Thursday, May 30, 2013

Brain drain vs gain drain

Following on from my last blog on poverty and the issues of globalisation I had a thought (lightbulb on).  I have been reading and studying Animal Farm which is an allegory for Russian history from the revolution onwards.  Its a great book and well worth revisiting (you can read it in a day easily).

One of the challenges that the early communists had was the brain drain.  With a system that is designed for the greater good one has to consider how to prevent the exodus of people who are not as concerned with the common good and would seek to exit the system to follow a more gainful existence where individual rewards would be greater.  To prevent this exodus the communists had to close the borders and this is what you will see today.  The challenge for the communists is that the descent into difficulties is relatively rapid and boders must be controlled quickly if the system is to survive.  Ultimately communism in a mixed world of capitalism and communist philosophies is hard to make work.

So what about the capitalist world?  Are there any similarities?  It strikes me that the answer is yes.  Whereas the communists had to close the borders to prevent intellectual drain it appears that the capitalist position is somewhat similar except that it is now an issue of wealth drain.  Money moves to places outside of the controllable system.  Individuals and businesses are free to move taking with them the wealth of the nation.  The difficulty of course is that stopping this may be impossible.

Poverty

The article I saw on the paper lying next to me on the train makes disturbing reading.  Breadline headline in Metro.  Sigh.

With no real sign of let up on the economic front and clear bad news from Europe in terms of figures regarding employment (especially the young), the drag that this will have on the UK economy and reductions in government spending to a level which is all but rendering it ineffective I am starting to struggle to see how this is going to get better before it gets worse.  This is not about my normal levels of pessimism.  This is about sleepwalking into a very nasty situation.

Globalisation is good in many ways.  It allows trade across borders and exports.  But this has been a double edged sword for much of the wealth generated by such corporate expansion has not benefited the UK.  With a globally competitive market we have global tax competition.  The ability to trade has been opened to all but the rules governing such trade have not been robust enough.  Obviously to prevent such cross border exodus of capital and wealth requires international level cooperation which at the moment is simply not present.  Attempts in the EU to level the playing field have of course been scuppered with the politics of in/out being the regular headline.  If it cannot be achieved in the EU, what hope globally.

It is not hard to see where this is all heading.   The trend is for more open markets, less regulation and lower levels of controls.  A 'let nature take its course' approach to capitalism.  The trick of course is consistency.  It is fine to let nature take its course provided you are not putting controls in place at the bottom end around.  One such control is of course limits on benefits.  They have a good point.

It cannot be right that someone who gets up to work every day sees the guy across the road earning the same money in benefits without working.  These deep seated cultural issues will not be solved in my generation.  But without any controls on the market, spending on welfare needs to be raised.  This is simply because without controls, costs are spiralling for those at the bottom end of society (economically) and this is one of the absolute vs relative debates.

Yes, inflation may be at x% a year.  But this is a complex calculation.  People have much simpler local issues.  Rent is rising at a fast rate and so is energy and food.  Yes, prices may be inflating at say 5% (for these listed areas) but if that 5% is actually 20% of your available funds which is the true inflation figure.  I have always pointed out, tax at 40% is fine if you are earning £1million pounds because you will have lots and lots of money left.  If you earn £20,000 then the absolute amount is significant.  £10 to someone with £600K is nothing.  £10 is everything.  Working out inflation based upon a national position is one thing.  But it needs to be looked at in terms of the individual or family.

The trend is such that in the next 5 years there will be a crunch point.  Government will need to intervene.  It will not longer be good enough to say that inflation is at 3% if the 3% is applied to costs which are already 70% of many people's earnings.  Rents continue to rise.  Wages remain static to low in growth and this is only relevant if you have a job.  Tax credits continue to subsidise low wages for business who can then make bigger profits to go abroad to avoid tax.

Exaggeration maybe, but it is not a sustainable model.

Globalised economies are great if there are globalised controls to underpin it.  There are not and there lies the rub as they say.




Land Rover news

The new series 3 is performing well.  The mini roundabouts of Kent are proving a challenge as Otly has the turning circle of a routemaster bus and no power steering so at slow speeds the steering  makes for a great workout.

I have found a local garage that is a Land Rover specialist and so when better times emerge I will take it down for a checkover and some work.  I am no mechanic but I can guess that the two points where the body work is connected to the chassis are important.  And so the lack of connection due to rust is probably important too.  It past an MOT!!  Hmm.

Anyway, there are various bits that need doing and so I am looking forward to getting greasy again and doing some DIY.  There are a few holes (welding) that will need sorting.  That can wait til the garage.  But the door lock needs sorting (I have a spare) and I need to tidy some of the wiring which falls out of various places when I hit a serious bump.

In some respects I am scared to look but I think it better to know about problems than not.  I suspect the exhaust may be blowing too.  Hard to tell as I have no frame of reference with which to judge what noise it should be making.

The oil pressure gauge is not working (should be easy to solve) and there are various other bits and bobs that need addressing.  Oil of course plays a major part in a Land Rover's life.  As fast as you put it in, it tries to get rid of it.  I need to remember the age of the car and that in the good old days they really did need to be maintained.

The really good news is that the village I currently reside in has its own motor factors shop (strange as there are only 5 shops in the village).  But hey ho, looks like I will be getting to know them well.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

4G 3G 2G 0G


Sitting on the train today my frustration at connectivity peaked.  I was simply trying to register for one of the Land Rover forums to ask a few questions of the experts.  Sadly I rely upon one of these new EE 4G wireless gadgets.  When it works, it works great and I would not be without it.  But it has one unbelievably frustrating 'feature'.

The device allows one to connect to it via standard wireless network connection.  It is then connected to either 4,3,2G depending upon the situation.  The issue is that this hop clearly causes some issues.  It is itself a web server and has the admin pages accessed via a web page.  It has a useful signal strength (and type) home page.

The issue is this.  If you call a web page or submit a web form and it cannot service the request (loss of signal etc) the device responds back with its own web admin page.  When it does this and you hit the back button when signal returns (or worse it fails but shows full 3G signal quite often) your web form is blank and you have to start again.

The problem is so bad that when writing my blogs, before I hit submit I take a copy of the main text otherwise I lose the content if the submission fails.  But for forms (such as registration forms) this is not possible.  I suspect that by responding to a submission with a web page the browser assumes success.  I have no idea.  But it is deeply deeply frustrating.

I have now completed the forum registration 10 box form 3 times.  I give up.  Thanks EE. (Ctrl A, Ctrl C, Publish)
-----------

Update:  I hit submit and it did it again.  Up came the admin page showing full 3G signal.  Had to reload the whole blog site and start again.  Nice!




Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Series 3

My new pride and joy.  Sadly I had to sell my TD5 SWB landrover.  Sad day.  But needs must and every cloud has a silver lining.


Meet  Otley.  Series 3.  It has none of the comfort of my old TD5.  It leaks, it smells of petrol and the driving experience is a cross between trying to control a falling bolder and driving a bouncy castle.

Lots of fun

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Evenin' all

It is not often that I have direct experience of the police but I was unlucky enough this weekend to meet one with a speed camera and who was kind enough to point it at my landrover.  Sadly for me my eagerness to get to my destination was recorded for prosperity and I was the proud owner of another 3 points for my license.

Hands up, I was guilty.  Unlucky, not concentrating, but never the less guilty.  The officer waived me over and gave me the standard (but slightly patronising) speech and caution.  What was interesting after that was the process the poor bloke had to go through.  It took over 20 mins to complete the forms and tap the right things into his computer.  The outcome was that I had to take my driving license into a police station with the insurance cert and pay the fine.

All that effort and yet

1) Why do I have to prove insurance when they can clearly see on the computer that the car is insured (the database is online now and is used by DVLA).
2) No useful instructions were on the form at all as to what to do and when
3) No payment information was provided on the form beyond the fact you had to pay at the police station

So off I trot today to the Belgravia police station (near where I am working).  I wait in the reception while a lady discusses her latest online hacking event that she had experienced while the perplexed police constable attempted to understand what the lady wanted her to do.  40 minutes later, after she finally got the lady sorted it was my turn.  She looked at the speeding form (not issued by the Met) like I handed over a demand for blue bananas.

I was invited to the back office counter (for a private chat as by then 2 guys on bail turned up with massive fighting dogs).  The poor police lady did not know whether she could take payment by card, she did not recognise the form presented to her nor what to do with it.  She had no idea either why I had to bring my insurance cert.  Another form was completed (A4 in small print) which took over 30 mins to complete while all the other people in reception had to wait. 

It is staggering that each police force has a different form for speeding.  It is staggering that the process is and could be different when the issuing of a fine can occur anywhere.  It is even more staggering that the form at the police station basically copied out the data already on the form issued at the scene.  It is beyond belief that she did not know how to or whether she could take card payments.

I was polite and I was sympathetic.  But I was shocked at what we put these poor people through.  It wasted over 1 hour of form filling and nonsense for this ticket.

I can spot some easy changes.

1) The police should complete the form online into their computers accessible by any police force.
2) If guilt is admitted at the scene the police should simply take online payment there and then.
3) If a person's license is on them then they should be taken on the spot and sent off when back at the station.
4) If ID is not provided then license and the fine reference should be taken to a police station and simply handed in.

It cannot be beyond the wit of man to simplify the process.





Monday, May 13, 2013

Spock wisdom

Spock: Don't grieve, Admiral. It is logical. The needs of the many, outweigh...
Kirk: The needs of the few.
Spock: Or the one.

A moving scene for all those Star Trek fans if ever there was one.  But for such a logical creature who embraces pure reason and rationality it is a strange choice of views.   Essentially Spock is espousing a consequentialist view.  I.e. that an act or deed is measured on the outcomes and in this case a utilitarianism angle based upon pure numerical outcome.  Exchanging one life for many.  John Stuart Mill defended the utilitarian view of ethics in his book of the same name.

But it is a difficult position to defend traditionally and largely remains an unsupported theory.  The issue at hand is of course one of right and wrong.  Is an act or thought right if the benefit to many outweighs the benefit of the minority.  I.e. one goes with the option that produces the most happiness or best outcome for the majority.

It is clear to see where this can work (democracy is one obvious area) and of course it does not.  One obvious outcome of utilitarianism is perhaps the fact that we should kill innocent healthy people to take their organs to save the lives of say 10 ill people.  Nobody would consider that right to take an innocent life to save 10 or we would have regular snatch squads on our street and donor cards would bring a new level of meaning.

Its a big subject to discuss but the reason why I raise this is actually the Spock scenario here differs slightly from the standard objections.  In Spock's case he is giving his life to save others (courageous at some level but do not forget he would die anyway if he had not saved the ship).  This changes the argument.  It is clearly seen as right to take a utilitarian position provided the only down side is then taken by the person making the decision.

The next question is of course the one of proximity.  Spock gives his life to save those around him.  But even Spock's reason prevented him from say giving his life to provide organs for dying people.  What is the difference.  Proximity in time and space to the people who will benefit clearly makes a difference.

The act undertaken by Spock was not a random sacrifice to save random strangers lives but his friends and colleagues.  He had not, half way through the film, nipped out to the medical centre to be cut up and have the organs transported back to vulcan to save 10 people's lives.  But what is the difference?

Clearly we are more prepared to sacrifice (even if not our lives) for the people we know and care about than strangers.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Its a purely emotion position and not one backed by reason or logic.  Spock's final act then being an emotionally driven one.

Wednesday, May 08, 2013

What a question!

And the winner for the best question I have seen on an application form goes to.....

Jobserver (Capita's job application)

"Do you live full time in a gender other than the one you were assigned at birth?"

Well, no I don't is the answer.  But what a great question.  Terribly invasive. As if asking in this exceptionally well crafted way somehow mitigates the invasive nature of such a question.

I do not recall that gender was assigned.  Who did the assigning?  Maybe this is the new responsibility of the HR department for all their corporate employees.  Gender assignation of the yet to be born.  

The thing about such statements is that you can just imagine how long a debate was held and how much money was spent in the writing of that line.  

Note a few things

1) Gender is now assigned at birth.
2) Do you 'live ... in' a gender.
3) 'full time'

Its interesting that you can live part time in a gender other than the one you were assigned at birth.  I understand what they are saying.  What is the motivation of this full time part?   Hard to say.  What if I only lived in another gender part time but that time was office hours?  It would appear that part time gender differences are of no concern to them.  How long constitutes part time as opposed to full time?

Great question.