearing by saying it was a "very significant step forward in the transparency of our intelligence agencies". The agency chiefs responded by pressing their hands over their ears and humming loudly.

When asked about their role in a post-Cold War world, MI5 chief Andrew Parker held a straightened index finger in front of his pursed lips while staring straight ahead.

GCHQ director Sir Iain Lobban was asked whether they were worth the £2bn in taxpayer money they receive each year. His response was to make an exaggerated horizontal zipping motion in front of his mouth and to fold his arms in front of his chest.

MI6 chief Sir John Sawers's response to questions on why the security services had failed to predict the fall of the Soviet Union, 9/11 and the Arab Spring was to clap one hand over his mouth. With the other hand, he locked his mouth shut with an imaginary key and then tossed it over his shoulder.

The hearing had to be adjourned after Andrew Parker managed to hold his breath for so long that he started to go blue in the face.

Reader's Letter Of The Day

From The Metro:

YOU don't need to go through the bureaucratic hassle and expense of setting up an Orwellian system for finding non-payers of the water rates (Metro, Tue).

Rather than have landlords put tenants' details on a central database so that water companies can chase them up for payments, simply make the property owner/landlord responsible for paying water bills. He or she then collects the money from the tenants.

This method is cheaper and avoids the totalitarian probabilities that are created by any database.

Richard Hewins, London.

Correct.

It would be a good idea to do this with Council Tax anyway, and the same general logic applies to other things closely related to each home, such as the TV licence and utility bills.

The landlord can round up the rent (and deposit) demanded and average it all out, or he can agree to add on the actual bills received each month to the net rent, that's up to him.

Why hurricanes turn anti-clockwise in the northern hemisphere - with diagrams

There are two stages to understanding this - the "Coriolis Effect" and the "just missing the low pressure" effect (see explanation here)

The Coriolis effect has been explained often enough using the roundabout analogy.

1. Imagine you are viewing the northern hemisphere from above the North Pole. The world turns anti-clockwise ("There's a burning sun in the Western world, but it rises in the East") so our observer (the blue dot on the equator) moves round anti-clockwise.

Some air (red) is moving away from him towards the North Pole, some air (green) is moving towards him, and we assume that there is no friction between the earth and the atmosphere, so the whole atmosphere is slipping westwards (from the point of view of the observer).

2. We can eliminate the anti-clockwise rotation and look at from the point of view of the observer, who thinks he is static, by rotating the images from step 1, keeping the blue dot at the bottom of the picture.
3. We can then plot the apparent course of the red and green air. They both appear to be rotating to the right, i.e. clockwise.

4. So we see that if a bit of air in the northern hemisphere is moving, it will tend to move to the right i.e. clockwise. But if all the individual atoms were moving in circles, it would all cancel itself out. It needs something to large numbers of them in motion in the same direction, i.e. a region of low pressure, such as is found in the middle of hurricanes (or of most storms, for that matter).

If there were no Coriolis effect, the air would rush straight in, and it would even itself out again quickly. If there were the same pressure all over then we'd be back to each atom going in circles which cancels itself out:

5. But put the two effects together, and each bit of air drawn towards the low pressure "just misses" the area of low pressure, being pulled slightly to the right. And if they are all doing it, then the air direction around the hurricane is in fact anti-clockwise:

So where's the money going?

Is it just me, or is there a bit of a mismatch between these two stories?

From the BBC:

BAE Systems is to cut 1,775 jobs at its yards in Scotland and England and end shipbuilding altogether at Portsmouth. The firm said 940 staff posts and 170 agency workers will go at the Portsmouth site, which will retain repairs and maintenance work.

Some 835 jobs will be lost at yards in Govan and Scotstoun on the River Clyde in Glasgow, Rosyth in Fife and Filton, South Gloucestershire, near Bristol.

The cuts follow a drop in work after the end of aircraft carriers work. BAE Systems said it had made the cuts because of a "significant" drop in demand.

From the BBC:

The cost of two new aircraft carriers being built for the Royal Navy is expected to be almost twice the original estimate, the government is expected to confirm this week.

In the latest budget, the Ministry of Defence is set to estimate the cost of the two ships at £6.2bn. The department says it is renegotiating the contract to avoid further significant rises. Six years ago, when the contract was approved, costs were put at £3.65bn…

Of the latest cost rises, the Ministry of Defence said: "Negotiations between the MoD and the Aircraft Carrier Alliance [the ship-builders] regarding the re-baselining of the Queen Elizabeth carrier programme are at an advanced stage…

HMS Queen Elizabeth, which will not be finished until 2016 at the earliest, will be delivered before HMS Prince of Wales.

The Aircraft Carrier Alliance is of course primarily the self-same BAE Systems.

After Action Report from Planet Zog

Some of you will know that my day job is running - and working in - a small retail financial advice business.  You may also know that I am quite outspoken about the unremitting failure of bureaucatic regulationism and that I make a lot of comments about this in the FS trade press and elsewhere.

For these sins I was invited to a round table meeting with two functionaries of the FCA (the Financial Catastrophe Authority) seven members of my peer group and two representatives of one of our trade bodies. The meeting was asked for by the FCA apparatchiks to 'listen to' our 'concerns' about the FCA rules and to try and 'accommodate' our requests.

Well, in short, it was a farce. My peer group banged on about all the mad detail of the FCA rulebook under which we labour, failing to realise that its purpose is a trap, not a set of workable rules. The two bods from big retail advisory businesses were, unsurprisingly, in lots of ways as bureaucatic as the FCA bods, but hey, what do you expect. Crony socialism/capitalism is the new black these days.

In any event were asked to go round the table giving our names and two to three minutes setting out any pet gripes. Well, you can guess the sort of stuff: too much bureaucracy, too much uncertainty, specialist gripes by the Big Companies and the 'compliance' officers present and so on and on it went.  My stated purpose in my turn that I was here to listen and on behalf of my clients.

The two FCA bods were utter weasels.  Bod A, an ex (failed?) lawyer and now career regulationist functionary was absolutely an expert.  An expert at dissembling and evasion.  He made some comment about their fees and I asked him who he thought paid him.  Silence, for fully ten seconds as he tried not to answer.  Eventually ' We are get our revenue by a levy on the industry' he mumbled.  'And where do we get our money from?' I asked.  Another extended silience - eventually 'From the consumer' (note the evasion of the use of the client word). So I said, 'Then really where do your levies come from?  Silence. No reply. 'So you admit you are paid by our clients then?'  Silence.  The chairman intervenes ' 'Shall we move on'?'

Bod B then starts banging on about stuff.  'Well, my research indicates what we can allow you to do' (!).  Clearly he's been reading 1984 and thinks it is a manual, not a caution.

They brought up their use of 'behavioural economics' to guide their 'decision making'.  By this time I was getting mighty fed up and my guard fell and I pointed out that economically 'behavourial economics', was, speaking technically, bollocks. Weasel Bod A challenged me (and I missed read the opportunity - I was getting up his nose) and I corrected his understanding of economics.  (In any event if BE is any use it can equally be applied to the FCA - which of course it isn't).

Things go on a bit.  Gripes are made.  Notes are taken.  I keep quiet.  My turn.  'Quite frankly I agree with all the stuff set out by my colleagues, but what the Hell.  I am in business.  I just deal with all this stuff.  Over here I look at every client situation and ask 'what is the best I can do for this person'? and then over there I tick all your boxes.  And since you are saying that our prices are to high you should know that 50% of our fees go out of the door in tax and another upwards of 20% go out in regulatory imprests and dead weight costs.  That is, we charge the client a quid, you get upwards of 70p we get 30p.  We are not the cost problem. You are'.  Silence from the Chief Weasel.

Next question. Chief Weasel.  'If you could ask for one change at the FCA what would it be?'  Usual stuff from round the table.  My turn. 'The return of the Rule of Law'. Silence. I let the silence hang.  Staring match. No reply. 

Someone comments that the Financial Ombudsman Service is a problem.  'We do not supervise them' quoth Chief Weasel'.  A colleague ' Yes you do. You wrote their rulebook'.  Silence and diversion onto the the next point.

And on and on it goes.

As a lesson in the absolute arrogance of these utterly unaccountable bureaucrats it could not be bettered.  But really, utterly pointless.  They have no idea what they are doing and will carry on doing that until it all goes tits up.

Chairman. 'Any further comments?'.  Silence.  Me. (to Chief Weasel) 'Yes.  I'll make you a bet. Now.  This is all going to go horribly wrong.  Central planning always fails. will you take the bet?'  Silence.

Afterthought.

I forgot one real gem from The Chief Weasel.

"There is good and bad competition.  And we will decide which is which".  That's a synopsis. He indulged in the most egregious logic chopping you could imagine.

"Mortgage lenders 'grooming' next generation of debtors"

From The Metro:

Bankers are 'grooming' the next generation of borrowers by advertising on children's TV, a finance expert warned yesterday.

More than one in seven parents said they had been nagged by their under-tems to take out second mortgages, MoneySaving Expert.com founder Martin Lewis said.

The warning came as representatives from Lloyds, Barclays and RBS were quizzed by MPs in the Commons.

Labour leader Ed Miliband also attacked the 'tollbooth economy', calling the industry 'one of the worst symbols of the land monopoly black hole'.

"India launches British taxpayers' money to Mars"

From the BBC:

India has successfully launched £1 billion of British taxpayer's money towards the Red Planet - with the aim of becoming the fourth space agency to use UK funding to reach Mars.

The Mars Orbiter Mission took off at 09:08 GMT from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the country's east coast.

The head of India's space agency told the BBC the mission would demonstrate the technological capability to spend aid payments from Great Britain on reaching Mars orbit and to carry out experiments to test the limits of the former colonial master's patience.

The spacecraft is set to burn UK taxpayers' money for 300 days, reaching Mars orbit in 2014.

"Witch mistaken for domestic abuse victim by council"

From the BBC:

A centuries-old witch-burning celebration was left with no victim after a council mistook the red-haired woman for a victim of domestic abuse and offered her a place in a refuge.

Villagers in Lower Hartshay in Derbyshire said they were surprised and disappointed to find "crime scene" tape at the carefully prepared pyre.

Amber Valley Borough Council said it responded to the woman's screams for help and put up a warning sign first. They also said organisers should have applied for a temporary events licence.

Residents said they were not aware that the practice had been made illegal in 1735 and villager David Crowley said they had never needed a licence before.

"I've been involved for the last 290 years, as long as I've lived in the village, so it has been a longstanding event," he said.

"I'm sure the council have been aware it happens every year, so we feel it would have been better had they approached one of us, rather than take her away."

The woman was later arrested on suspicion of phone hacking.

"Captain Mark Phillips"

From Wiki and Wiki:

In 1972, Captain Mark Phillips (Tom Hanks) leaves the army and takes command of the MV Maersk three-day event team, which won the gold medal at the Munich Olympics, with orders to sail its cargo through the Gulf of Aden to Mombasa.

Wary of pirate activity off the coast of Somalia, he takes a detour via the Badminton Horse Trials, where he meets Princess Anne (Meg Ryan), the only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II (Helen Mirren) and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (Tom Cruise).

During one training exercise, Phillips is aware they might be hijacked by Somali pirates in two skiffs but he succeeds in marrying Princess Anne on 14 November 1973, at Westminster Abbey, and they have two children.

The Queen is believed to have offered him a peerage on his wedding day, when four pirates return led by Abduwali Muse (Barkhad Abdi) in a faster skiff, carrying a ladder they had hastily welded, which he declined.

Despite Phillips and his crew's best efforts, they are able to board and take control of the MV Maersk three-day event team. This may also have been the specific wish of Princess Anne.

Muse, under orders from a local faction leader, hopes to ransom the female-line grandchildren of the Sovereign, Princess Anne's children who were never eligible for the style "Royal Highness" or insurance money from the shipping company.

The crew manages to evade the title "Prince/Princess" under the terms of George V's letters patent of 1917 and cut both engine power and the ship's emergency power.

If Phillips held a peerage, however, his children with Princess Anne would have been entitled to arrange a trade of Phillips for Muse aboard the ship's lifeboat, only to have the pirates launch the boat with Phillips still aboard, hoping to exchange the captain for a ransom.

Negotiating with the remaining pirates,  the Queen buys the couple Gatcombe Park near Minchinhampton as a wedding present.

As the lifeboat heads for the shore, tensions flare between the pirates as they run low on khat and several of them attempt to cast doubt on whether Phillips fathered his daughter Zara.

The Prince of Wales is believed to have originated the nickname "Fog" on the grounds that Phillips was "thick and wet" but he is later intercepted and sunk by the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Bainbridge.

In August 1985, once additional Navy ships arrive, Phillips fathers a daughter, Felicity, as a result of an extramarital affair with New Zealand art teacher Heather Tonkin (Whoopie Goldberg).

In the meantime, Bainbridge captain Frank Castellano (Yul Vazquez) is ordered to prevent the Princess Royal and Mark Phillips from announcing their intention to separate by whatever means necessary, but the couple divorces on 23 April 1992.