Use to be a time when the letters ‘QE’ were reserved for the grand lady, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the II.
Latterly they have been adopted as an acronym by economiccommentators as short hand for the monetary policy action called Quantitative Easing. Now - monetary policy, fiscal policy, and the like, are only terms understood by the ‘old boys club’ that is the City of London aren’t they?
Being a fairly simple chap I personally like things ‘in a nutshell’ (or maybe I’m an aspiring squirrel). Anyway, I decided to do a bit of ‘economics 101′…
Turns out, simplistically, ‘monetary policy’ is pretty straight forward:
2) if inflation falls, decrease interest rates (conversely - interest rates down, spending up, inflation up)
And as an aside fiscal policy ‘in a nutshell’ is even simpler - the government borrows and/or spends (bag loads of) tax-payers money - ala spending up, inflation up…
So much for ‘complicated’ policies…
From the above one can deduce that the rough goal of the ‘current game’ is to increase spending (and by inference inflation). Apparently this was to avoid the dreaded R (recession, oops…) or D (depression, oh shit.. let the cat out of the bag…) words…
When you have exhausted monetary policy by reducing interest rates to nearly zero however, and, you have exhausted fiscal policy by borrowing and spending up to what are considered idiotic levels (i.e. the UK has really ‘maxed out its credit card’) then where do you go from there? Would seem like at that point you hit a ‘policy void’ wouldn’t it?…
Not so apparently - according to the ‘old boys club’ (didn’t these bright sparks manage to get us into the god almighty mess?… hmm…). It’s fun, and simultaneously depressing, to imagine/realise this group of Treasury, BoE and CEO banking folks probably all drink at the same London clubs together isn’t it?…
“Oh what a laugh Harold, did you see the £40K I squeezed out of that poor old widow when we foreclosed on her two-up-two-down the other other day… - paid for the new seal fur seats in the Jaguar anyway…”
But I digress…
Enter Quantitative Easing (QE), the “unconventional unconventional measure” in monetary policy apparently (I kid you not).
The theory here is - dummies guide style - increase money supply, increase spending, increase inflation…
I’m guessing you have picked a pattern developing here.
Increase inflation, or maybe it should be in bold, increase inflation. This, somewhat surprisingly is the goal. QE increases the money supply, therefore in idiot terms, the existing ’stuff’ (goods and services, which haven’t change one bit in quality or volume) now instantaneously cost more.
Let’s do that again - same stuff + more money = each bit of stuff costs more ‘current money’ - instantaneous inflation. At the stroke of a Mervyn King pen… or is that pin?
You see, when there is actually nothing which sort of dictates what a £ is ‘worth’ then the entire system relies on increasing inflation for everything to work. Without increasing inflation house prices don’t rise, salaries don’t rise, prices don’t rise, and obviously in those circumstance profits can’t rise and bankers bonuses definitely can’t (can they?) rise…
The good news (sic) is inflation will rise again - at a guess it will take off like a bloody rocket - in 12-24 months time. Economists happy. Everybody else up the duff. As interests rates skate off, fuel prices, food prices and everything ‘takes off’ again… I’m slightly perplexed by the political claim of no boom or bust.
Given the short burst of logic above isn’t it inherent that there must be inflationary booms and busts in the system for it to ‘work’ (using that word on the very outer edges of its definition)?
Little bird suggested to me that economists might get qualifications as package deals - degree + lobotomy for £57.50 - to learn about these terribly complex intellectual challenges
(removes tongue from cheek once again…)
Is any of this important?
“Buggered if I know…”
But I figured you probably had 5 minutes to spare (at todays salary value anyway) to read through my meanderings
Here it is: the next in the occasional series of posts on the subject of bogroll holders.
Only two days ago, I came across a strange phenomenon. This time it was at our local, relatively posh, leisure centre.
The loo in the female changing rooms upstairs has a LTRD which has, in the past, bitten me. Honest!
On this occasion, when I went into the little cubicle where the bog is, there were tiny shreds of paper on the floor along the length of the wall. It looked as if a mouse had been hunting for nesting materials, gathered this lot up and then decided to reject it all. I couldn’t really understand why it was all there … not until I tried to persuade the LTRD to let me have some bog paper.
This dispenser is so cunningly designed that you can see the bog paper inside, through the transparent walls, but you just can’t get at it. It has a spring-loaded slidey bit which you push across, I think, to get access to the second bogroll once the first one has run out. Being the kind of “let’s see how this works” type of person that I am, I once tried to see how it worked exactly. And that was when it bit me.
On last Saturday there were two almost complete bogrolls inside, but they were both wedged in sooooooo tightly that you couldn’t persuade either of them to turn around. Judging by my experience, all one could achieve was to get what in German is called “eine Prise” — the amount you can hold between your fingertips — dunno if there’s an English word for this. So, the tiny shreds of bogpaper on the ground were the result of numerous fruitless attempts to get hold of sufficient paper to be useful — a vain hope since this LTRD was clearly not going to give in easily.
Naturally enough (at least I think it was a natural reaction) I started down the “what’s the point” route again. But seriously, I ask you, what is the point of putting in a dispenser that doesn’t dispense? The response is, obviously, buggered if I know.
And then I remembered another strange occurrence, which I tend to think of as the revenge of the bogrolls. It happened like this …
There I was, not even thinking about the lockable-ness (or not) of the toilet roll dispenser in the loo I was visiting, when the one on the wall suddenly pinged open and the two bogrolls from inside jumped out and attacked me. I don’t think I’d even touched the blessed thing.
You will no doubt be fascinated to know that this toilet roll dispenser had been inspected too, in January 2004. Contrary, therefore, to my most recent post on this subject, the revised legislation on inspection was introduced later than 1992.
I can’t actually remember where this revenge attack happened, although it was less than a week ago. It was definitely a pub, or hotel. But where exactly? BIIK
Can’t believe it really. Yes, I know, the general personal response, if one has a bleat about TV, is to simply not turn your TV on and thereby avoiding watching the item in question.
I will happily do that with this show (just like I do with its companions like The Apprentice, Dragons’ Den, etc) - but I’m still going to have my bleat
What I can’t believe is whilst BBC News is busily creating news sub-sites like ‘The downturn’ chronicling (I was tempted to use ‘merrily reporting’) job losses, business closures, the rapidly disappearing equity in people’s house prices etc etc.
And… given that it is generally agreed that trading - or as many commentators have phrased it ‘gambling’ or ’speculating’ - in ‘the markets’ (ok, derivatives, if you want to get specific) was one of the key factors in how we arrived in the current global economic mess (and I realise this is too simplistic) …
and I know… this was commissioned 6 or 12 months ago… but I don’t consider that an excuse…
It seems to me there’s enough truth here that I won’t be surprised if those who are losing their jobs, businesses, houses, life savings, and/or savings income, might be more than ‘a little miffed’ at the ‘Beeb’ carrying on with airing their ‘get rich quick’ types of reality show…
“We hear you Tranquillity Base, let’s solve it by borrowing more money…”
Is this the madness we are currently seeing?
I must disclose that I saw/heard some commentator make the very tongue in cheek observation that went something like:
“isn’t this clever - the original problem was caused by debt - so lets borrow more money to fix the problem”
(which might turn out to have more than a thimble full of partial wisdom in it in due course)
Hence my opening (and if someone can credit the source do let me know)…
Call me a masochist but I seem to have absorbed obscene amounts of cross-the-world media lately. I’m fairly sure that the space where my synapses use to hide out is feeling so ’swamped’ at the moment that they’ve moved to some (other) higher ground.
I use to think that I didn’t know very much about the globalised world financial system. The only thing that has changed in the last 3 months is now I am certain that I don’t know shit about the globalised world financial system. Take for example the current situ - when the problem apparently was just initially a big pile of bad debt - exactly where are the governments borrowing the money from so that they can allegedly sort this problem out?
But, trust me, if there’s a really depressing World War II doco on the tele I recommend that as better way, comparatively, to positively lift your spirits…
I guess you could just remain ’surfing’ at the computer… in which case for your amazement and amusement I present one of the most outstanding (oops, poked another hole in my cheek…) Internet resources created by man… Catchy name too - Her Majesty’s Treasury’s weekly (yes! weekly..) Pocket Data Bank (an Excel spreadsheet, about 1Mbyte).
Having spent precious moments of my life actually looking through this thing it has at least answered one important international finance question I had languishing about in the back of my - by now, swamp turning to biochemical hazard - mind…
You’ll have to admit - I reckon anyway (if you were actually game enough to get through more than 2 or 3 worksheets of the Weekly Pocket Data Bank) - that it is now patently clear why bank executives need to be paid exorbitantly high bonuses. As far as I can tell it’s essentially danger money - lest they die of boredom - looking at, making guesses about, and getting stressed about what next weeks numbers may bring…
This might be an appropriate juncture to suggest that there may be times when the saying “ignorance is bliss” contains enough partial truth and wisdom in it to be useful…
Alternatively, in answer to all globalised world financial situation discussions, you might excuse yourself - on the way to the bar - with an expressively up-beat airy gesture and the well thought out reply of….
“Buggered if I know!”
Image: Wikimedia Commons “Challenger Explosion” alternatively, at a US Federal Reserve meeting sometime
in 2002 discussing the Enron crisis:
“Do you think we should tell them about the Financial System O-Ring?”…
“Nah, she’ll be right!”…
Reader of these posts may have noticed that in the past I was musing about the point of lockable toilet roll dispensers (LTRDs). A kind of follow-up to those broodings was vouchsafed to me the other day when I visited the loo at the end of the corridor at work.
There was the LTRD on the wall (as usual), locked (as usual), but empty! There was, however, an ample supply of spare paper (as usual) on the window sill as well as a roll on the cistern, waiting precariously to fall on the floor and roll around on the relatively clean — but still not clean enough — lino.
As I sat thinking again my “what is the point” thoughts, I noticed a small label stuck on the inside of the empty LTRD which was inscribed “Inspected 9 December 1992″.
Hmm, I wonder who inspected it.
And why?
And why haven’t they inspected it since 1992?
I imagined that until 1992 there was someone detailed to going round the building with a portable LTRD inspection unit, a bit like the PAT-tester. Maybe like painting the Forth Bridge (and PAT-testing!), no sooner did (s)he get to the end of one round than (s)he had to start all over again. And then in 1993 new legislation came in which made LTRD-inspection no longer required. I wonder whether (s)he had to re-train for another post? …
Setting aside such loony thoughts, I’m none the less bound to admire the place where I work: not only are we clearly exemplary at keeping useful things like LTRDs (and the keys to them), but we can also find them again in order to install them into a building completed in 2004.
Impressive, n’est-ce pas? And talking of finding useful things, where did I put my glasses? BIIK
It’s weird how one thought leads to another isn’t it?
Computers really are second rate processing tools compared to the human mind, don’t you think?
The other day I heard a track ‘Dang Me’ by Roger Miller on Radio 2 on the way home… Subsequently I did a little sourcing and was listening to a range of favourites of his which I’d been introduced to by my parents (probably in the 70’s) - ‘Chug-a-lug’, ‘You Can’t Rollerskate in a Buffalo Herd’ and, of course, ‘England Swings’…
One thing led to another and a friend of mine reminded us of Roger Whittaker, a name very close, but of course a slightly different ‘cup of tea’ musically. It happens that I have Whittaker in my memory banks too - thanks to my folks. A little more sourcing turned up a range of stuff. The one which, from the deep dark past which I recall best is his album - Whistle Stop! - part of Whittaker’s early signature as a performer was his whistling. Some kind soul has recorded the vinyl (yep, those big black semi-floppy things we might recall so fondly) to FLAC.
Are all these recordings to be lost in the future days where labels are not going to keep on catalog those things which don’t fill share-holders coffers?
This might be an example of the themes I was starting to develop around the amazingness of the Internet a little while back.
Music & video sharing, P2P, and the like isn’t going to go away - the internet ‘tools’ and possible benefits of a the global Internet knowledge-store are too compelling…
A hallmark of human-kind is sharing knowledge and creativity - having wide-spread access to current and past knowledge and creativity is new - and very exciting - but we need a new model to ensure we can use the tools and pay the creators…
This from a friend - the connection is exploring the vastly wide relationship to everything if you start looking at the impact Darwin’s theories have on our percieved nature of the world…
And then, via me, more Feynman on the ‘Inconceivable nature of nature’…
It’s really all very exciting isn’t it? The likely-hood of actually understanding the nature of reality as an individual is so low in my estimation that, frankly, these days I’m suspicious of anyone who presents absolute views of anything…
It seems to me it’s far more exciting to not know - to wonder - to be amazed - to constantly explore…
“It’s all this way, we are right, this is how it is” - a sure sign of ignorance?…
Folks I really admire use phrases like ‘I think’, ‘what do you think?’, ‘I wonder if’, ‘but.. what about…’ and ‘what do I know?’…
I am absolutely sure of nothing… does it all fit tidily into a new sort of learning mantra of…
“Buggered if I know…”
(but I’m willing to be open-minded about finding out…)
??
Bog roll, toilet paper, bathroom tissue. Call it what you like; we all use it. Well, most of us …
In fact, it used to be the case in the ‘good old days’ in Egypt that, when you went to visit an interesting site which had been open to the public for years and years, you absolutely never went without a bog roll (oh, and probably some streptotriads, just in case you got struck down with what my father-in-law used to call ‘the screamers’ — I wonder what happened to them (the streptotriads, not the screamers)?). That didn’t mean to say that there would necessarily be any kind of bathroom facility, let alone even a hole in the ground. But, if there was one, you could be 99.99% certain there wouldn’t be any bog paper.
Nowadays, things are much improved in that respect. I think most sites are equipped to a greater or lesser extent, but you’d still be advised to carry a tissue or two, in my opinion.
One of the things that really gets to me in the western world, or at least in the UK (I’m now pondering whether I’ve come across this phenomenon in other countries and simply can’t remember …), is the lockable toilet roll holder. Well over half the public toilets I have used in this country have some kind of security device on the bog paper, presumably to stop one nicking the precious commodity.
The charming CORT23, available from janitorialdirect.co.uk.
Hard to resist the temptation to steal that lovely-looking paper, but, oh no! it’s locked
I have to say, I cannot imagine wanting to take home the paper that numerous miscellaneous other people have handled, even if it was ever so slightly. Surely, anyone needing to steal paper from a public toilet is either totally desperate, in which case they’re welcome to it, or a kleptomaniac. If I’m wrong, dear reader, please let me know.
But why?
Why lock the blessed stuff up in this way?
It’s not as if it’s difficult to find something at least as good in the shops.
And, you see, there’s a much more annoying aspect to this in my view. Actually, a couple of more annoying aspects.
First of all, it’s often been my experience that I’ve found the lockable toilet paper dispenser both locked and empty, with at best a stack of loose paper on the top of the box, or a bog roll perched precariously on top of the roller. More often than not, however, there is a whole lot of paper on the floor in the form of loose sheets, or a roll which looks like the Andrex puppy has been busy.
Call me fussy, if you like, but I freely admit I don’t like to use paper that’s been knocking about on the floor of a public bog, even if it is dry (which it usually isn’t).
So, there’s a problem: you’ve gone to the loo, and there is paper available but it’s not really useable, and the toilet itself looks like …, well …, crap.
One can only assume that the cleaner responsible either couldn’t be arsed to unlock the damn thing, or else has lost the key to it. Either way, the paper has still effectively been lost, even though it hasn’t actually been stolen. And it’s really annoying. And pointless.
Secondly, I think it demonstrates a pretty sad lack of trust. These days people seem to buy far more in supermarkets than they can possibly consume in the time available before the stuff goes out of date, and the quantities of waste generated in most households are increasing. So, people have access to enough money to waste things and don’t need to steal bog paper, do they? Do they?
This is demonstrated rather neatly at my own place of work where the loo I use most often has one of the dreaded lockable dispensers. Nearby, carefully stacked on the window sill, is a pile of extra loo rolls, just in case. No one steals them, as far as I can tell. But maybe no one’s going to Egypt in the near future …
So, I ask myself frequently, what’s the point? BIIK
I think this post will have a point, or maybe even two… eventually…
Unrelated thinking says I’ve seen a few hedgehogs tonight - neat - they are the cutest of critters. One was right on the white line as I was coming down the street to the house, driving in the dark, tonight. It was funny, if not a little tragic - he/she was obviously a little confused by the headlights and really couldn’t make up ones mind whether to go forward or backward… it all looked very ’spikey ball circular’. The tragedy, of course, is that this is likely to end in the equation series:
wandering hedgehog + fast moving bright lights = confused hedgehog;
therefore:
confused hedgehog + random hedgehog movements + fast moving vehicle = probability situation;
therefore:
probability situation + slow driver reaction + roughly: ‘oh shit! a hedgehog!’ = *squished* hedgehog…
QED - Quite Easily Done - as my best mate would put it.
Happy to say, said hedgehog was safe and sound last time I saw him/her doing indecisive circles around itself on the centre line down the road…
I popped out just a few minutes ago for a cigarette and another hedgehog (or the same one with ‘road-runner genes’?) was squiggling about on the drive here and scurried under the car, with gravel scrunching sounds that might wake the dead, for darkness cover…
Hedgehog night obviously…
There was a point to that wasn’t there?
(one ‘down’, one ‘to go’)…
Apparently a lot of corporations are jumping on the ’social networking’ band-wagon. What is ’social-networking’ exactly by the way? Something people who read and (possibly really sadly might have) believed crap like ‘How to win friends and influence people’ get into on the Internet?..
Anyway, apparently the millions spent on developing corporate social-networking doesn’t always work…
The matter could probably warrant more thoughtful discussion, but instead we’ll leave you with this image, from Purina’s Breeze for Cats. It’s a “community” focused on cat litter. Ask yourself, is there hope for humanity?
