Independence for Scotland?

Scotland is the northern half of the island of Great Britain (why 'Great' Britain?  not because of past imperial glories but to distinguish between Lesser Britain, which is Brittany in France).  It has achieved a fame and character totally out of proportion to its size - barely five million people, a tenth of the population of Britain and a tenth of its economy - but everyone throughout the world knows about kilts, bagpipes and whisky and Scottish food such as shortbread and 'haggis'.  Scottish inventions include the steam engine, tarmac roads, television, the telephone, antibiotics; not to mention Maxwell's discovery of the laws of electromagnetism, without which modern civilisation would not be possible.  Its people speak English with a very distinctive accent and they also have their own ancestral language (Gaelic).  If you go there it does actually feel like a different country.  But - does it deserve independence from the rest of the 'United Kingdom' - comprising at present England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Island? (southern island having of course long since broken away to form its own republic, after centuries of blood and oppression from their supposed unionist compatriots).
Scotland today votes in a referendum on independence.  If it votes 'yes' - and as you have maybe read in the media, the polls are very close, the consequences will be serious, some may say calamitous.  How did it come to this?  A couple of years back, David Cameron considering himself a consummate politician, thought he could scupper the independence movement in Scotland, by offering a referendum which he thought he was certain to win, given that the supporters of independence were in a definite minority.  That was the case until a few weeks ago, when poor tactics by the 'no' to independence campaign, allowed the 'yes' movement to appeal to the heart and emotions of the Scottish people (and by definition, 'yes' always sounds more positive than 'no') so that now the result is too close to call, as they say on TV.  So the whole affair might backfire on Mr. Cameron, and if it does, he will go down in history as the British prime minister who lost half his country.
The domestic debate on this issue centres around the local economy, the national health service etc, but what concerns us at a distance should be the matter of separatist movements around the world, which generally cause great suffering, social disruption, damage to the economy and often leading to armed rebellion, displacement of populations and civil war, with no good end result.  We can think of the Biafran war in Nigeria, the 'tamil tigers' in Sri Lanka, the FARC in Columbia and of course our own abortive Caprivian 'independence' movement, which after fifteen years is still dragging through the courts, and refugees still living in Botswana.
Although the independence movement in Scotland has so far been non violent, it cannot be denied that if it succeeds the consequences will be serious, firstly to Scotland itself, because many of the big businesses and financial institutions there have threatened to move 'south of the border' if Scotland breaks away.  The rest of the UK will be weakened (can for instance the 'less-united Kingdom' retain its permanent seat on the UN security council?) the EU will be weakened, the Western alliance will be weakened, and many countries in the world will be concerned about the 'inspiration' this will give to their own separatist movements, for instance in Spain.
Meanwhile China and Mr. Putin must be quietly smiling at the sight of a western country trying to pull itself to pieces.  China does not tolerate separatists - it is one of their most serious crimes - can you imagine a referendum on Tibetan independence? - and the Ukraine crisis has arisen because Russia considers Ukraine to be a historic and cultural part of itself, so that its move towards the west and the EU is countered as a 'separatist' movement which cannot be countenanced.
Let us hope that sanity prevails and the 'no' to Scottish independence succeeds today.  But either way, damage will have been done.

Investment for dummies

Apologies for any infringement of copyright first of all, as I am sure the above must be a title of a book, or many.

I attended a very pleasant breakfast presentation given by EMH Prescient, the fund managers.  This was informative and featured many formidable looking graphs, a bit much to take in on one sitting.  However I was mainly preoccupied with the thought - why does the ordinary person never seem to make any money on the stock exchange, 'funds' or other 'investments'? 

There is the old joke that whenever there is a big investment conference, the fund managers arrive in their Mercedes and Bentleys, and the clients arrive in their Toyotas.  In question time I referred to my wife's experience as a generic example of an unhappy 'investment' experience  Some ten years ago she had an amount of £60000 (currently about N$ 1 million) to invest.  She had an experienced financial consultant, and bought a few speculative stocks but mostly international blue chips, in hard currency.  The investment was monitored fairly often, but the net result at the end of ten years was that the £60000 had turned into £45000, in fact she would have been far better of keeping her funds under the bed.  At least she didn't lose all her money.  How can this be?

To try to understand this, I met up again with Melanie Allen, the MD of EMH Prescient, to ask the question -what goes wrong with investors and investments, at least when 'amateurs' make them?  Melanie replied that several points must be borne in mind.  Firstly, the investment regulatory environment has been tightened up considerably from a few years ago.  Then, for instance, anyone, a retired teacher or policeman could rent a one roomed office and put a plate on the door saying Financial Consultant.  Now, this is less easy and will soon be legally impossible.

Second, it is impossible for an ordinary person to know all the factors, which can range from technical to financial to political, to the global economy and to subjective public perception, which affect a company's stock price.  Yes, some shares do increase by 10% overnight, but the amateur investor is not going to get that 10% - it is swallowed up by the professionals.  You do need to take the advice of consultants, or spread the risk over a portfolio containing a wide spread of interests.

Third, there is the tendency to think that fields are 'greener' the further away they are.  In other words, they like to invest in international stocks quoted in foreign currencies.  Not only are the factors affecting the stocks price of global corporations even more impenetrable, you run the further risk of being burned by exchange rate fluctuations.  Fourth, investors should be patient and stay with with investment for the medium or long term.  If you have put funds away for a five year period, do not panic over their performance after the first year etc.

Then there is the suspicion that the average person will never show a profit from your investment, because any profits will be eaten up by consultant and fund manager fees.  The answer is that you get what you pay for.  It is cheaper to buy your groceries wholesale, but many people find it a soulless experience trudging around a remote warehouse buying goods in inconvenient packing and quantities.  It is much nicer to go to your local friendly retail supermarket. Of course, rich people can have housekeepers who will choose what is needed and do the shopping for them.  If you wish to go through a 'pyramid' of financial advisers and investment consultants, each of these of course will take their commission.  But you can go straight to a wholesaler such as EMH, select one of their managed funds, and leave it to them.

Demand regular statements on your investment.  Query mysterious fees, like when you take your car for a routine service but the bill contains unexpected extras, or of course a restaurant bill which adds an amount for a tip but which says at the bottom that 'service is not included'.

The baseline goal is to protect your little bit of money from inflation.  Putting your cash under the bed will not help with this - neither will putting it in a bank or post office or bank savings account (how can it - the bank and even the post office must make money out of your savings, so that the interest they give you must be less that your savings' net worth).  But inflation is relative and may differ for every person: if you are into photography and buy a lot of camera equipment, the inflation rate of this is important to you - if you never take pictures this is irrelevant.

Having said all of this, I recall an experiment which was conducted recently in the UK (there have probably been many) where ten expert financial advisers were retained to design a stock portfolio for Mr. Average Investor, over a period of two years.  Then a portfolio was chosen purely at random, maybe with a roulette wheel.  After two years, the random portfolio had performed better than the average of all the expertly chosen stocks.  So there you are.  Personally, I have still some money saved with the Post Office.

The Internet is not making us dumb

There was an article by the journalist Janice Turner a while ago in the London Times.  It was stimulated by the statistic that in Britain the average teenager now spends more time on-line, whether by phone, tablet or even PC, than they do sleeping, or watching TV, and reverts to the venerable question: "Is the internet making us dumb (or dumber)?"    Of course this is an impossible question to research since it would be now totally impractical to create a test group of children without on-line exposure and compare them to a group typical of the iphone and ipad generation.  And anyway how do you define and measure 'dumbness'? 

Rather one presumes this article was a reproach to young people to switch off their devices sometimes, and get out there and 'get a life'.  This may be reasonable in Europe where there is a bewildering choice of sporting, cultural, theatrical, festival activities and movies available more or less 24/7, in every area, and clubs and groups devoted to every interest.

But let us rather consider Windhoek, which has, at time of writing so far as I know, uniquely among the world's capital cities except maybe in Saudi Arabia:

• No movie house (even the small one in Swakop seems to have vanished)
• No Indian restaurant
• No Chinese restaurant (there are a couple of small take-aways)
• No public library (there was one I think, which was refurbished and reopened but was again closed due to enterprising customers coming in the evening and using its secluded corners for sex)
• No specifically child-friendly facilities or activities
• No Sunday newspaper, except for the one imported from South Africa

and think what we (the lucky ones, with network connection) would do without the internet, and how boring life was before its arrival here.  Now we can read whatever international newspaper we want, any day, any time, we can download any music or movie we want (pace DSTV) and watch or listen to it at any time, we can find any of ten of thousands of recipes we would never find in any cookbook, we can post all al pictures online and never lose another photograph, we can keep in touch with any or all of our friends, and tweet our opinions on any subject via the social media (whereas before it could take years to track down an old school friend) play on-line games with anyone in the world, find the most obscure information or quotation with a couple of swipes or clicks (whereas before it might takes days to find an encyclopaedia in a library).

No, for us, the internet is not make us dumb.  We would be exceedingly dumb without it, and giving network access to all our population is a necessity for national development.

The complexity above us

Many of our compatriots, even those or especially those who do not fly and have never flown, must sometimes wonder at the complexity of the skies above us, where thousands of aircraft criss-cross the globe every day (for a stunning animation of this see www.flightradar24.com) without incident or mishap, punctuated only rarely by a foul-up or tragedy.  

This is achieved not only by airframes and jet fuel, but by some of the most sophisticated computer technology and information systems on earth.  Systems that do not just direct and navigate the aircraft, but ensure they do not collide with each other, and find each one a landing slot at the airport of destination,even at airports which handle hundreds of flights per hour.  Long before anyone had heard the word internet, SITA, the airlines technical organisation, had a  communication network and email system which linked the globe.  The first online interactive system was SABRE, developed for American Airlines in the US in the 1960's to automate their reservation system, and thus cater for thousands more passengers and fill their flights more efficiently.  SABRE and other systems still exist, with fiendishly complex yield management systems, which enable anyone with access to a website such as expedia.com to request a journey between the most obscure destinations on the planet, on any required date, and have the best fare displayed within a couple of seconds, to be booked immediately, if desired.

There are  still glitches.  Try to explain why, when my daughter's family were confirmed booked on the 'South African Express' (seemingly not the same as SAA) from Cape Town to Windhoek, and even received an email the previous day inviting them to check in online, they arrived at Cape Town airport at 4.30 am for the 6 am flight, only to be told that not only was the flight cancelled, but the route was cancelled, several months before.  They had bizarrely printed out boarding passes for a non-existent flight.

Of course, there are more serious gaps.  Since a delivery van can have its position tracked anywhere in the country at any time to within a couple of metres, you might assume the same holds for aircraft during their flight.  Surprisingly, this is not so: planes flying over land are tracked by conventional radar, but if they fly long haul over the great oceans, they fly alone.  Any accident will necessitate a long an arduous search on the bottom of the sea for the 'black boxes', which are still basically 1970's recording devices.

This of course brings us to the search for MH370, which has just resumed, at a cost of another US$25m.  What are the chances of finding it now?  It was said that our knowledge of the topography of Mars is some 100 times more accurate than our knowledge of the floor of the Indian Ocean, and the months of delay have been caused by attempts to better map the latter, which at least has scientific value of its own.   

But how difficult will it be to locate the remains of the airliner?  Imagine that South Africa was uninhabited; a lunar wilderness covered with 3000 metre mountain ranges and vast sludge and rock filled valleys and ravines.  Now imagine the whole being submerged in 5000 metres of water.  Now search that for some pieces of aluminium.  What are the chances?  And if they do, what are the chances of discovering the causes of the disaster, especially if due to human factors?

DSTV - one man's struggle

DSTV - 'Doomed from the Start' Television?

(or Multichoice - what is the difference?)

 

One man’s vain struggle against DSTV

 

Is broadcast television a dying medium? 

 

I came back from overseas, to read about the consumer fury with  Multichoice/DSTV, thought it was a bit exaggerated, but found it was my personal problem too, as my decoder, economically put on ‘hold’ during my absence, could not be started again.

In the meantime it seems the whole ‘system’ had been changed, so that all the old accounts had been abolished, most of the facilities changed, services suspended and any payments made had disappeared into a black hole.

Not being able to get through (2705222 I found is the most dreaded number in Namibia), decided to go down to the Multichoice office early the next day.

Before opening time, a queue of despondent subscribers was already forming outside the door, like a Greek unemployment office.  When the office opened, the line moved with glacial slowness.  The minutes dragged by.  A considerate thought is the provision of white chairs for pensioners to sit on while in the queue, and it is rumoured that a Red Cross resuscitation unit will be on hand for anyone who keels over while waiting.  One bright point was the newly reopened coffee bar in the reception area, which plans to run a trolley service up and down the queue offering coffee and cake to sustain the waiting customers.

Finally I got to the head of the queue, where a harassed assistant said that my payment had gone to my ‘box office’ account, though I I had no idea what ‘box office’ was.  (Tip: if you make an online payment to Multichoice, print it out and get a commissioner of oaths to sign it).  Anyway, he said my decoder was now on.

Went home, no TV.  I returned next day to the office (luckily I am semi-retired) and this time asked to see a manager.  They showed me upstairs (why does a place which basically is just to take your money, need such a large building?) and to the public relations manager, an extremely nice lady who  promised to have my service connected straight away, which she did.  I suggested that DSTV should enact one of their programmes Undercover Boss where the general manager of Multichoice in Namibia could disguise himself,  - this might be difficult - and stand in the queue downstairs to record his impressions.

She also promised me an email setting out the precise changed brought about by the new system, which was not forthcoming.  As for the service – that cut off again after three days.

As far as I can tell, although I only heard it from the guy behind me in the queue, that it is no longer possible to put an account on hold, no longer possible to change your ‘bouquet’, and (since the speed point machines were out of order the last time I was in the concourse) not possible to pay by card. 

Economic theorists and philosophers (such as one finds in the queue at Multichoice) opine that the problem lies in the nature of monopoly – Multichoice has no serious competition in Namibia or in many other parts of Africa and there may be some truth in this.  DSTV (Multichoice) now makes the Department of Home Affairs look like an example of swift and friendly customer service.

I solved the problem by borrowing the decoder of a friend who was going away, but the whole situation provided some food for thought.  Is broadcast television a dying medium?  Just like DVD rental shops seem to be vanishing? More and more people are acquiring an internet connection at home – it is no longer the province of the elite. Consider – for N$ 499 per month you can get a good home internet connection with wifi, from Telecom or MTC.  You can get inexpensive Android tablets for less than N$ 1000.  Members of the family can download and watch movies for free (without paying outrageous ‘box office’ fees on top of a N$ 700 subscription, plus charges for multiple accounts).  If you want to watch TV, most modern sets have a USB input, and will play your downloaded movie, watch videos, pictures or slide shows or whatever you want, without again having to fork out to Multichoice.

Maybe DSTV hope to survive until the 573^rd series of Big Brother Africa.  Meanwhile 2705222 continues to give a faint engaged signal, 24/7.

Anyway, if this weekend you have no DSTV, not to worry.  Switch off, go out, and reflect on who you personal hero is, on Heroes’ day.  Have a good holiday.
STOP PRESS.  It's Sunday 7th September and I have just got through on the phone to Multichoice and had my service connected by another very nice lady.  All's well that ends well.

Welcome back

After a very, very long absence I'm blogging again.  This blog will be dedicated to thoughts on Namibia, especially its business personalities, activities and concerns, and will be linked to the site of the Namibia Trade directory (www.namibiatradedirectory.com - not too difficult to find).  The other (maybe I will do and maybe I won't) on personal reflections at www.namiblogger.net.
This is just a test.  Having been away for so long, I'm already getting baffling error messages from Google.  See you tomorrow.

The centenary of a genius:  Alan Turing 1912 - 1954

Alan Turing, without whom the 21^st century as we know it would not have come about, was born  100 years ago this Saturday 23^rd June.  He laid the foundations of computing, and without him, our information dependent civilisation would not have been possible: and the little devices with illuminated window and attached keyboard, which all of us carry around everywhere and on which our lives seemingly depend, would not exist.   Although less known, he stands without doubt beside Newton, Maxwell, Darwin and Einstein as the one of the giants who laid the scientific foundations of our world.

He was born on 23^rd June 1912, grew up in England, showed early signs of mathematical genius, and went to Cambridge University, embarking on an illustrious academic career.

In 1935, long before the construction of any practical computer, Turing published a seminal paper called “On computable numbers”.  This paper was far more than to do with numbers.  It explained what it really meant for a problem to be ‘computable’, i.e. solvable, what an algorithm was, and how information was not just a vague concept but really a definable quantity which could be processed, from an input or question, to an output or final answer.  He proposed a machine, ridiculously simple in principle, which could be built to solve any computable problem.  It consisted just of a long tape containing symbols which embodied the problem.  A reading head travelled along the head, one symbol at a time, reversing direction if necessary, reading each symbol and rewriting it according to the ‘program’ built into the head (like the machines which used to be used for printing plastic labels or name tags).  One of the instructions in the head might be to stop – in which case the program was terminated and the symbols now on the tape constituted the answer to the problem!  This was the famous Turing machine.  A machine could be designed for every problem, as we said.  But wait – a Turing machine could be designed to simulate another Turing machine – in fact, a machine could be designed in theory to emulate all other Turing machines.  This was the universal Turing machine, which could be programmed to solve any computable problem!  In other words, it was the computer! However, tantalisingly at the same time, Turing showed that there are problems, depressingly an infinite number of them, which are insoluble, not just because they are hard, but because it can be proved that they are ‘undoable’ or undecidable.  Computing cannot solve everything!

Turing’s greatest practical achievement during World War II, well known and  documented by movies such as Breaking the Code, was to tackle the German encryption system for their military communications.  This was their Enigma machine, a fiercely complex device which consisted of spinning wheels which transformed one letter into another but on a highly variable basis.  The code proved uncrackable by normal means, and the Allies were unable to decipher encrypted messages sent between German submarines (‘U-boats’), which devastated shipping and supplies sent between Britain and America.  The British government empowered Turing to set up a team of mathematicians and logical specialists who worked at a country house outside London and built the world’s first applied working computer called Colossus.  The enigma code was eventually broken, without which it is very likely that the western allies would have lost the war.  Turing’s contribution, in the world of information, was just as valuable as that of the battlefield generals.

After the war, Turing fell foul of the authorities, not because of any technical failing, but due to the bizarre reason of his homosexuality, which was illegal in Britain at the time.  He was prosecuted and was offered the alternatives of being sent to prison or submitting to a humiliating hormone treatment.  Shortly afterwards he was found dead of cyanide poisoning – it might have been an accident but was generally assumed to be suicide, at the tragic early age of 41,

After Turing’s death, Britain lost its lead in the development of computing machines and the initiative passed to the United States, to such an extent that Turing’s contribution and those of other British pioneers  were nearly forgotten.  The reason for this was simple: whereas the Americans saw computers as systems of huge technical importance and commercial potential, to be promoted by all means, the British saw them as strategic military devices to be kept secret at all costs.  Turing’s discoveries were kept out of the public eye for years under Britain’s Official Secrets Act, and his code breaking computer with all its records was destroyed by official order.  Not until 2009 did the Prime Minister Gordon Brown officially apologise for the treatment meted out to the genius who invented computing and won the world war for his country.

One week is history

Just a week since the iconic raid on Abbottabad and the achievement has become well, iconic, an established milestone in American history and culture, as set in stone, and seeming almost as long ago as the Revolutionary war - the ride of Paul Revere and the crossing of the Delaware - decisive glorious episodes so much better than the messy conflicts of WW2, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq. An incisive, instant, total success with no American casualties - that is what patriotic history needs. The 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the messiest and proportionally bloodiest American conflict of all, the Civil War, has now been quietly shelved.
Of course, in the present age, there are commercial opportunities. Within an hour of Obama's announcement, we hear that a hot entrepreneur had registered the site obamadeadtees.com (nobody had the name before!) and was starting to print T shirts (illustrated) and selling them on the web site. Within 48 hours he had made his first US$ 100 000. The Jihadist had started his career as a millionaire property developer in Saudi, so he would have understood.
But that is the way all the bad guys will end, no matter how bad - as a corpse of course, but their legacy will live on, as a coffee mag and a T shirt.

Sitting up all night trying to finish a load of exam marking:


decided to take a break and flip the news on at 6am.


First TV image was of a cheering crowd in Washington. First thought: had the news of the Royal Wedding just reached America? Had the blessed couple decide to take their honeymoon in the white house (unlikely, since B.O. had not been invited).

No, an immediate cut to Obama in the last part of making his statement (a speech likely to go down in Presidential oratorical history, like the 'day of infamy') announcing that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. After the first moment of amazement, thinking that this had been a lucky strike by a drone or bunker buster bomb on a cave, the revelation that the Great Satan had his own custom built mansion in an urban area of Abbottabad (do they have abbot's in Pakistan?) less than an hour's drive from Islamabad. The networks had a hard time figuring out the exact distance - it's 50 km, not 100 km, 100 miles etc.

This was a massive structure, immovable property if there ever was one, mysterious because although presumably a million dollar residence, had no phone or internet connection, and because persons resembling known members of Osama's family had been seen going in and out! Probably also the house had planning permission applied for under Osama's own name! And within walking distance of Pakistan's most elite military academy. Actually within its security area! No wonder the Americans attacked without telling Pakistan first.

How is it possible that the Pakistani authorities had not been at least dimly aware of their new municipal resident? What does this say about US Pakistani exchange of imformation?
Meanwhile, the triumphalist crowds screaming 'USA' were gathering at 1 am in Washington and at ground zero. Their celebration is in order - even though it took nearly 10 years to find Osama. The removal of a charismatic figurehead is important - and for instance the death of Hitler almost immediately resulted in the collapse of the Third Reich - but al Qaeda is not the Nazi party - it is is a hydra-like organisation virtually independent in every territory it operates.

It should be realised that the 'war on terror' is by no means over - there will be thirst for revenge , and the coming days and weeks will be very dangerous times. The social and political problems in the middle east which gave rise to terrorism have, needless to say, not been addressed.

pic with acknowledgment to BBCnews

SWINE !

I commend you to the feature

in today's FIRST POST - long overdue, which begins to suspect the 'Swine Flu' phenomenon is an invention of the world media - highly infectious and spreading with enormous speed though every available carrier.

Just the name : SWINE FLU is a godsend for the media - 8 characters, perfect for headlines, and evoking a dread plague from those nasty dirty animals. The First Post says the problem is the general public's distrust of the media. Too right. In this and in every other context, we must remember that the media's only objective is to sell readers or viewers to advertisers. That's all they do. Maximising readership or viewership is just a step towards this objective. So any topic which can be blown into a crisis - is exciting or dramatic, which can whip up public indignation, even if no crisis actually exists, consistent of course with keeping the message within the readers' or viewers' mosquito sized attention span, is the thing to go for. That's why the mainstream media of course supported the Iraq invasion - war is exciting, and sells papers.

It helps the story too if the source of the problem is that laughably shambolic country Mexico. But what do we have, on examining the facts. How many people have provably died from the virus, even there. Seven. That's right. That's fewer than the number of people who have been bitten by a snake and then struck by lightning the same day this month in Africa. Has nobody thought that the air in Mexico city has something to do with the monopoly of fatalities there? It (the air) could kill anybody.

We have the ridiculous spokesman from the WHO - yogi bear with a white computer mouse clamped to his ear) - raising the alert to level five, whatever that means. There will be a huge increase in funding for public health organisations, and vast profits for Big Pharma.

The social network sites, especially the aptly named Twitter, promote an exponential ignorant panic.

And for what? But the risk is there, they say, even if it does not materialise. What about the 50 million who died in 1919? Yes, but things are a bit different from 1919. Then, they did not even know what a virus was. They had millions of soldiers crowded together and living in sub-human conditions. Now, we know what the organisms are. We are hopefully rather more settled and organised than in the aftermath of World War I. The disease can be treated. You have less chance of dying of flu than of winning the lottery.

So, worldwide, the enormous flu-scare industry has been re-launched. Hundreds of millions will be spent. On an ailment which, for those without a connection to Mexico, will be no more serious than a day or two of snuffles.

Incidentally, I think that viruses (structurally) are beautiful - a globe surrounded by little protein studs, all arranged, and for ever mutating, to latch on to receptor cells of their host. Maybe my sympathies are with them. (Picture courtesy of wikimedia)

$?$?$?$?$?$?$?$?

Sorry to seem a bit stupid, but can anyone explain to me the difference between:

1. bailing out the banks
2. making funds 'available' to banks
3. buying a stake in the banks
4. guaranteeing the loans between banks
5. buying up the bank's 'toxic' assets

Whatever the differences, they seem to have one similarity: they all cost hundreds of billions. And as these packages are announced one by one in breathless sequence, the German chancellor made the astounding statement that 'no bank would ever be allowed to fail !' (wish I'd taken up banking) And don't national parliaments have to approve this sort of thing, rather than being simply announced by presidents in their rose gardens?)

The stock markets race up and down, and the demented trader lemmings jump off the cliffs one day and sprint all the way up it the next. If prices move less than 5%, it is a really boring day.

What of the $700bn US bailout? That (as of today) is apparently of 'secondary' importance. We have a new package of $250 billion announced (is that part of the original 700, new money, or does it hardly matter?) for buying shares in the banks. Doesn't that announcement kind of affect the share price of the banks fairly insanely? What price is being paid for the shares? What is going to be done with the taxpayers' shareholding? Are all the banks' top brass continuing with the same bonuses and perks as before? Are the banks going to be differently run, maybe changing the previous universal policy of treating their customers with total contempt? That is one question easily anwered.

Latest use for cellular technology
Yup, that's right, to win the War on Terror.


The latest idea, put forward by British consultants, and approved by HM Government as having 'some merit' is to distribute cellphones with cameras (I thought for the past 5 years all cellphones had cameras) so that ordinary Afghan peasants could make their own videos as a counter to Taleban propaganda and post them on the web.
Story on the BBC.
Wonder whether it has occurred to the honourable government that
i) not so many Afghan peasants have internet access and blogger accounts and anyway
ii) most Afghan peasants ARE the Taleban.

File this idea under 'needs more work'.

PS my pic (ack to politicalimpressions.com) was image-googled under Afghanistan - if I had searched under Taleban the FBI spyware secretly but certainly installed on my computer would have put me on the Terror list. More of that tomorrow.

that was telling 'em !!

The bail-out is dead. You can tell that from the immediately following scintillating Bushism: "We will continue to move forward with Congress to develop a strategy of moving forward to solve this problem" or words to that effect (couldn't be bothered to copy and paste them.

Savour the unexpected and delicious moment - a rare instance of people power deflating the vested interest politicians.

Seeing, for me, for the first time, some of America's allegedly most senior politicians up close and speaking, it was a matter of disbelief. How could this incoherent rubbish: Pelosi, the speaker, Franks, the chairman of the so-called Finance committee, be the spokespersons and shepherds of the nation? And of course, the great piece of vegetation himself. There were better, more apposite comments from people in Main Street (actually Memphis Tennessee) who were interviewed straight after.

Oh and of course the entire congress will now take two days off for Rosh Hashona. After which, they will return to work to save the Nation.

Again, why the need for a bail-out? Disaster banks are immediately bought out by slightly better organised banks, and the central banks pour tens of billions every day into the market to improve 'liquidity'. That apparently doesn't need an Act of congress. How much more of a bail-out do they want?

5 trillion

(it's easier to say in our local currency N$ or Rand)

So much to say, so little time. The deal, according to the desperate would-be bailers-out, has to be done by this evening American time, so our Asian friends will be reassured when their markets open. That's decision making at about $10m per second.
Is it the end of capitalism as we know it? Is it the biggest act of state socialism in history? Yes to both.

What is that funny sound you can hear around that cemetary in London? Could it be Karl Marx howling in his grave?

Please check out the magnificent summary in today's Sunday Times

but just a couple of genuine queries from me:

1) Aren't the biggest problems already bailed (or bole, what is the past tense?) : e.g. Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac and the $85 billion for AIG? What else is there? Does the $700 B include the 85 for AIG, or was that just incidental petty cash?
2) Why does the Treasury Secretary in America need unfettered dictatorial power (cannot be challenged by the courts, or anybody) as to how he dishes out the money?
3) Speaking of the markets, is there no better way of running them in future than idiots in clown jackets screaming at each other over a cable-cluttered floor, or weird computer programs suddenly deciding to dump huge amounts of stock without any seeming human supervision? Do stock prices have to go up 9% one day, then crash 10% the next day and so on? What will happen if the $700B is approved/not approved?
3) Does this mean that the US will now not have the cash to invade Iran ?

May we live in interesting times (we do already).

Not Winning



In my time zone, watching a presidential debate means staying up till 3am and most of the local TV channels don't have the rights (I thought they'd actually be paid to carry it).
So generally don't bother, as all the sound bites are of course available later and nothing new anyway.
There was the obligatory intro on the economy and the bailout - neither candidate has a clue what to do about it, but that's OK since not many people would want the responsibility of deciding whether and how to spend $700 B. My only thought is that it is terminally bizarre that a bunch of Wall St. bankers succeeded in doing what Bin Laden and the entire Soviet Union failed to do - bring the US economy to its knees.

Anyway, only to comment on the inevitable claim by McCain the no-brain that the war in Iraq is being 'won'. No. Wars in the Middle East are never won, least of all by foreign crusading forces. Sure, despots can be overthrown, armies can be routed, and even insurgencies - temporarily - squashed. But the wars are never won - they simple create a whole new batch of traumatic circumstances and bloody problems for the next generation; or sooner than that.
And as for Afghanistan - yes, 'we' - the US and NATO are doing the right thing, at least in the time we are not bombing wedding parties, and we are reversing actions of the Taleban when they were in power (specifically, reversing the Talebans' success in stopping the poppy trade). We are the good guys and the Taleban are the bad guys. But unfortunately, the Taleban will win because it is their country and not ours. The West (including Russia) has tried to conquer Afghanistan maybe ten time in the last 200 years, each more catastrophically than the last. Read the books.
Specifically, read the legendary (but still remarkably still living) Robert Fisk's Great War for Civilisation. It'll take you a year, so it's good value.

God Keeping His secrets?

Barely a day after being switched on, the large hadron collider suffered a glitch - a contact overheated, a magnet melted (serious when it's supposed to be operating at 2 degrees above absolute zero), and a tonne of coolant - liquid helium, at the surprisingly low price of $5 per litre, spilled. Sort of like when the fan belt broke on my car, on a larger scale.

The trouble, is when you have the world's largest machine, it's not enough to have the world's best physicists in attendance, you need the world's best engineers and mechanics as well, lots of them. I don't think eggheads on their own can manage something as complicated as this.

Environmentally, I'm also slightly worried about the huge use, and wastage of helium. This is the quintessential non-sustainable resource - it is an inert rare gas, impossible to manufacture outside of nuclear fusion reactions, and found only in a few spots on earth as a by-product of million-year radioactive decay. At a rate far greater than fossil fuels, it is being consumed faster than it is made. Its most important use is as the ultimate coolant - but it is used mostly trivially for balloons at children's parties. When the ballons burst, the helium floats out of the atmosphere for ever. Why can't hydrogen be used for this? It is admittedly explosive, but that has the added benefit of blowing some rich kids up.

Anyway, from a small problem, to a day or two's delay, to a stoppage of a month or so - and now the system won't be up until next year. A small voice sounds: what if this huge and expensive machine (very cheap of course compared with the 'bailout') - never works again? Is Higgs (one of the 999 names for God) keeping his secrets well guarded ?

Of particles

and pit-bulls

On Wednesday even Google deferred to the switch-on of the LHC with a nice circular graphic. A stunning achievement, first of all in engineering – the largest machine ever built, and then the unfolding science. Unfortunately, none of the major news media including the BBC employ any journalist with so much as a sixth grade in physics, so we get some rather uninformed populist comment. “$4 billion spent, and if there are no answers, that will be end of this rubbish”. Much God-pumping as well. The idea of front-line fundamental research is that there are no answers, or rather than any ‘answer’ obtained will raise at least two further and more interesting questions. Much scoffing that that the Higg’s won’t show up. Wouldn’t be surprised. Lots of other things will.

Of course there has been some journalistic jealousy from the US side, about this European experiment. Swiss cows grazing around down-at-heel suburban buildings etc. Well, the Americans could have had their own supercollider in Texas in the 1990’s. It was cancelled, ostensibly over expense, although $2bn would be a drop in the ocean compared with defence spending. No, I think the more likely reason was pressure from the creationists.

Which brings us to the Republican candidate for VP, the lady no one had heard of a month ago – the mayor of a 5000 strong town in the territory sold by the Russians in 1867 for a few $$ as being totally useless, and who then, due to the shambolic state of Alaskan politics, somehow captured the Governorship. Anything is possible there, because Alaska is a very freaky as well as very beautiful place. Foreign policy experience, or for that matter ever been out of Alaska? Yes, once to the US mainland to meet J Mc, once to Canada, and er,.. you can see Russia from one of the islands. Yes, this is the sparsely populated Chiotka peninsula, as far from Moscow as what New York is, as someone noted, whose governor, bizarrely, is the Russian oleobillionnaire Ramon Abromovitch, the owner of Chelsea football club. A neighbourly meeting between him and the now household word of Governor Palin would be irresistable. Even more if, after his mandatory stint as Prime Minister is done, President Putin assumes the reins again. The world, as the Putin and Palin show?

A disastrous decision or a masterstroke? Unfortunately the latter. An ignorant and isolationist creationist? An insult to America’s allies? Yes and yes, but these are sure winners in a US election. Because voters want candidates to be one of them – ignorant, isolationist etc etc. Terrifying smugness and self-assurance, behind those Heirich Himmler glasses? Yes. Answers to interviewers' questions on world politics, reminiscent of the 'answers' of a beauty pageant contestant? Of course, because that's what she was. But that's exactly what's needed - the US election (and many others) are beauty pageants. (Pres. Sarcozy?)

As the man on the UK 'First Post' e-papter noted: Ignorant candiates who don't panic have nothing to fear.

Impossible to go from a (very) small town mayor to President in a couple of years? What about Grover Cleveland, who went from mayor of Buffalo to governor of New York state, to President in less than three years, admittedly in 1882. Also, the comparison breaks down since he was a Democrat, pledged to root out small and (large) town corruption. A ridiculous idea? What about the derision when it was first suggested that Ronald Reagan might run for the Presidency?

A brilliant tactical choice – as Palin mania sweeps the country, Obama is already on his was to becoming no more than an interestingfootnote in American history. Poor Barack. He never had much to say anyway, apart from saying anything to anybody depending on the audience. I note that not even the spell checker recognises him now. And despite what it says in public, Middle America, behind the voting curtain, will vent its fury on a black who dared to stand for President. They won’t try again in a hurry. So this is just another instance of the Democrats’ incurable habit of putting up unelectable candidates.

So Palin will be just a heartbeat away from the Presidency – a 72 year old heart beat at that. It would not be surprising if McCain pops his socks sometime before 2012, or at least bows out at the end of his term, leaving the way open for Palin, who will then be President until 2020. Of course she will not be able to find any country on the map, and probably go to war with a country she has not heard of a couple of months previous, but that sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Get used to it.

As the lights dim out

and hopes fade

for the chance of a new Zimbabwe

and as all the wishful thinkers of the past two weeks turn their blogs and word processors to other issues,

we now realise what the Southern Africa 'development' community leaders meant when they called an 'emergency' situation to discuss the Zimbabwe situation. We thought they meant the emergency of ensuring the voice of the Zimbabwean people would be heard, but that was a fatuous misunderstanding. What they meant by an 'emergency' was the emergency of making sure that Mugabe remained in power.

What else would we have expected. African leaders will always rally round, and define themselves, on their lowest common denominator.

CRISIS, WHAT CRISIS ?

a favorite phrase

used by many politicians, by which you know that meltdown is imminent.

This time, uttered by Pres Thabo Mbeki of the Zimbabwean situation. Well, apart from the present electoral impasse, if 150 000% inflation, 80% unemployment and 25% population emigration does not constitute a crisis, what would, in Pres Mbeki's opinion? No wonder he does not worry about a little load shedding back home.

Expected, but infuriatingly, the SADC leaders at their special summit (talking until 5.00 in the morning - wow, they must have been exerting themselves) have come up with the bland statement urging that the presidential election results be declared (after 2 weeks) and that the results be respected. Especially if they are rigged by ZANU-PF of course. Equally unsurprising, there is the announcement from the Zim 'electoral commission' that the results of 23 constituencies will be recounted. All won by the opposition obviously.

Do the honourable group of SADC presidents realise that their summit cost many millions of (real) dollars of their impoverished taxpayers' money - who were expecting them to DO something about the Zimbabwean situation?

It is totally baffling. What spell does Mugabe have over other African, especially SADC leaders? He is the 84 year old leader of a bankrupt self-destroyed country. They, the neighbouring leaders, are no-nonsense and fairly tough politicians - Thabo Mbeki admittedly looks like and is a cretin, and Namibia is an ideological satellite of Zimbabwe - but it is not true, as some apologists say, that the others have insecure, weak democratic credentials. Nearly all have come to power in recent, respectable elections and are in a strong position to do something about the 'black hole' in their midst. Why are they terrified of Mugabe? He was not the only struggler for liberation in Zimbabwe, and the country is not his personal property. But, as the last person to be granted an in-depth interview with him revealed, even that is not the problem. He lives in his own reality bubble where he is convinced that he and the country are one and the same.

Does he hypnotise all the neighbouring leaders like a snake? Or is he, as a radio call-in suggested, like an obstinate stain on your underwear - you can try to wash it off, but it just won't go away ?

Do the other SADC leaders want to deal with the influx of millions of refugees without complaint, just so that Mugabe is placated? Why do they want a huge source of instability in their midst? Why do they want the wishes of the Zimbabwean people to be thwarted, and their desire for change to be blocked by rigged elections ? (it is a measure of how far the actual results went against them, that it has taken ZANU two weeks to figure out how to rig them back.)

Also expected (the tragedy of any situation is its utter predictability) is the dragging out of the land issue again, with dark warnings that white farmers are trying to take over their former properties. How did they all suddenly get back into the country to do that? Of course the reverse is true, in that the remaining 'white' farms are being threatened by the Mug's 20-year old 'war veterans'. Anyway, the former white farmers have been welcomed and set up in neighbouring countries such as Mozambique. Who the **** would now want to go back into Zimbabwe?

Is Mugabe, as the interviewer with him suggested, now plotting a massive revenge against his own people who rejected him - a bloodbath of the opposition to rival the Rwanda genocide?

If so, SADC leadership, who could have easily removed him if they had the courage, will have a very great deal to answer for.

SO WHAT ARE WE TO MAKE

of the Zimbabwe 'results' so far?

Obviously, Mugabe/ZanuPF did not win - if they had done - or a plausible case could be made out that they had, without the announcement being derisory - the results would have been announced very, very quickly. Civilised negotiations taking place ? Deals even being done? Not a chance.

First a grudging release of the parliamentary figures - meant to show a 'photo finish', and that the opposition victory was meagre. But this result does not matter much, since the Zimbabwean parliament these days has little power and in any case can always be suspended.

No, the important, because the personal thing, is the presidential contest. Although Mugabe has almost certainly lost this, it will be announced as a run-off. This will buy time of three weeks (or actually any time the ZANU appointed electoral court will grant). Enough for Mugabe to stage his own Cultural Revolution - the classic strategy Mao used when for once he felt under pressure. Call out the thugs, scream about 'puppets', beat opposition figures to a pulp, and reduce the country to mayhem. As the country is already in a state of ruin, this will not make much difference anyway.

If Mugabe thinks this has done the trick, the re-run will be held for him to win 'unopposed'. If not, a bit more mayhem will be manufactured, or the threat of it, whereupon, on cue, the military will step in, impose martial law, or stage a military coup, call it what you will, and Mugabe will be confirmed as president for the sake of 'national salvation'.

No, you haven't got rid of him yet. And he could live to 104.