FT.com / Columnists / Martin Wolf - Big risks for the insurer of last resort
The UK government looks increasingly like a python that has swallowed a hippopotamus. In acting as insurer of last resort to the British-based banking system, it is taking on huge risks on behalf of taxpayers. If this turned out to be a global depression, with huge losses for British-based banks, fiscal solvency might even come into question. Can this make sense? I doubt it.
...The UK government has to make a decision. If it believes that costly bail-out must be piled upon ever more costly bail-out, then the banking system can never be treated as a commercial activity again: it is a regulated utility – end of story. If the government does want it to be a commercial activity, then defaults are necessary, as some now argue. Take your pick. But do not believe you can have both. The UK cannot afford it.
read full article
Friday, March 06, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
I met the walrus
In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon's every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon's boundless wit, and timeless message.
Monday, February 09, 2009
bank bonus culture
I have heard too many comments on this site recently trying to convince us that the bonus is required because if it is taken away then talent will leave this country..........well the talents that were involved in the banks collapsing please leave the country......sorry if I am wrong but a bonus is meant to be an incentive to perform well....and they havent performed wll so no bonus....also if you want a bonus....then perform well otherwise you dont get one now your in public hands through your lack of ability to perform......if amateur economists on this site in their spare time could see the banks error 4 years ago then the talent at the top is a joke...........it really makes me sick all this talk of the great talent we have in our banks and that its justifiable to pay these bonus because of the "Nature" of banking and trading.......wrong........I would like to be there when one of these bankers goes to hospital to have an op.......to be cared for by a nurse on a wage which is a small fraction of his bonus........then for the nurse to pay her tax into his fat pocket for doing a job incompetently.....that is not justice do not try to dress it up as so........
FROM THE FINANCIAL TERRORISTS AT WWW.HOUSEPRICECRASH.CO.UK
Thursday, February 05, 2009
she
she loved me
she loves me
yet how could this be
we weren’t we were we?
maybe she was right
and men don’t know
I feel peace when I give her the right
to be right
so men don’t know
and in low moments
when empty hallway and dry toast is all
then yes
I can see
that she loved me
that she loves me
this road leads to smog
a dirty little road,
with picnic wrappers in the gutter
and I dawdle
but its dusty and gravelly and it turns and
veers over hills and disappears
I’d make more progress on a bicycle
but walking is my style
hold on there is someone else
hallo
hallo
and?
what
do you have something to say? I ask full of hope
yes
you may begin
blood flows blood flows blood flows blood flows
no time for a jedi teddy
can I borrow your mush eddie (machete)?
in this wonderful world
hold on
in this beautiful world
hold on
hold on
hold on
hold on
hold on
hold on hold on with a grip so tight
it dams my blood makes my head feel light
blood flow blood flow
Technorati Tags: smog
hand eczema
Srtike out a coiling serpent poisoned umbrella handle.
Clasp tight scrolls and curves and wishes and spell burned autographs.
Curdle sweet memories in today’s horrorzone.
A pond of fear. How deep? How dark?
A tree stump, cut back too much, it never grew back.
They don’t wink at me in the morning.
A smile is a once monthly gift and usually with strings attached.
My real prize is painful skin,
I can’t grasp, couldn’t think of picking up the guitar.
Like the Singing Detective living in my right hand.
Curse you!
My name is not JOB.
Fuck OFF.
Testing out Windows Live Writer
I just found out about this blog writing tool.
Quite interesting I can see my words being written in the context of the blog.
So Let me try something out.
| Blog Posts | Blog Readers |
| 115 | 3 if you’re lucky |
Blue Bell Woods Video
Yeah feels pretty slick,
I have to stop now because my hand eczema is killing me.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Class C for Cannabis
Sod the new law,
free the weed
smoke on it people
a glass of red wine at night is fine
but smoke some draw and you will free yourself
and create - you will extend beyond the norm
do you trust their reasons for the drug upgrade to class B?
B for Bullshit
they want safe closed minds
B leave
C Love
free the weed
smoke on it people
a glass of red wine at night is fine
but smoke some draw and you will free yourself
and create - you will extend beyond the norm
do you trust their reasons for the drug upgrade to class B?
B for Bullshit
they want safe closed minds
B leave
C Love
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Big Phone, Tiny Penis
As of this week I have a new T-Mobile G1 google phone.
It runs a new operating syatem called Android.
It is an absolutely fantastic machine.
Never mind the fact that the country is riddled with more and more
powerful cancer/adhd inducing transmitters, usually located on the local creche roof, this phone is the mutt's nuts.
Its big and bulky unlike the apple iPhone.
But I always found the iPhone looked like some posh lady's cigarette lighter.
Something to slip out of your handbag in a cafe.
My googlephone is a bulky bastard.
Stuck in its leather holder it clips to the side of my belt like a
gun in a holster.
I'm not gonna taser anyone with it or chib them - it's not that aggressive.
What it has got that I couldn't do without is Buttons.
It has a full keyboard that slides out from the side and it has a rollerball for
navigation of the menus and browsers.
So what can it do?
Well I spent this week working out what groovy applications I can install on this thing. You can download these from the android marketplace built into the phone.
Music:
Streamfurious:
This simple online radio player can be filled with all shoutcast pls streaming stations of your choice. It comes with a built in selection , mainly techno and hiphop, but the world is your oyster when it comes to stations. It has BBC World service but I'm not sure that other BBC stations can be added as they are real media/windows media streams.
Last FM
A great player for the Last FM website where you can listen to your personal taste in music as well as others while reading about the artist playing and lining up future gig details - perfect/
Shazam
Most new sony erricson walkman phones can do what shazam does.
Identify the artist and title of a recorded song playing from an external sound source such as a car radio using the phone's microphone. Nifty if you missed the name read out by the dj.
GMote
This can be used to start music and video files on your home computer.
It acts like a remote control.
You will see a list of albums on the phone's screen. The files are on your pc's hard drive. Click on one and music comes out of the pc, incredible. It can also be used to stream those PC songs and play them on your phone. It has a nice interface which adds the album art to the background of the controller.
Ringdroid
Use this to slice a section from any of your mp3 files on the phone to create new ringtones or alert sounds.
Arnold sounds
Just a bit of fun . Phone a friend and play famous Arnie Schwazernegger quotes to him or her.
Communication Apps
Chomp SMS
Gives the screen a touchscreen keyboard for quick texting without unsliding the
hard keyboard. You also see a nice conversation style format of previous texts from the same contact scrolling down the screen.
HulloMail (UK only at the moment)
A visual voicemail app.
This syncs with your email account and sends you an email with a small mp3 file with
the sound of your voice message on it.
It is all accessible from the phone using the HulloMail app or by checking Gmail (which I use).
By the way there used to be a service like this back in 1999. I would get land line voice messages sent to my email for free while I was otherwise enagaded surfing the net with my 56k modem.
Google Mail/ G Talk/ Calendar
Being a google phone these apps are already installed.
I already use all three so it is quite handy for me.
Apps that use GPS Global Positioning
Qype Radar
This is great. Find out where nearby pubs, restaurants, places of interest etc are in your local vicinity, works very well and includes reviews and a link to a map.
Loads of content here in the UK.
Various barcode scanner shopping apps like Shop Savvy
I haven't really tried these. You can scan a barcode of an item in a shop and see
how much it costs elsewhere, newrby or online.
Camera
You can add your gps data to photos you take. Later when you upload to
a site like flickr, you can view all your photos positions on a map.
SkyMap
Out and about where the sky is clear at night?
Use this app to help identify the constellations above.
Other stuff
Wifi Scan
Find hotspots when you are out and about for faster data access that
is also outside of your phone contract's data limit.
Steel
A great browser with a touch screen keyboard.
Video player and Youtube for your mob vid needs (if you have them)
Sticky
Create sticky notes. There are other "to do list" and notes apps that I haven't tried yet.
PixelPipe
This is great for uploading photos to any of your online accounts
such as flickr blogger and facebook.
Send to all at once or choose your selection.
There are a few games out there too nothing that amazing,
but enough to waste time if that's your thing.
I mainly love the music apps,
Last FM and StreamFurious.
This phone doesn't yet have any apps to read and write office documents like
windows mobile phone's do.
It's not a business phone and
it's not a pure consumer phone either.
One for the geeks with small gonads I reckon so count me in!
I'm impressed!!
edit to add:
textonphone
this is a really brilliant app,
download ebooks in a really great sharing community
environment, then read them on your phone.
This app is really well developed, check it out,
I think its fabulous!!!!
It runs a new operating syatem called Android.
It is an absolutely fantastic machine.
Never mind the fact that the country is riddled with more and more
powerful cancer/adhd inducing transmitters, usually located on the local creche roof, this phone is the mutt's nuts.
Its big and bulky unlike the apple iPhone.
But I always found the iPhone looked like some posh lady's cigarette lighter.
Something to slip out of your handbag in a cafe.
My googlephone is a bulky bastard.
Stuck in its leather holder it clips to the side of my belt like a
gun in a holster.
I'm not gonna taser anyone with it or chib them - it's not that aggressive.
What it has got that I couldn't do without is Buttons.
It has a full keyboard that slides out from the side and it has a rollerball for
navigation of the menus and browsers.
So what can it do?
Well I spent this week working out what groovy applications I can install on this thing. You can download these from the android marketplace built into the phone.
Music:
Streamfurious:
This simple online radio player can be filled with all shoutcast pls streaming stations of your choice. It comes with a built in selection , mainly techno and hiphop, but the world is your oyster when it comes to stations. It has BBC World service but I'm not sure that other BBC stations can be added as they are real media/windows media streams.
Last FM
A great player for the Last FM website where you can listen to your personal taste in music as well as others while reading about the artist playing and lining up future gig details - perfect/
Shazam
Most new sony erricson walkman phones can do what shazam does.
Identify the artist and title of a recorded song playing from an external sound source such as a car radio using the phone's microphone. Nifty if you missed the name read out by the dj.
GMote
This can be used to start music and video files on your home computer.
It acts like a remote control.
You will see a list of albums on the phone's screen. The files are on your pc's hard drive. Click on one and music comes out of the pc, incredible. It can also be used to stream those PC songs and play them on your phone. It has a nice interface which adds the album art to the background of the controller.
Ringdroid
Use this to slice a section from any of your mp3 files on the phone to create new ringtones or alert sounds.
Arnold sounds
Just a bit of fun . Phone a friend and play famous Arnie Schwazernegger quotes to him or her.
Communication Apps
Chomp SMS
Gives the screen a touchscreen keyboard for quick texting without unsliding the
hard keyboard. You also see a nice conversation style format of previous texts from the same contact scrolling down the screen.
HulloMail (UK only at the moment)
A visual voicemail app.
This syncs with your email account and sends you an email with a small mp3 file with
the sound of your voice message on it.
It is all accessible from the phone using the HulloMail app or by checking Gmail (which I use).
By the way there used to be a service like this back in 1999. I would get land line voice messages sent to my email for free while I was otherwise enagaded surfing the net with my 56k modem.
Google Mail/ G Talk/ Calendar
Being a google phone these apps are already installed.
I already use all three so it is quite handy for me.
Apps that use GPS Global Positioning
Qype Radar
This is great. Find out where nearby pubs, restaurants, places of interest etc are in your local vicinity, works very well and includes reviews and a link to a map.
Loads of content here in the UK.
Various barcode scanner shopping apps like Shop Savvy
I haven't really tried these. You can scan a barcode of an item in a shop and see
how much it costs elsewhere, newrby or online.
Camera
You can add your gps data to photos you take. Later when you upload to
a site like flickr, you can view all your photos positions on a map.
SkyMap
Out and about where the sky is clear at night?
Use this app to help identify the constellations above.
Other stuff
Wifi Scan
Find hotspots when you are out and about for faster data access that
is also outside of your phone contract's data limit.
Steel
A great browser with a touch screen keyboard.
Video player and Youtube for your mob vid needs (if you have them)
Sticky
Create sticky notes. There are other "to do list" and notes apps that I haven't tried yet.
PixelPipe
This is great for uploading photos to any of your online accounts
such as flickr blogger and facebook.
Send to all at once or choose your selection.
There are a few games out there too nothing that amazing,
but enough to waste time if that's your thing.
I mainly love the music apps,
Last FM and StreamFurious.
This phone doesn't yet have any apps to read and write office documents like
windows mobile phone's do.
It's not a business phone and
it's not a pure consumer phone either.
One for the geeks with small gonads I reckon so count me in!
I'm impressed!!
edit to add:
textonphone
this is a really brilliant app,
download ebooks in a really great sharing community
environment, then read them on your phone.
This app is really well developed, check it out,
I think its fabulous!!!!
Tony Benn sticks it up the BBC
Tony Benn is quite rightly appalled by the decision by the BBC not to broadcast
a charity appeal in aid of the victims of the savage attack on Gaza.
Watch him tear into the BBC in this BBC TV interview
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7849026.stm
a charity appeal in aid of the victims of the savage attack on Gaza.
Watch him tear into the BBC in this BBC TV interview
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7849026.stm
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