Sunday, June 24, 2012

Hayward Gallery: "Invisible" exhibition (2012)

And so yesterday we walked through a warm and busy London to the South Bank, where, after sharing a doughy cheese pierogi off the real food street market, we ascended bloodstained concrete stairs to the Hayward Gallery.



The exhibition is entitled "Invisible: Art about the Unseen, 1957 -2012". We paid, were given tickets after reminding the counter clerk (was this a foretaste of the installation?) and gave them to the attendant at the door, who said something we didn't catch, so we asked him to repeat it. It was "Can you see me?" with what I suppose he hoped was an appropriately ironic smirk; I guess we should have replied, "Yes, but we can't hear you."

In we went, noting an avertissement that warned visitors that some might have difficulty reading the labels. Which were printed in white, on transparent plastic sheets, against white walls. Not that there were that many exhibits; now call me middle-browed, but if I'm offered nothing I want a lot of it for my money. In keeping, the gallery was sparsely attended, though one woman was making up for it by gazing very intensely at an empty section of wall. My wife speculates that she might have lost her glasses and thought she was looking at something. Or perhaps she was merely entering into the spirit of the thing (or the nothing).

The first item I inspected with any care was a press cutting from 1959, about Yves Klein's stunt "Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle." Klein sold tickets in exchange for shreds of gold leaf (20 grams for the first exhibition - rising later to 80 grams, such are the effects of inflation). If the buyer opted to convert these into an immaterial experience, he burned his ticket (at least he got one first time of asking, I assume) and the artist threw half the gold into the river Seine; otherwise Klein kept the lot. So the artist got something tangible and conventionally valuable, whatever happened. Gallic cunning? But it's possible, of course, that I may be doing Klein an injustice, for in 1980 one of his pieces was discovered quite by accident in an Italian convent, having been anonymously deposited there in 1961 as a votive offering by the artist, who prayed for success and the increasing beauty of his works.

I do suspect that French philosophy is basically for impressing French chicks. It worked with Simone de Beauvoir, for one; and years ago in Paris, my beloved and I were watching TV and caught an interview with Serge Gainsbourg (conducted by Jane Birkin, as I recall) where he was acting the literary lion à la française - unshaven, Gauloised, possibly well-oiled as we used to say, and spouting un grand tas de testicules about la vie, l'amour etc. Fortunately we were well-oiled too, and understood him as drunks do each other. French women know that their role is to serve the gorgeous peacock; one remembers H E Bates' "A Breath of French Air", where muscular Adonises play ball on the beach, admired by mousy-looking girls with what the Irish call streely hair.

Maybe, as with Sartre in 1943, the concept of nothingness (or for others, the numinous) is a reaction to a time when you were supposed to join one team or the other, with no standing on the sidelines (it's getting like that again now, I sense). À bas les salauds, and all that; spit in the eye of those "assured of certain certainties"; let the spirit off the leash of Reason. 

Having said that, Sartre seems to have been able to redirect his gaze to concrete matters when it suited him, as witness the controversy over his stepping into a Jewish professor's job when it became forcibly vacant under the Nazis; and in the 1968 Paris student riots, he suddenly abandoned his fundamental stance on existentialism and became able to believe in collective freedom, at least for a while. Perhaps his volte-face and surrender to the authority of Marxism is the core of surreal rebellion. As a paper already cited says, "Hysterical questioning is critical of power (“Why have you done this? This is not just!”), but beneath it all is a provocation to the father figure to appear and to interpellate more successfully."
 
Back to the matter in hand. There was other stuff here, including Robert Barry's Energy Field (AM 130 KHz) from 1968 (a wooden box with a battery and coil), and a room with a couple of air coolers (my wife said she found these things very welcome after a sauna). One room was a blackout (pictured below; fortunately I captured another visitor, so I got both ground and figure, the essentials of all Western art).

 

Then there was a wide upper gallery. This space spoke to me: it said, 'You paid fourteen quid for this." And finally, something for the kids: Jeppe Hein's Invisible Labyrinth. You know, like those inlaid floor mazes found in some theme parks and gardens, only here you had to memorise the routes.

Good art (like radio plays) makes you do some of the work, and there's no shortage of clever people stropping their intellects on this one:


Of course, reviewers don't pay to get in, and on the whole, nor would we have, if we'd known what was in store. But surely every show must have a closing number, and to play you out here's the orchestral version of John Cage's 4' 33'' so you can have something to hum as you leave:



Coincidentally, the show we saw after, "Yes, Prime Minister" at the Trafalgar Studios (Whitehall Theatre as was), also featured a nothing, this time the Prime Minister, described in the play as "a vacuum". It was funny and beautifully acted, but edgier and darker than the old TV programmes - as with Stravinsky's The Rite Of Spring, we scent in the artist's work a storm coming to us in real life.

A shame then that five minutes down the road from there we have a PM who is the human equivalent of a German beach towel, merely keeping the place for a real person to come later. Like Jim Hacker, we now see Cam thrashing about with a handful of Blairite eye-catching initiatives to divert attention from his failure to achieve anything*. As we passed the now-gated entrance to Downing Street I said, make the most of it, you've got twelve months.
 
*... and, sadly for him, draw attention to his own "housing benefit".

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

NHS - spiralling out of control




Utterly horrible. And not only confined to the elderly - a youngish friend who had an infection / fever would have died from lack of hydration had her husband not come in gangbusters, taking names and generally making it clear what would happen to them (legally) if they didn't get a line in her NOW.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

The System, Part 2: There really is a class war, and the Right knows it

Yesterday, I attempted a jokey and simplified graphic to illustrate the result of "free trade" - the initial response from James Higham has been very sniffy, something to do with hats I gather (though he seems to have no similar objection to barrels or Chinese junks). Apparently it shows I'm a Leftist, even though I've never voted for Labour - or anything further left, before you ask. Or perhaps he's merely provoking me to greater effort, despite the sense that so many bloggers are getting now, of how they are wasting their time when they could instead "sport with Amaryllis in the shade ." Nevertheless...

The "System" graphic (see sidebar) is, of course, much too simple - where is the Federal Reserve, where are the bankers (NOT the banks) who make (extract*) money at every turn, including and especially when they receive government bailouts and organise the purchase of government securities?

But a striking aspect of this cartoon update of what is, in effect, a class war is that the conflict was identified and described in class terms by speakers for what one might loosely call the Right, 18 years ago. They anticipated our present economic crisis and the resulting social instability and they did not at all welcome the prospect, as I shall show. I'm not generally fond of embedding long videos, because I like to skim and scan for essential points, but I'd like to share a couple here and having watched them in full myself I recommend them to you. Neither of the speakers makes reference to the other, but in relation to GATT and untrammelled free trade generally they are saying the same prophetic things.

The first is a talk by Dr John Coleman (whose website is here); the occasion is not explicit but from the content and tenor of his remarks I think he is addressing a broadly Republican-supporting audience in New Mexico in 1994, at the time of the GATT talks. Think of this 100 minutes as an investment, saving you the trouble and expense of reading his several books, as much of his material appears to be summarised in this tour through Conspiracy Central: Guelphs, the Black Nobility of Venice, the coming New World Order etc. In the final 5 minutes, he predicts that the US economic system will collapse and destroy the American middle class, and the varied and extensive banking system will concentrate into five majors. I'm reluctant to accept the alleged motives of the alleged secret players, and think that short-sighted greed and venality are more plausible drivers of the process, but the end result is the same, with or without the comic-book villains.



Next is an interview (also in 1994) with billionaire Sir James Goldsmith, where he correctly sees that GATT will (as he says) tip the balance between labour and capital sharply in favour of the latter, and that it will cause social disruption in Western societies.



Goldsmith, like Dr Coleman, was emphatically anti-Communist and spent his cancer-riddled last energies campaigning for a referendum on the UK's membership of the EU; he describes himself in this interview as pro-free trade; but he is very clear on the destructive effects of putting our workforce in direct competition with foreign workers whose labour is dramatically cheaper in currency-adjusted terms. (Since then, we have seen the Chinese manipulate their currency so that this price advantage is maintained, whereas according to the idealised system described by classical economists the renminbi would rise against the dollar, certain US exports would be encouraged, certain Chinese exports discouraged and there would eventually be a new equilibrium).

The canal analogy I used in my graphic has two functions: first, it suggests that the removal of all barriers to international trade triggers financial flows and economic developments at a rate that neither side can properly cope with. Second, it illustrates a system that is indeed intended to foster trade, but with a series of control points (lock gates) that manage the rate of change.

Time is the key. Given more time to adjust, capital and labour in the West would be reallocated to relatively more competitive enterprises; education and training could mutate to support the required new skill sets. But certain individuals saw an opportunity to make massive personal fortunes by helping to dislocate the society that nurtured them, with the result that the West is experiencing growing disparities of income and wealth, as well as national accounts that can't achieve a balance, and the development of a kleptocratic and tyrannical overclass in government.

Well, it it so now, despite the best efforts of the Jeremiahs and Cassandras. Perfectly ordinary, stable, hard-working people that I meet as a financial adviser are saying, unprompted, that their government doesn't care for them, even that we are headed for a revolution. Some of it is jokey (a taxi driver I know wants to start a new political party called Dilligif, after the Oz saying "Do I look like I give a f***", to show we care as little for them as they do for us); some, less so.

And it wasn't just the Left then, or now, that was saying it.

* Jesse's discussion of Acemoglu and Robinson's "Why Nations Fail" is enlightening, with its polarised pair of terms "extractive" and "inclusive". 

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Time must have a stop: was there actually NO "Big Bang"?


"A fool may ask a question which forty wise men cannot answer."

I have a question about the supposed origin of the universe, and perhaps you may be the forty-first wise man (or woman):

Time slows down in the neighbourhood of massive objects. There is no object more massive than the entire Universe, when (some 14 billion years ago) it is supposed to have been compressed into a space smaller than the nail on my little finger. In that case, seen from our present frame of reference, was time then effectively at a stop? In which case, is the Big Bang effectively separated from us by an infinite duration, and therefore did not happen?

Another correspondent tells me, "Good question. Before Planck time, there isn't even matter, and energy doesn't experience time."

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Punt that pint! The beer vending machine you HAVE to assault



hat-tip: Dick Puddlecote

London Metals Exchange: another one bites the dust

Founded in 1877 but with 16th century roots in Gresham's original Royal Exchange, the London Metals Exchange has just been sold to the Chinese.

Ironically, the LME is the last "open outcry" market in Europe. Apart from a few brave individuals like Brian Haw (whom Parliament, to its everlasting disgrace, attempted to outlaw), and the Occupy London protestors against which the City, major newspapers and that refuge of the poor and oppressed the Church orchestrated a campaign of condemnation and legal action, we hear very little open outcry against our negligent, incompetent, venal, corrupt, secretive, dictatorial and treacherous overclass. A class that has sold its soul to the money men, who have sold the freehold and seed corn of our economy in the name of "free trade" that is progressively costing our freedom and is only beneficial to the trader. It does not take a conspiracy theorist to see a pattern in the invitees to Bilderberg 2012.

The complacency of the traders and their agents in politics is astounding. Martin Hutchinson was warning of the future decline of the City back in 2007, and around the same time a smirking financier at an Oxford college reunion was assuring us that we'd be cheating foreigners for a long time to come.

How many bricks can you take out of the bottom course of your house before the structure caves in? We don't have leaders; we have Destructors.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Controversy continues over Chinese foreign farm purchases

Further to my recent post on this subject, here's a WSJ article about resistance from New Zealand farmers to the purchase of 16 farms there.

According to Wiki, Crafar Farms was NZ's largest family-owned dairy concern until a crash in milk prices forced it into receivership. The receivers had two goes at getting official clearance to sell to Chinese businesses and got the okay in April this year.

Other farmers are worrying that it's the thin end of the wedge and cash-rich foreign buyers may now start to flood in, snapping up land at prices the locals can't match and ultimately turning Kiwis into tenant farmers. Australians share their concerns - though at least one business commentator there is blowing the free trade trumpet and warning of international tension if it's unheeded.

It's an issue here, too: last month saw a £50m deal between the UK and China, to sell pork products, which is OK in itself, but indicative of the potentially vast demand from the Chinese, so our food may not stay cheap for much longer.

The Daily Telegraph, reporting on this year's Hay Festival, included an interview (see 18:00) with Conor Woodman, author of Unfair Trade - How Big Business Exploits the World’s Poor and Why It Doesn’t Have To.  The title is self-explanatory, and the issue is becoming live for us here; as Woodman says, "What concerns me more than monopolies is Chinese investments in parts of the developing world where they are buying up land, fishing, mineral and mining rights. The Chinese have been going round buying up the world and we ought to be concerned by that."

On the one hand, there's land-grabbing going on inside China, where speculators are illegally seizing and converting precious agricultural land to building projects; and on the other, Chinese business is purchasing blocks of food-producing land around the world, including the South-East of England.

Don't expect our negligent, venal and treacherous ruling class to do much about it. Daily Mail business expert Alex Brummer's new book, "Britain for Sale: British Companies in Foreign Hands - The Hidden Threat to Our Economy" shows how, unlike our foreign counterparts, the UK has long been happy to sell off key British enterprises; flogging the very ground we stand on is only an extension of that process.

Savers between a rock and a hard place

The stock market is thoroughly corrupt;  physical assets, especially those purchased with the assistance of debt, are overpriced; and the bond market looks like a mantrap.  Yet even now there are economic commentators who are not in favour of protecting cash against inflation.

If sound money is not to be, then it seems to me that unless one is part of the elite battening on the financial system, sucking out wealth faster than it is diminished by inflation, impoverishment is certain.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Drugs: just say no to antidepressants



"The cost to the NHS of treating depression [includes] £230m for antidepressant drugs" - Nigel Morris, The Independent, 30 December 2011

"The prime purpose of prescribing antidepressants is to enable doctors to avoid being blamed for patients' suicides." - Dr Robert Lefever, Daily Mail, 8 June 2012

Protecting savers from inflation - an email to my MP

Request for Parliamentary question re NS&I index-linked savings certificates

Dear Mr Xxxx

As one of your constituents, I should be grateful if you would ask questions in Parliament re the Government's intentions in respect of preserving our life savings against the ravages of inflation. This is especially a matter of concern because of continuing enormous financial support for the banking system, here and in other countries (latterly Spain) that seems destined to burst out as high inflation at some future point.

I note that Mr Cameron's private secretary has written recently to all members of the Cabinet saying, among other things:

"The Prime Minister wants to ensure that the Government as a whole is giving the highest priority to addressing the cost of living."

(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2157018/Cameron-summits-quads-secrets-save-EU.html)

If this is so, why did National Savings & Investments withdraw Index-Linked Savings Certificates from sale on 19 July 2010, when they had previously been continuously available since 1975, a year in which RPI was 24.2%? Is this an indication that the Government expects RPI to be even worse than that figure in the intermediate future?

And why were these Certificates, somewhat grudgingly reintroduced (5-year term only) on 12 May 2011, withdrawn again on 7 September? Why are they not available now?

It is also worrying that the Government's 2011 Budget Plan (as given in Red Book Annexe B, page 90 - http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/documents/digitalasset/dg_196165.pdf) says "National Savings and Investments (NS&I) is expected to make a contribution to net finance of £2 billion."

Is this a sign that the Government is purely concerned about targets for government borrowing and not at all exercised about the protection of HMG's subjects' money savings, which in many cases have been built up slowly and with difficulty over many years. Why should simple savers have to accept risks to the real value of their deferred spending, as though they were speculators?

Is the Prime Minister's leaked pronouncement a misleading dog-whistle to the electorate, or is he really willing to put our money where his mouth is?

Protecting savers from inflation - an email to my MP

Request for Parliamentary question re NS&I index-linked savings certificates

Dear Mr Xxxx

As one of your constituents, I should be grateful if you would ask questions in Parliament re the Government's intentions in respect of preserving our life savings against the ravages of inflation. This is especially a matter of concern because of continuing enormous financial support for the banking system, here and in other countries (latterly Spain) that seems destined to burst out as high inflation at some future point.

I note that Mr Cameron's private secretary has written recently to all members of the Cabinet saying, among other things:

"The Prime Minister wants to ensure that the Government as a whole is giving the highest priority to addressing the cost of living."

(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2157018/Cameron-summits-quads-secrets-save-EU.html)

If this is so, why did National Savings & Investments withdraw Index-Linked Savings Certificates from sale on 19 July 2010, when they had previously been continuously available since 1975, a year in which RPI was 24.2%? Is this an indication that the Government expects RPI to be even worse than that figure in the intermediate future?

And why were these Certificates, somewhat grudgingly reintroduced (5-year term only) on 12 May 2011, withdrawn again on 7 September? Why are they not available now?

It is also worrying that the Government's 2011 Budget Plan (as given in Red Book Annexe B, page 90 - http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/documents/digitalasset/dg_196165.pdf) says "National Savings and Investments (NS&I) is expected to make a contribution to net finance of £2 billion."

Is this a sign that the Government is purely concerned about targets for government borrowing and not at all exercised about the protection of HMG's subjects' money savings, which in many cases have been built up slowly and with difficulty over many years. Why should simple savers have to accept risks to the real value of their deferred spending, as though they were speculators?

Is the Prime Minister's leaked pronouncement a misleading dog-whistle to the electorate, or is he really willing to put our money where his mouth is?

INVESTMENT DISCLOSURE: None. Still in cash (and index-linked National Savings Certificates), and missing all those day-trading opportunities.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content.

Insatiable beaver

"South Park" creator Trey Parker's first film:

Friday, June 08, 2012

Watch out! Phony mobile roaming charges can cost you THOUSANDS!

A bad experience recounted by Henry Curteis of The Tap blog: a bill of £4,000 for emails to a switched-off mobile phone.

I've had pay-as-you-go for years, not just because I'm a low user but as a protection against those telephone scams that instantly charge you hundreds when you hit "reply".

"Basket of currencies" a solution for Zimbabwe

According to this blog, stocks in the shops have improved since they have started to accept currency from the USA, South Africa and Botswana. Though there is a problem with small change...

New Olympic sport: pole dancing

Drop the louche allure and put on the whites, and this'd challenge the men on the pommel horse:


To all college students everywhere

How true!

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/laundry.png

Tuesday, June 05, 2012

China's foreign farmland acquisitions

Back in March (Broad Oak Blog), I argued that the USA's future is not so bleak, when you consider her natural resources, especially farmland:


You can see that China's ratio is very low, and what with an expanding population, an improving diet, the grabbing of rural land by corrupt regional officials for speculative building projects, growing air and water pollution etc the demand for farmland is intensifying.

And China is doing something about it. In January, its Hong-Kong based Phoenix Weekly publication announced that 8,000 square kilometers of foreign arable land have been acquired so far, some recently in Australia (where cattlemen are arguing that the latest 400 sq mile project won't work) and New Zealand. As with all tussles over limited resources, this is bound to be controversial, so the next step is attempts to avoid scrutiny of the process.

Food prices and shortages are moving up from a Third World to a First World issue - see farmlandgrab.org for ongoing coverage from around the world. And if China should begin eyeing Russia's fertile soil? 

Then there's the world of professional investment - one of the longer running funds being the CF Eclectica Agriculture Fund. This is yet another area fraught with moral dilemma - making money for you and yours (or your clients), but at the price of soaring food costs and ultimately, starvation for many. If we make a fuss about "blood diamonds", how much more so should we raise objections to "blood farmland"?

Greed, and suffering. The sooner we move away from the over-financialised economy and back to sound money, making things and exchanging our surpluses, the better.

Post-it animation



Via Cartoon Brew.

Sunday, June 03, 2012

The Bilderberg Jubilee

Today marks the end of the 60th Bilderberg Conference.
The Alternative Action blog lists the attendees. Usefully, you can copy and paste into a spreadsheet and re-order, so that you can see how each country is represented.

Here's the GB contingent (I've added an indication of current or former interests in the right-hand column) - the two in red were the appointed "rapporteurs"for this conference:


Bearing in mind that Bilderberg is about European-North American dialogue and cooperation, do you think these people are the best to represent British interests here? Is there any voice you think should (or should not) have been included?

Or do you get the uneasy feeling that it's a convocation of cats to decide what to do about mice?

Fruity language from Balloon Head Cameron

"... a court sentenced Hosni Mubarak [...] to life in prison for his role in the killing of more than 800 protestors..." - ABC News

On radio news yesterday, it was alternatively "protestors" and "demonstrators". But if it had been "rioters"? The choice of terms can make such a difference.

Yet ex-spin doctor David Cameron, supposedly an expert on presentation, said yesterday that hostage-takers like those raided by the SAS in Afghanistan could "expect a swift and brutal end".

"Brutal"? That leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Well, English wasn't one of his A-level subjects, though presumably it was at 'O' level. Perhaps his judgment has been permanently clouded by his alleged school age cannabis consumption, for which he got 500 lines. Not white lines, obviously; though when I visited a friend in Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1970 he told me that the large Old Etonian contingent there was cliquey and very into cocaine, so one can only wonder where and when their predilection was allowed to develop.

Would you like to think like a Prime Minister? Play Fruit Ninja here!

Means and ends

1941: 

"A Hauptmann (captain) with the 73rd Infantry Division reflected that peace would come even to the Balkans with a New European Order ‘so that our children would experience no more war’."

- Quoted in Anthony Beevor's "The Second World War" (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2012)

There is always this regrettable thing to do, then the lasting good will come. But it can't:

"... our personal experience and the study of history make it abundantly clear that the means whereby we try to achieve something are at least as important as the end we wish to attain. Indeed, they are even more important. For the means employed inevitably determine  the nature of the result achieved, whereas, however good the end aimed at may be, its goodness is powerless to counteract the effects  of the bad means we use to reach it. Similarly, a reform may be in the highest degree desirable; but if the contexts in which that reform is effected are undesirable, the results will inevitably be disappointing. These are simple and obvious truths. Nevertheless they are almost universally neglected."

- Aldous Huxley, "Ends and Means" (Chatto & Windus, 1941)

The European Project, the wholesale reordering of the British constitution (Supreme Court, House of Lords, the coming sinister National Crime Agency and so on), the international assault on Iraq - all undertaken without truthfully informed democratic consent.

The alliance with Franco against Communism, the support of the Taliban against the Russians; all these clever, disastrous calculations balancing evils. Stalin teaming up with Hitler's National Socialists against the wicked West, then ten silent, shocked days in a forest cabin when Hitler turned on him.

Procedure matters, after all. We can't guarantee a successful end, but at least we can choose what means we employ.

Saturday, June 02, 2012

Derby wager

The race is to start in five minutes. I'm rooting for Minimise Risk for a place; I think it's an appropriate name, like Party Politics in the 1992 Grand National.

Update: placed last, of course. Camelot wins - is this a favourable augur for the Conservative PM?

Dow 1,000 or less? Quote of the week (or century)

"If I am correct, I expect the Dow to be trading well under 1,000 by 2016. I am nailing that to my mast – and computer screen."

John Burford, Financial Trading Strategies website

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

UK debt far worse than USA's

Reading Richard Murphy's Tax Research website, I see that Paul Krugman has graphed UK public debt since 1900 and really, it's implied, we're not in that bad a situation right now.

But you have to look at the total weight of debt in the economy, not just the government part. McKinsey did this in January and as of Q2 last year, the UK's total debt-to-GDP exceeded 500%, putting us pretty much on a par with Japan and far above eight other major economies:


And we don't have an industrial - and industrious - base like Japan's.

INVESTMENT DISCLOSURE: None. Still in cash (and index-linked National Savings Certificates), and missing all those day-trading opportunities. DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content.

UK debt far worse than USA's

Reading Richard Murphy's Tax Research website, I see that Paul Krugman has graphed UK public debt since 1900 and really, it's implied, we're not in that bad a situation right now.

But you have to look at the total weight of debt in the economy, not just the government part. McKinsey did this in January and as of Q2 last year, the UK's total debt-to-GDP exceeded 500%, putting us pretty much on a par with Japan and far above eight other major economies:


And we don't have an industrial - and industrious - base like Japan's.

Yet more on drugs



From Cartoonbrew

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Computer security: it's your choice

(From my own developing experience)

or...


... by the brilliant XKCD: http://xkcd.com/350/

How the mainstream media kills stories

I wish I'd known of John Ward before.

In this reminiscence today, he has Andrew Marr effectively burying the Brown antidepressants story by asking him about it - carefully contexted within the eyesight discussion - in a way that Brown could deny, i.e. did he, like many people, take prescription painkillers (semi-muttered addition: "... and pills to help them get through").

br />

Ward continues:

I emailed Marr three times to ask why he had asked that particular question. I never received a reply. But I did get a phone call from my BBC contact saying, “I’m afraid you’ve learned a lesson today – the use of media aperture to kill a story you don’t like”.

Not to mention super-secret injunctions, when it suits you, Mr Marr; though as a prominent journalist it may also suit you at other times to argue strongly for the right to ask awkward personal questions and demand answers. As he wrote of the late Ruth Picardie back in the 1997 days when "things could only get better":

She was curious. She was rude. She asked awkward, embarrassing questions, including about herself, and didn't flinch from nasty answers. And embarrassing questions are good, the lifeblood of journalism. Without them, we are duller, stupider bipeds.

Perhaps I shouldn't be too severe. Life has a way of hitting us in the face with our own words.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

On Stamford Bridge

We stood on a little jetty at the end of a private garden. The caged fowl beside the public footpath were silent. Shaded by branches, midges circled above the eddying stream. Static caravans lay haphazardly on the other bank, like cast runes.

Near here, said the leaflet, stood the original Saxon bridge, where a Viking warrior held off Harold’s army, buying time for his countrymen to scramble into position on the rise behind us. Some say he slew up to 40 Englishmen, a Biblical number.

Was he a swordsman, like the name and sign on the local inn? Or was he a giant berserker, whirling a great two-handed war-axe, both weapon and shield?

And how was he killed? Legend has it that someone got into a half barrel and floated underneath the bridge, thrusting a spear up between the planks. One can imagine the Norseman jerking onto tiptoe and dropping his blade, others jumping forward to hack him down.

Battle-memory is sharp. Back home, survivors would relate his story, acting out the planted feet, each mighty movement, the raging face. His fame would live.

As would his family. A young son might become a king’s ward, then an honoured house-carl; a daughter would have suitors for the hero’s blood in her veins, and as was iron custom, his widow’s neighbour would plough her field before his own.

Almost a thousand years have passed, and all has changed. In 1066, there was no village here; now, there are buildings of brick and stone, metalled roads, other vegetation and a different climate. Even the river will have altered, in its shape and the composition and depth of its silt.

And so has the cosmos. The glittering bridge over which his soul would pass to the Hall of the Slain (Norway was then only part-Christianized), is now an arm of the Milky Way, around which the Earth, part of a solar system unimagined in his day, has since moved trillions of miles in its quarter-billion-year orbit. More of the outer reaches of the ever-expanding Universe are now receding faster than light, so that the glint of long-extinct stars, quasars and galaxies can never reach us. All that is, is moving away from what is observed to what is recorded, then to speculation, myth and oblivion. Yet his brave deed is still remembered.

So, why is he anonymous? The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes him simply as a Norwegian, and the early 13th century Norse account omits him entirely. No bard inscribed him on eternity’s roll. Yet we still know the name of Horatius Cocles, who held back the Etruscans while the bridge into Rome was demolished, 1,500 years ago. Perhaps this Viking is an invention by one who understood narrative, and how stories of vast conflict need intensifying moments of delay, and an interlude at the personal scale before returning to the broader historical vista. Besides, the heart always soars at the contemplation of those who scorn certain death.

He may have been real, nevertheless. The Chronicle’s reference is matter-of-fact, and makes his action merely a rearguard defence after the death of Hardraada. But was he really here, by this shallow, narrow, island-divided branch of the Derwent?

Or, as some say, did the battle occur a mile further downstream, at what is now Scoreby, a Roman settlement straddling a wider stretch of river spanned by a bridge? That would seem a more likely place for Hardraada and Harold Godwinson’s rebellious brother Tostig to wait complacently in the warm September sunshine for further hostages and supplies from York, following their victory at Fulford five days earlier. Their forces were resting on both sides of the water, and their body armour, presumed no longer necessary, lay 15 miles away with their ships, at Riccall.

It was in this condition that the English King surprised them, having marched 185 miles from London in only four days. The occupiers on the west bank were quickly slaughtered, the remainder of the army assembling their overlapping “board-wall” and, perhaps retreating to the 100-foot rise at High Catton, resisting the attack for hours, before fragmenting and being routed. King Harald’s throat was pierced by an arrow, as (according to tradition) King Harold’s eye would be, nineteen days later; Tostig also perished, along with the overwhelming majority of the invaders.

Stamford is overshadowed by Hastings, but it was one of those hinges on which history turns. What might have happened, had the Norwegians won? Would Hardraada have gambled for the whole country, fighting William of Normandy? Had Tostig planned to be the King’s vassal, or to divide the land diagonally into Danelaw for Hardraada and some sort of Anglund for himself? Would that have lasted? Or would England have faced a series of episodes of civil strife and invasion worse even than the merciless elite-decapitation and folk-oppression of the Normans?

Had the Scandinavians succeeded, what would our language, law, custom and culture be today? Impossible to imagine.

So, reflecting on a man who might never have been, a place where something may not have happened, and a landscape which scarcely resembles that of a millennium ago, we took our souvenir earthenware mug with its horned-helmeted axeman and our misleading printed guide, and joined the queue at the lights to cross a bridge that probably had nothing to do with events that made us what we are today.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Starve the beast


Labradors are just naturally greedy. Whatever you give them they'll eat, and if you don't restrict their diet, pretty soon you'll have a coffee table on furry legs. It's not good for them or kind to them.

Whereas bankers are capable of restraint: as recently as this January, RBS boss Stephen Hester turned down a bonus worth almost £1 million. He and Bob Diamond are good examples to set our much-loved but undisciplined pets.

Prisons: a reply to Peter Hitchens

Peter Hitchen's first item today is inspired by a touchy-feely recruitment poster for the prison service:


... Pasted up in an Oxfordshire byway, I found extraordinary proof of what most of us have long suspected and what politicians always try to deny (above). We are now so soft on wrong-doing that the wicked must be laughing at us.

It is a recruiting poster for prison officers. Beneath a picture of two smiling, kindly types in uniform sharing a jolly moment are the words: ‘Father figures. Agony Aunts. When you’re the closest to family anyone’s experienced in a long while, it becomes less of a job and more of a calling. Prison officers. People officers by nature.’

It continues: ‘Gaining the respect of offenders isn’t a skill you can learn. It’s something you need to have in you already: that ability to build rapport with a broad range of characters and ultimately make a breakthrough.’

The Ministry of Injustice, whose name and superscription are on the poster, have confirmed to me that it is really theirs. There you have it. For the worst people in the country, we hire ‘agony aunts’ and ‘father figures’ whose job is to ‘gain the respect’ of people who have repeatedly trampled on the rights and freedoms of their neighbours.

For the rest of us, death and taxes, indifference, inefficiency, scorn and an array of decrepit, slovenly ‘services’, which grow worse the more we pay for them.

Why, exactly, do you vote for the people who are responsible for this? I’d love to know.



To which I comment:


For once, I have to disagree with Peter, in relation to the first item. We should look to deal with what caused so many people to be imprisoned - so many prisoners have previously been "in care" and/or have lower levels of literacy and/or have mental health problems.

I'm sure there are many who would be dissuaded from crime by a realistic expectation of conviction (for a first offence, or at least an early one in their series) and punishment, and the traditional approach could work for them.

But there are many others who are in a spiral of self-loathing and destructive behaviour because of a lack of loving care, and I think a higher proportion of them end up in the prison system because they have despaired and the connection between behaviour and sanctions has broken.

The prison system needs reforming - when did prisoner-on-prisoner bullying and violence begin? Not in the days when they were strictly segregated even in chapel. And forcible buggery is not a judicial punishment, despite the leering threats made by officials to young offenders in all those police movies.

Jail is a punishment in terms of deprivation of personal liberty and loss of daily contact with loved ones; it is a deterrent for those considering similar offences; and it is a protection for society, during the time that offenders are kept inside.

But unless we're prepared to hang prisoners, or jail them for life, we need to do something about their addictions, their mental and emotional dysfunctions and their lack of employable skills.

And then we need to look at the dysfunctional society from which they come, and to which they will usually return: one that doesn't do much to support families and marriage, and employment (especially of men, because of how they are when they have nothing constructive to do).

Monday, May 07, 2012

UK money supply growth hits historic low

Issued 2 May, the latest Bank of England quarterly M4 figures plumb new depths - remember, M4 had NEVER been negative from 1963 on, until the credit crunch in 2009.


INVESTMENT DISCLOSURE: None. Still in cash (and index-linked National Savings Certificates), and missing all those day-trading opportunities.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content.

UK money supply growth hits historic low

Issued 2 May, the latest Bank of England quarterly M4 figures plumb new depths - remember, M4 had NEVER been negative from 1963 on, until the credit crunch in 2009.


INVESTMENT DISCLOSURE: None. Still in cash (and index-linked National Savings Certificates), and missing all those day-trading opportunities.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content.

Silver as a protection against the powerful

Some days ago, the King World News blog posted an interview with the octogenarian Mexican billionaire, Hugo Salinas Price. He says "full-blown socialism" is on its way. Some might read the results of the recent French and Greek elections in that context.

There comes a time in a successful old man's life when he starts to ride a hobby-horse, whether it be philanthropy or politics. Sir James Goldsmith, dying of cancer, spent his last energies urging a British referendum on membership of the EU, having previously and presciently warned (in 1994) of the social instability inherent in the GATT agreement that set the labour forces of nations against one another. For all his faults, such as they may have been, I think that was a heroic finish.

Mr Price's horse is sound money, and he has worked long to reintroduce silver to Mexico as at least an alternative to fiat (paper, symbolic) money. In February he was interviewed by James Turk of GoldMoney and explained that this would be silver money with a twist: no face value expressed in currency terms. That is because when silver rises in price, it tends to be melted down for its scrap value; so the Libertad coin issuance is in various degrees of weight of silver content. He tells Turk that even if it is accepted as a partner with fiat, it won't necessarily be used in daily commercial exchange; instead, it will be held, as a store of value.

Why is this important? Because private property is a bastion against the powerful. In this latest interview, Price notes that Italy and Spain now ban cash purchases larger than 2,500 Euros, and refers to the US food stamp system as "ration cards": all part of a drift towards the State seizing control of commercial transactions.

The trouble is, States and big businesses become a threat when they join hands. As Marc Faber said (on King World News, again): "Near the end of a society or civilization, they typically become very corrupt. Either the government runs the businesses or the businesses run the government." Faber's hobby-horse is doom - perhaps this old man's conceit has persuaded him that the world will end shortly after he does; one can only hope that in this, unlike previously in other matters, he will be proved wrong.

What I find interesting about Price is that his is no simple redneck damn-Commie outlook: he sees socialism as merely a means used by an elite to continue in their position of power over the rest of us. They have made us dependent on a welfare state largesse based on corrupt money, and will move to a more naked form of control when the financial system breaks down. Since (he says) socialism is less efficient, this means declining resources (especially post Peak Oil) and therefore, ultimately, a dwindling world human population. That process of dwindling is easily referred to, but would be so hard to live through; perhaps we face a Spring and Autumn Period; I very much hope not.

But remember, this is not primarily about socialism; it is about power. From 2008 on we have seen businesses take over government, from the way Hank Paulson and his banker friends bullied Congress into re-voting to ensure that the first $700 billion of public money was paid via TARP, to the EU central bank installation of puppet financial regimes in proud independent States like Greece and Italy.

So, in a pseudo-capitalist phase, the businesses run the government; and then, in a faux-socialist aftermath, government will run business.

The people doing this will be essentially all of one class: I started saying to friends some years ago, that we are witnessing the reconstruction of a pan-European (perhaps I should have said, global) aristocracy. The bankers, politicians, journalists, advisers are dining and sleeping together, intermarrying, living in great houses and sailing fine yachts; and don't know the price of milk. They may ride bikes in public, forget to wear ties, slur their speech in demotic imitation; but it's all like Harold Wilson as PM, stubbing out his cigar and seizing his pipe as he strode from Number Ten to be photographed by the Press. The ones who lead the mob to supplant them are their brothers and sisters, under the skin. And the hereditary principle is stronger among socialists: look at peerage-renouncing Tony Benn and his constituency-inheriting son, look at Peter Mandelson and his vaunted descent from Herbert Morrison (possibly even the throne of Poland), look at North Korea. The sense of entitlement stinks to high heaven.

Yet, if only the mice could bell the cat, the solution could be so quick. Debt forgiveness (or repudiation); mutual debt cancellation (since a debtor to one is the creditor to another, in a great international web); or simply starving the beast, by shifting our deposits to more responsible banks.

But fundamentally, holding your own money means it is not the creature of a central bank (created out of debt), or a government's (created out of nothing, by printing). Despite the high price of silver and gold, I find myself leaning to their promise of a degree of wealth preservation in an increasingly unstable economic (and political) system.

INVESTMENT DISCLOSURE: None. Still in cash (and index-linked National Savings Certificates), and missing all those day-trading opportunities.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content.

Silver as a protection against the powerful

Some days ago, the King World News blog posted an interview with the octogenarian Mexican billionaire, Hugo Salinas Price. He says "full-blown socialism" is on its way. Some might read the results of the recent French and Greek elections in that context.

There comes a time in a successful old man's life when he starts to ride a hobby-horse, whether it be philanthropy or politics. Sir James Goldsmith, dying of cancer, spent his last energies urging a British referendum on membership of the EU, having previously and presciently warned (in 1994) of the social instability inherent in the GATT agreement that set the labour forces of nations against one another. For all his faults, such as they may have been, I think that was a heroic finish.

Mr Price's horse is sound money, and he has worked long to reintroduce silver to Mexico as at least an alternative to fiat (paper, symbolic) money. In February he was interviewed by James Turk of GoldMoney and explained that this would be silver money with a twist: no face value expressed in currency terms. That is because when silver rises in price, it tends to be melted down for its scrap value; so the Libertad coin issuance is in various degrees of weight of silver content. He tells Turk that even if it is accepted as a partner with fiat, it won't necessarily be used in daily commercial exchange; instead, it will be held, as a store of value.

Why is this important? Because private property is a bastion against the powerful. In this latest interview, Price notes that Italy and Spain now ban cash purchases larger than 2,500 Euros, and refers to the US food stamp system as "ration cards": all part of a drift towards the State seizing control of commercial transactions.

The trouble is, States and big businesses become a threat when they join hands. As Marc Faber said (on King World News, again): "Near the end of a society or civilization, they typically become very corrupt. Either the government runs the businesses or the businesses run the government." Faber's hobby-horse is doom - perhaps this old man's conceit has persuaded him that the world will end shortly after he does; one can only hope that in this, unlike previously in other matters, he will be proved wrong.

What I find interesting about Price is that his is no simple redneck damn-Commie outlook: he sees socialism as merely a means used by an elite to continue in their position of power over the rest of us. They have made us dependent on a welfare state largesse based on corrupt money, and will move to a more naked form of control when the financial system breaks down. Since (he says) socialism is less efficient, this means declining resources (especially post Peak Oil) and therefore, ultimately, a dwindling world human population. That process of dwindling is easily referred to, but would be so hard to live through; perhaps we face a Spring and Autumn Period; I very much hope not.

But remember, this is not primarily about socialism; it is about power. From 2008 on we have seen businesses take over government, from the way Hank Paulson and his banker friends bullied Congress into re-voting to ensure that the first $700 billion of public money was paid via TARP, to the EU central bank installation of puppet financial regimes in proud independent States like Greece and Italy.

So, in a pseudo-capitalist phase, the businesses run the government; and then, in a faux-socialist aftermath, government will run business.

The people doing this will be essentially all of one class: I started saying to friends some years ago, that we are witnessing the reconstruction of a pan-European (perhaps I should have said, global) aristocracy. The bankers, politicians, journalists, advisers are dining and sleeping together, intermarrying, living in great houses and sailing fine yachts; and don't know the price of milk. They may ride bikes in public, forget to wear ties, slur their speech in demotic imitation; but it's all like Harold Wilson as PM, stubbing out his cigar and seizing his pipe as he strode from Number Ten to be photographed by the Press. The ones who lead the mob to supplant them are their brothers and sisters, under the skin. And the hereditary principle is stronger among socialists: look at peerage-renouncing Tony Benn and his constituency-inheriting son, look at Peter Mandelson and his vaunted descent from Herbert Morrison (possibly even the throne of Poland), look at North Korea. The sense of entitlement stinks to high heaven.

Yet, if only the mice could bell the cat, the solution could be so quick. Debt forgiveness (or repudiation); mutual debt cancellation (since a debtor to one is the creditor to another, in a great international web); or simply starving the beast, by shifting our deposits to more responsible banks.

But fundamentally, holding your own money means it is not the creature of a central bank (created out of debt), or a government's (created out of nothing, by printing). Despite the high price of silver and gold, I find myself leaning to their promise of a degree of wealth preservation in an increasingly unstable economic (and political) system.

In for a penny, in for a pound

It seems that the British pound was originally based on a pound weight of silver, equivalent to 240 silver pennies (or "sterlings"). I remember the old pre-decimal penny (which was 12 to the shilling, and 20 shillings made a pound) - though it had long since ceased to be made of silver.

Currently, 99.9% pure silver is being bought at £0.53 per gram. A pound weight of silver (454 grams) would therefore fetch £240.62.

So an old silver penny is worth a new British pound.


An 11th century (Edward the Confessor) penny

But the increased efficiency of modern production and distribution has made things cheaper today:

- Petrol (currently c. £1.40 per litre) would, in silver terms, cost 6d/gallon - a third cheaper than in 1896! And that's despite the fact that, these days, 60% of the pump price of petrol is taxes.
- Artisan bread from Asda (currently 78p for 400g), equates to £1.13 for a full pound weight (454g) - a little over one silver penny. Whereas in the year 1758, the old best quality (white) "penny loaf" got you only 6 ounces 2 drams weight, or 174 grams; so a pound weight of the same would now cost 2.6 silver pennies - more than twice as much pro rata as that Asda loaf.
So we've had inflation, but also a drop in prices.

Sunday, May 06, 2012

Those gold-plated public sector pensions that are ruining us

The Office of National Statistics (htp: The Spectator's "Barometer" column) has calculated that pension obligations in the UK amount to £7.1 trillion, or nearly 5 times GDP.

Unfunded public sector pensions - the so-called "gold-plated" ones - account for a mere 11.90% of the total.



Saturday, May 05, 2012

Simon Heffer has gone mad

From today's Daily Mail:

"Most people are quite content with things the way they are."
"I am delighted Tony Blair is re-engaging with British politics."

I rest my case. Careful with those straps, gentlemen; easy does it; now the syringe.

Why I voted UKIP

In our ward, it didn't make any difference, this time round, although the UKIP candidate did beat the Conservative into xth place.

But I take a wider view.

Withdrawing from the EU is essential: it's quite clear that the one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work. Yet even now the EU continues in that path.

Let's take one example: Mervyn King told the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee on 27 March:

"The current proposals that were put forward by the European Commission would have made it impossible for any regulator, say in Sweden or in the United Kingdom, to impose higher capital requirements on its own banks in order to protect domestic taxpayers. If you have a large banking sector and the consequences of its failure would be much more damaging to domestic taxpayers because they would feel compelled to bail the banks out, in that situation—as Switzerland has done, and indeed so far as Sweden has also done, and as Vickers recommends for banks behind the ring-fence—to have a higher level of capital than previously would simply make sure that you had a safer banking system, which would help to protect domestic taxpayers. Since there is no suggestion that European taxpayers are going to pick up the bill for a national banking system if it gets into trouble, it seems reasonable to allow national regulators to protect national taxpayers but the European Commission does not want to allow that."



If we keep voting for any of the three largest parties we'll never get past the first step.

But it's not enough. All that would do is to expose what rotters we have in Parliament. Peter Hitchens is good at noting how many of our laws arise from EU directives, yet the MPs pretend it's their decision. And at other times, they tell us that the EU insists on things where actually we have discretion. So a restoration of national sovereignty would mean no-one else for them to blame.

Then there's the voting system, so flawed that there's lots of people making very good money advising political parties how to exploit it. Funny how they all got together to keep out the Alternative Vote. Better Buggins' turn than all be thrown out in favour of some new political force; though as the origin of that phrase indicates (see link), the current corrupt system could be the reason for the catastrophic collapse.

And the weird boundary system, too. Until the boundary in my constituency was changed, you could vote for anything you liked but you'd get Labour. You'll still never get Conservative here.

Which brings me to the electorate. Thomas Jefferson advocated any political system that fully reflected the will of the people, even if that meant revising the Constitution from time to time. But the franchise in his day was nothing so widely extended as today. Democratic government throws itself on the mercy of the people, and that places a reliance on the people's intelligence, their level of education and access to information, and willingness to debate reasonably and abide by collective decisions.

Well, maybe we're sunk, then.

But it is better to be defeated in an honourable cause, than prosper in corruption.

And besides, if the people have more say, more often, in matters that affect them, this will educate them.

So, UKIP - and the feelings and as yet not fully defined principles behind it - is a start.

Thursday, May 03, 2012

Foreign cinema news

Despite the success of "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen", which has also boosted tourist interest in that area, the Egyptian Film Board is reportedly "disappointed" at the reception of its own recent release, "Catching Crabs in Alexandria".

Suspicion of the day

Those who publicly demand freedom are secretly seeking power over others.

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

Gun murders revisited

Yesterday, I grabbed some Wiki data to look at whether a higher rate of gun ownership means a lower chance of being killed with a gun. I divided one by the other and it didn't look like the argument stood up.

Today I'll do it a different way: I'll MULTIPLY one by the other, on the assumption that if the theory is correct, one figure gets lower and the other gets higher, so the line should be reasonably even, even if it might be angled (I'm sure a statistician can put me right, but at least I'm trying). Here's the data:


... and here's the graph (in block form):


The last 5 on the right leap out of the trend. My explanation is that higher rates of gun murders are more a function of lack of social cohesion and weak official control. What's yours?

Tuesday, May 01, 2012

Osborne: Bankers face payment by results

A startling recent report from the Daily Telegraph outlines a radical shakeup of the banking system by the Chancellor, George Osborne. I reproduce the text below (N.B. our spellchecker has identified and corrected a number of errors in the course of transcription).
__________________________________________________________
Poor bankers could be paid less than competent colleagues under government plans to improve standards of commercial banking.

Ministers want to link pay to performance in the boardroom as part of a new drive to improve results and attract the best graduates into the profession.

A cross-party group of MPs today says that a new payment by results system is needed to stop the worst bankers hiding behind a “rigid and unfair” national remuneration structure.

“Results” would include not just profits but measures such as how much progress client businesses make, corporate governance and credit ratings.

Last night, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, disclosed that Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, had already asked the FSA, which analyses national remuneration packages, to set up a new Walker-style review and “make recommendations on introducing greater freedoms and flexibilities in bankers’ pay, including how to link it better to performance”.

Mr Osborne said the Government welcomed the MPs’ report “into this important area”. The review body is expected to deliver its recommendations by September.

In the report published today, the Treasury select committee says bankers should be rewarded for “adding the greatest value” to customers’ businesses and be given paid sabbaticals to further their skills.

MPs claim the reforms would address fears that poor bankers are having a “very significant” impact on businesses’ long-term prospects. The report quotes international research which shows that the worst bankers could cost business people and millions of employees their livelihoods and life savings.

Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford University in America, has shown that an excellent banker can help local enterprises thrive and create employment, whereas a poor one will drive his customers into receivership.

The British Bankers’ Association is strongly opposed to any attempt to alter pay and conditions. However, the committee’s report says: “No longer should the weakest bankers be able to hide behind a rigid and unfair pay structure.

“We believe that performance management systems should support and reward the strongest bankers, as well as make no excuses — or, worse, incentives to remain — for the weaker. Given the profound positive and negative impacts which bankers have on national economic performance, we are concerned that the pay system continues to reward low performers at the same levels as their more successful peers.”

They want the Government to draw up proposals for a pay system that rewards those adding the greatest “value to the performance of enterprises”.

Marcus Agius, the chairman of the British Bankers’ Association, said: “Payment by results is total nonsense. Our customers are not tins of beans and banks are not factory production lines.

“Successful banks rely on a collegiate approach and team working. Performance-related pay is not only inappropriate but also divisive.

“Business people differ and startups differ from year to year, making it impossible to measure progress in simplistic terms.”

There are currently 5 major banking groups in the UK, and about 20 others. Although an element of performance-related pay already exists, ministers are now looking at enhancing rewards for the best.

Currently, bankers in London can earn up to £1.25 million. but see their pay rise to £8 million with other perks and bonuses. Earlier this year, Natalie Ceeney CBE, the chief executive of the Financial Ombudsman Service, said too many bankers – more than 90 per cent – were allowed to pass the test. “The thing that irritates good bankers, people who work hard and go the extra mile, is seeing the people that don’t do that being rewarded,” she said.

In December, it was reported that just no bankers judged to be incompetent over an 18-month period had been sacked.

In further recommendations, the report says a “sabbatical scholarship” programme should allow outstanding bankers to take time out to work in a different bank, undertake research or refresh their subject knowledge. It is also suggested fund managers and quantitative analysts be allowed to lead training sessions for university students as part of a system of “banking taster classes” to show them the benefit of a career in the profession.