bozo's return

Socialism begins at home

Everyone knows Bozo is a socialist.
Everyone knows Bozo dislikes the Labour Party. Blair. Brown. Milliband. Yuck

But this new benefits policy they launched today isn't awful.

It may be awful when it gets to detail. And implementation. But as a headline idea I like it

Why?

Well I believe in socialism as Jesus did. He knew that one of the mysteries is we are not clones. We are all unique. Some are blessed massively. Some born into a life if trial.

We are supposed to take our blessings and freely give to help those less blessed.

Tory policies would be fine if we were a nation of givers. But we are a nation of tax avoiders We follow Dawkins view that we lucked out in some universal lottery. Tough titty on those who didn't. Adapt or die.

But.
This country does offer everyone free education. Everyone. Sure. Some schools are better than others.
But it's free. And you get to choose how hard you work even in a crap school.

So while admitting there are exceptions. And admitting there are extenuating circumstances. The fact remains large numbers of kids laugh in the face of free education. Toss it off till 16. Then expect the rest of us to pay for them for life.

Many of them also want to blame immigrants who bothered to learn to read abd count and spell for taking their jobs.

I believe totally in the social safety net. I believe totally in the obligation of the blessed to give generously to the unblessed.

But. I also believe if you already tossed away one free education you can't complain at being made to accept a second one before the rest of us pick up your sky tv tab.

My mum would never have tolerated my wasting my education. Never.
But then today she'd have ended up in court for giving me a slap when I got out if order.

Socialism begins at home. Caring for your kids includes an obligation to make them actually take advantage of the free education!

My mum didn't slap me often. She didn't need to. But the fact that she could and would helped me become a productive member of society.

A few more would be nice

RBS. Gotta admire their chutzpah

Let me put on my old cracked record.

We put people who stole trainers in the riots a few years ago in prison.

Management of RBS have scammed the entire country for many years now. Costing us billions and billions. More than a few pairs of trainers. And instead of locking any of them up we are paying them another £500m in bonuses.

Puke

Is the blame properly apportioned?

I have decided I am heartily sick of one particular comment. You will all have heard it, it goes along the lines of: "why does God allow all the poverty and starvation in the world?"

You really think that is God's fault?

Really?

Apparently people do - and think that the existence of poverty and starvation is a kind of proof that God cannot exist.

So. You don't think that God has provided us with enough resources in this creation to feed, clothe and house everyone?

Because I think He has. I think the problem is distribution. I think the people on earth are really very bad at distribution.

So let us consider a case study of an acquaintance of mine - who shall remain nameless.

He loves football a lot. He subscribes to Sky Sports - and BT Sports and he has a season ticket to Chelsea. Now that's quite an investment. £900-£1250 for the season ticket. According to the Sky website the Sports package is £22 on top of the £21,50 for Sky. So that's coming up to £500 a year - without even allowing for the BT Sports bolt on. Let's say a conservative £1700 a year for the lot. That's just under $2,800.

That is close to the per capita GDP for Laos - and just behind Pakistan's $3056. According to the IMF (data found here on wikipedia). According to that data. There are 47 countries whose per capita GDP is less than the cost (pre tax) of following Premiership football to the max. Our anonymous Chelsea season ticket holder needs to earn about £3000 before tax to keep doing that. This is a reasonable number to look at - as if it went to charity - it would be deductiible! £3000 is about $4900 dollars and now exceeds the per capita GDP of 63 countries.

And where does his £3000 of pre tax cash go? Well Sky pays most of their share to the Premiership - who pay their teams - who pay their players. Last week Chelsea fielded 11 millionaires with another 5 on the bench. Any profits made by Chelsea end up with Roman Abramovich, who, according to therichest.com was worth $13.6 billion back in May 2013 (although other web sources put the poor man back at only $10.6 billion).

Phew! So at least it's all going to good homes.

Now my friend cries out (trust me he does) "I earn this money - I work very hard for it. And I have the right to spend it however I want!"

And, guess what. I agree with him!

God gave us all free will. So we all get to choose what to do with our hard earned money.

I just think that what my friend doesn't get to do is blame poverty on God.

***

There is of course an addendum to this. My friend would ask - why does God not arrange the distribution fairly in the first place?

But would you want Him to do that? Really?

My friend would. But only by creating much, much more in the way of resoruces, so the poverty stricken and starving could get taken care of without anything being taken away from him personally!

The world has enough food and enough money - it is the choices of all of us with free will (and I do include myself in that category) means that it is unfairly distributed.

It makes no sense to blame that on God.

If you think God shouldnt allow it - then be careful what you wish for - because most people read the book of Amos - which is a pretty clear vision of God's opinion of people who don't look after the poor - and think that it makes God the bad guy when he wants to punish the haves for ignoring the have nots!

So...

• If you don't want God to forcibly take what is yours - that's fine.
• If you don't want to freely give what's yours - that is fine too.

But stop blaming Him for not sorting it out.

 

Women Bishops

According to a report from the BBC (here):

The Church of England is preparing for a debate at its ruling general synod about how to create women bishops.

 

According to BBC Radio 4 news just now women Bishops are opposed by "high church Anglo-Catholics" and "low church" evangelicals.

 

Both sides apparently have issues with the Biblical basis for women Bishops.

The thing is - a very close review of the Bible over the past few years by Bozo has failed to find any mention whatsoever of "Bishops" (of either gender) in the Bible.

So it seems to me - if the various denominations that have Bishops are happy enough to have made up this position with no Biblical basis - they ought not to have a big issue over the gender of people holding this non Biblical post.

The book of Acts - which is fundamentally the history of the creation of the Church in the 1st Century doesnt mention Bishops at all - but mentions many women as having significant roles in the congregations (the word most commonly used in English translations prior to the King James version deciding it should be "Church")of that century.

So frankly - once humankind has made up the post of Bishop without reference to the Bible - it shouldn't use the Bible as a rationale for disallowing a gender should it?

Memphis or Soweto?

I have never been to Memphis, There - I admitted it.

So it's only being honest to say that my "sense" of the scariness of parts of Memphis came originally from the movie The Blindside. However - Although in the movie a part of Memphis called "Hurt Village" was portrayed to be as about as safe as downtown Damascus right now it is also true that according to this article three areas in Memphis are among the most dangerous in the USA.

Scarier still - the three worst areas in the USA according to the same article all belong to Detroit!

 

Now I have been to Soweto. To many white South African's we met in Johannesburg before going, the visit that Mrs Bozo and I made there in 2009 was an act of madness. And let us be honest - many of the amazingly warm and generous black South Africans we were hosted by in the township advised us not to wander the streets around our hotel at night. 

My point is this - generally speaking I didn't feel that scared in Soweto - maybe I should have - but I didn't. But both the article linked above - and the movie - gave me a very strong impression that parts of Memphis were arguably far more dangerous than Soweto.

Is it just me that wonders how parts of the richest (and we are led to believe "free-est") nation on earth are scarier than a thrid world township with a history of homicidal racial violence?

In the 20 odd years since the failure of the Soviet experiment (and we have to admit it failed) the west has seen the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer - every year. Every single year.

And, when the banks caused the almightiest financial disaster the world has ever known. That process actually accelerated! We bailed out banks whose balance sheets were destroyed by imprudent investment decisions - and then subsidized the bonuses still being paid to the losers who made those decisions! Except they aren't losers are they?

We are.

They get richer and richer.

No one ever ever ever got arrested for the dodgy dealings surrounding the crash. A crash that caused more harm to the world than the riots of a couple of years back - for which hundreds of people were jailed!

The reason that Memphis - and Detroit - and increasingly parts of my own fair city are becoming more dangerous than Soweto is complex. I admit that. But anyone who doesnt think that the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer doesnt play an enormous part in the process is - well - a bit dim.

Of course if we keep voting for these policies we will have to live with them. We do after all get the government we deserve. But Let us not expect our country to become a nicer place to live. 

Unless you are rich of course.

 

 

Cheating

As the full magnitude of Team GB's Olympic success was sinking in - Bozo said out-loud - to his shame:

"I hope none of them gets caught cheating"

Why shame?

Because what I should have said is:

"I hope none of them was cheating!"

Like most of society Bozo can feel that cheating that isn't caught is kinda ok. And of course it is not. But isn't it a tragedy that we live in  a society where cheating is increasingly condoned? Where more and more shoulders are just shrugged?

What goes on in business ethics and in the dodgy deals of bankers is only a symptom - and the biggest metaphor for this plummeting in the values of society is sport. The biggest damage is in business - but the biggest metaphor for how we shrug our shoulders is sport.

It isn't even worth going near football/soccer. We all know that diving is OK - so long as it's our player doing it. We moan at the referee for not spotting the blatant shirt pulling -but we do not castigate or ban or vilify the shirt puller. Especially not if he is our shirt puller and not their shirt puller.

But the major tragedy in sports values occurred in Baseball in the 1990s. And it occurred with the compliance of both the ownership and governance of the game and the players. In fact the players association has a lot to answer for. But the saddest thing is that it isn't even over yet. In the 2012 season  5 drug related cheating suspensions have been handed out.

Looking at two of them - the most recent - and perhaps most high profile two - Melky Cabrera and Batolo Colon. Of course it is just a coincidence that Melky was having his greatest ever year and was playing for a new contract. Colon, aged 39, was looking to extend what had been a long and distinguished major league career. At the end of the day, for both of them - the motivation was clear. Money. No different to the motivation of the cowboys who sold mortgages to people with no jobs. It is part of the same problem.

The fact is some people will always cheat - because they like winning - and they will do so even in a friendly game of Monoploy at home. Some people will eveb cheat to beat their own kids. But other people are drawn into cheating by the rewards. And as the rewards of sporting success goes up - so does the cheating.

But I have a question - I have a question for Don Fehr who used to be head of the Major League Player's Association - but it is relevant also to Michael Weiner - who does the job currently.

Who do you represent?

Fehr fought the owners tooth and nail to prevent what currently exists as MLB's drug testing and enforcement programme. Tooth and nail! And his logic? "Why wouldn't I fight for my members to have the same rights to privacy as ordinary citizens?"

I was stunned when I heard that. Because as the players representative - it is only logical if ALL your players are using drugs to enhance their performance.

Don, were ALL Major Leaguers doping themselves on steroids?

We kinda know the answer don't we? We know that steroid use was prevalent - widespread - but we know that not all of the players were doing it.

So, it seems that what Mr Fehr was actually doing was fighting tooth and nail for the right of SOME of his members to cheat and in so doing - deprive others of his members from a fair chance to earn a living.

I mean to bring the example into the current day. Let us take Cabrera. Leaving his impact on the Giants chances of representing the NL West in the play-offs instead of one of four other teams to one side - let us consider Melky's contract hopes. He was on pace to win the NL batting title. If he had done so - some club would have paid him well to join their team as a free agent. That money paid to him - would not be being paid to someone else. Someone  honestly paying the game is seeing money that would be available to him in a team's salary budget going instead to Cabrera. Indeed, Cabrera without steroids may not even have a job - and someone who was not cheating who would have been potentially employed could have been unemployed because Cabrera got a contract by cheating. That potentially unemployed person is also a member of the MLPA. Colon was trying to prolong his career. You want to feel sorry for him? Well why not instead feel sorry for the non-cheat that Colon would have kept out of a job.

During the 1990s the MLPA and Mr Fehr were effectively forcing non-cheats to make a simple choice. Compete on the non-level playing field at a disadvantage - or  - poison their bodies by taking drugs. Does that look like fair representation to you?

Donald Fehr thought that it was his job defend those of his members who were cheating - even though the victims of the cheating were not just duped owners - or duped fans - the real economic victims of the cheating were his own non-cheating members - forced to compete on a non-level playing field.

I am surprised no member ever sued the MLPA for failing to represent them equally.

 

Doesn't seem right to me.

But what is most worrying is the idea that making moral choices is no longer seen as necessary. The idea that it is up to someone else to catch and enforce the rules on you. You are not responsible for knowing and upholding the rules.

Of course many of you think that Bozo is on cloud cuckoo land. That cheating has always existed. That human nature and blah and blah and blah.

But I disagree. I disagree totally. Sure there have always been cheats - but not so prevalent as today. And one of the reasons is that we as a society are more willing to condone, more willing to shrug our shoulders, more willing to move on and not worry.

The slow march of society toward total immorality is the pot of water that is slowly heating up - and we are the frog sitting in the pot not noticing that the world is going to hell in a hand basket. And when the pot is boiling - like the frog - we will be too dead to do anything.

 

 

The feel-good factor?

There are a lot of countries less well-off than the UK - it would be facile to suggest otherwise. Of course Greece might be better off if people actually paid taxes, but that is another blog. There is no doubt for those of us who live here however that the UK has been down for a while. Since Gordon sold his soul (and our financial future) to the banks for a handful of corn the recession here has bit very deep. And its depth - as in all recessions has been variable - and suffered mainly by the poor. Hence inner city rioting.

And yet here we stand following the glorious success of the 30th Olympiad in London. Success on so many levels.

• Success for Team GB
• Successful security
• Successful transport (although we may have paid a price in inconvenience for this - it does seem worth it)
• Successful organisation
• Successful closing party
• and because it is worthy of mention twice - success for Team GB

Will the feel-good factor carry over into normal life - and crucially - economic life - in the months to come.

History has mixed lessons in this regard. Quebec was rather keen on separating from Canada until the massive debts incurred by the 1976 Olympics required them to go cap in hand to the Federal Government to ask for cash. The city carried Olympic debt for over 30 years.

Los Angeles made money in 1984 - but mainly because they refused to spend any - with most venues being old.

Barcelona managed to overrun their budget by about 400% - but the games did transform the Catalan capital from a nice and relatively unknown city into a "must-go" for Bridget Jones city-breakers all over the globe.

I am not in the know as far as London 2012 finances go - but I am confident our media would have uncovered a 400% budget overrun before now!

Bozo was among a crowd of Brits who feared that our capacity for embarrassing cock-up would unleash itself on our games.

And Bozo is eating his humble pie with relish. Because what we unleashed on the games was our capacity for going the extra mile, our capacity for making sure things worked, our capacity for smiling and cheering and welcoming visitors. And the performance of the team played no small part in that.

So, assuming that we aren't going to be paying tripled rates for the rest of our natural lives, will London - and indeed the nation - reap a feel-good benefit?

I rather suspect we will.

I rather suspect that despite the continuing bad prognosis for Euroland and the continuing nervousness about our own debt that some strange psychological magic might work itself into the economy.

I do not want to end a feel-good blog with a diatribe against anyone - not even clowns in suits  - so let me put it this way.

 

If we see economic resurgence in the country - I hope the benefits are felt in the same proportions by those people who have suffered the pain of the recession.

Because after putting on our best face for the world for 17 days - wouldn't it be nice if we could actually become a society that could show a best face all the days of our lives....

Goodbye Olympics (sob) Bozo really will miss you

And wasn't the closing ceremony good?

Bozo was castigated for not liking the opening - but his view on the opening remains unchanged. No theatre really works of the audience need someone to explain whats going on... and while you might prefer to claim that Bozo may be theatrically dim - the fact is anything staged for an audience of 80,000 live and a billion or so on tv (from 204 countries) needs to be a bit more obvious.

But enough of that...

The closing was magnificent. The most amazing (and easily understandable) set. great broad brush staging of music and dance and some iconic (if rather geriatric) musical heroes.

But my favourite was the massive irony...

Jessie J entered and proclaimed to the world in song...

It's not about the money, money, money
We don't need your money, money, money

Noble sentiments.... but may have worked better if she hadn't been singing from the back of a Rolls Royce convertible.

Someone didn't think that through!

Someone however did think through the Who's big closing. Which was a shame in some ways.

Those of us (like Bozo) who were actually born when The Who's My Generation was first released particularly liked the iconic line from the song...

I hope I die before I get old...

I was rather looking forward to 68 year old multi-millionaire Roger singing that to a billion people.

Sadly someone decided it was best to write the line out of the perfromance version.

However. He did still sing "talking about my generation..." and that must have given joy to all the other pensioners out there who remember the glory days when they aspired to be revolutionaries and not millionaire pop icons.

All in all - it was a winner - a great show - following a great games.

Ethics and Bonus - the inverse link

I had hoped to be able to write a nice blog about Beth Tweddle. About the inspiration she has been to a generation of aspiring gymnasts. About the fact that one day an Olympic Gold medallist will be saying to the BBC interviewer:

"I got into this because I saw Beth Tweddle...!"

But that little statement will have to do - because the folk at Standard Chartered Bank have allowed us to once again encourage people to join the campaign for ethical behaviour and a legally obligated contractual clause in executive contracts that demands ethical behaviour.  Go HERE and LIKE the campaign and then spread the word as far and as wide as you can!

So in case you have been on the moon - or so obsessed by the Olympics that everything else has passed you by and are wondering what Standard Chartered have done, you can read all about it here.

A U.S regulator has labelled the bank a rogue institution and has claimed they have evidence that shows the bank schemed to launder $250,000,000,000, which for all we know has been used to finance terrorism and build nuclear weapons.

How does an Institution take part in that?

Well about 20 odd years ago in a scandal over insider trading and other assorted skullduggery various highly respected and very well paid Wall Street figures were indicted. This caused a certain amount of shock and horror at why such respected and rich individuals could or would do such a thing. An American newspaper quoted a financial markets insider as saying words to the effect that if you don't understand the motivation to steal $500 million then you are living on a different planet.

So, institutionally, it being unlikely that Standard Chartered Bank has as a core value the funding of terrorism it would seem that profit was the motivation for laundering $250,000,000,000.

So, individually, how do those people actually engineering this get involved? Are the senior executives involved all secret sponsors of terrorism? Well I suspect not - but who knows. I suspect - and frankly I do not know what the status is of the bonus and remuneration schemes of Stanchart - that the individuals who generated this profit for their bank were rewarded by pay rises and bonuses.

Whilst this is speculation on Bozo's part - I would be far more shocked to find out that that this was the result of stupidity rather than cupidity.

It is becoming increasingly clear that money - at least large amounts of it - will consistently outweigh ethics in the minds of people in the financial industries. Not the poor folks who work in call centres and on counters who see very little of the money that is being made hitting their pockets - and who are first to pay with their jobs for any cock ups. But for the folks who do see substantial bonuses - it seems that those bonuses are a bigger trigger of behaviours than the desire for ethics, morals, standards and reputation. As it is this scandal may well bring down the entire bank. The shareholders ought to care. And today - for the first time since it started they are suffering. They may say they didn't know. I ask. Why not? This idea that you pocket the dividend and ask no questions is a non-starter. As this bank goes down maybe their shareholders will become supporters of ethical behaviour at senior executive level. Because when this scandal gets more deeply analysed it will be fund to see who was involved and how they personally benefited.

You do not need to be an expert on reward and remuneration like Mrs Bozo to know that there is a deep flaw in how the financial services industry rewards its people. As she always says:

"What you tell you people in how/why you reward them speaks louder than any other message you send them"

If you tell me I am unfair to the industry - I shrug my shoulders. They don't care who slags them off especially not Bozo, they console themselves with their wealth and decide my criticism is envy and not a desire to live in a society that values one or two things above money. If the industry doesn't want criticism it should stop ignoring ethics.

If there was an Ethical Behaviour Clause in the contracts of the senior executives they would not be getting rich right now. And if they have done nothing wrong, they would be.

So why would anyone resist an Ethical Behaviour Clause?????????

There is only one reason...so join the fight now folks.

Find the campaign here and go comment.

As a postscript. I was doing some background research about the insider trading scandal of 1989. And I found myself on the wikipedia page of Michael Milken. I was astounded to see that the first paragraph describes him as a financier and - wait for it - philanthropist! The fact that he was indicted on 98 charges of insider trading and related skullduggery and sentenced to 10 years was buried in paragraph two! Who wrote that? Of course Michael only served 2 years as he was let out early in exchange for ratting out all his mates. in a four year period in the late 1980s (i.e these are dollars of 1989 not today dollars) Milkem was paid over $1,000,000,000. As mentioned above, people wondered why he was tempted to lie cheat and steal. But lie cheat and steal is what he did. And, 25 years on, lying cheating and stealing is still the order of the day.

Sigh

 

Sad really

I know you are all surprised that I have waited until today to blog on the HSBC money laundering fine.

Of course it does keep the scandal in the news cycle a smidge longer.

Never a bad thing.

But what made me saddest was not my old friend Stuart Gulliver's inability to "reassure regulators the bank did not facilitate the financing of terrorism and other criminal activities..."

[Read the story from Investment Week here ]

No...what made me saddest was the little picture of my old mate Stuart Gulliver. Stuart is a couple of years younger than Bozo, but, in his photo, he looks about 65! And a very unhappy 65 at that! When i worked with him back in the 1990s - he looked a cheery, fit and fun individual!

Why is it that being a multi-millionaire makes you look like that?

Do you think money and power doesn't make you happy after all!!??