Strikes on the Tube, how refreshing.

"Everyone, stop using your cars and get on public transport!" The message has been barked by politicians and green campaigners for years. It always has been and always will be, unless someone faces the inconvenient truth, or should I say truths.

Politicians want us all to use public transport despite the fact they all have private cars, if you're a minister yours will be driven by someone else. So why don't they use public transport? Well, simply put, it is not reliable and even if it was it is not safe for people of power and it does not convey power or status.... the exact same reasons why many people can't use it. But we will ignore that for now, that is not my point today.

My point today focuses on the tube strikes. London (and big cities generally) are the only places where public transport works: FACT. I'm not saying that as soon as a bus leaves London for Guildford the engine stops, I mean as soon as that critical mass of people disappears buses become too infrequent, stops too distant and the whole system just ceases to function. It all becomes hugely expensive and hugely time consuming. There just isn't the economy of scale to support public transport in the countryside any further than some small buses to take the old and the young around when they have no deadlines to meet.

But the Tube does work in London, even buses, which I think are pointless, generally, work very well in London. They are excellent. The Tube may be smelly, hot and often crowded, but the fact is that even at busy times one is able to navigate around one of the greatest cities in the world without too much problem and do it a lot quicker than in a car (if you need proof think about that Top Gear episode?).

So what is my complaint? Well lets pretend we live in a world where public transport works everywhere. I know, that takes a lot of imagination but humour me, if you will. All the people who work on that public transport will be members of unions. Unions will inevitably have as their heads self important people with absolutely no concept of commerce but rather the communist ideals that somehow their members are entitled to do their work, and where there is no work they should be paid anyway regardless of the inefficiency that produces. I am convinced that efficiency is the very last thing on the mind of a Union leader. Currently Tube workers are going to go on strike. I don't know what working as a Tube driver is like, I'm told their wage is around £40,000 and they holidays are good to compensate for the shift system but I don't think that is enough to make any real decision about their working lives. What I do know is that their Union is the most militant around and even people from the US brought in to help found that their attitude seemed like they lived in the 1970s.

As a result London's transport network is ceasing to function while they blackmail their employers into capitulating with their demands. Frankly I think this should be banned. The police aren't allowed to strike because it is essential that they work. Likewise the Tube is essential to the running of the London. They shouldn't be able to strike without some form of external acquiescence. I don't know if people are going to be able to get to work while the strike is on, but if they can't that is not the same as BA workers going on strike. There are no other Tube operators and buses won't be able to take up the slack.

....amazingly I still haven't got to my point, how shocking. My point is this, if we all used public transport the Unions would be able to make whatever demands they wanted. Bus drivers would be wearing Armani overalls and being paid more than your local GP. Fine... I exaggerate, but truthfully if everyone used public transport the Unions would be able to make largely whatever demands they wanted. And lets not pretend they wouldn't go against public pressure, everyone knows the British Airways strikes are moronic in a time of recession, but they still happen. Logic does not constrain strikes it seems.

So what should be done? If we can't use public transport because it is ineffective outside of major cities and even if it worked it would be liable to be an easy soft spot for unions, what should we use?

Years ago people used to drive cars. Saloon cars. Cars with 4 doors, 5 seats and a big boot. Today these Saloon cars are even bigger. The BMW 3 series is now bigger than a 5 series used to be years ago, and why? Who knows. 90% of the population these days don't need a car bigger than a 3 series. Everyone has their own car. In years gone by Mum, Dad, brother and sister would all be in the same car. Now Mum and Dad have their own car, the average birthday per woman is only 1.8 and as soon as brother and sister are 17 they get their own car, either a banger or a Ford Ka. So what is the point in having big cars?

Who needs a 5 series? Who needs a 7 series? These cars are obsolete. If you need to show status and wealth then why don't we start producing cars that are small and supremely expensive? Makes gold plated Corsas for all I care.

Private transport is here and here to stay. I wish the government would realise that and get on with it. The sooner they do the sooner we can start pouring money into real solutions to traffic problems like motorcycle lanes or car parking for those with small light cars. The smaller cars get the more confident people will be to get smaller again and this will decrease congestion (see what they have done in Tokyo) and decrease emissions. Who knows eventually we can get rid of those big buses too.

New York, New York!

I am thinking I should fly to New York with British Airways. After all they are the best airline in the world, and since they are losing money I may not get too many chances to use them again. First class maybe? It would be a nice way to arrive at the beginning of a new chapter living on the other side of the pond.

Now I'm pretty patriotic, so why am I talking about moving state-side. Well this comes with the news that the newly appointed economic minister for the EU is French. Why then is this a reason for me to consider a flat (or should I say apartment) in Manhattan. Well, the new economic minister of the EU is French, this means that the UK is quite possibly screwed.

The problem with this is rooted the the differences between the French and British economy. They are completely different. The French economy is based on government protectionism, a strong leaning towards socialism and of course the desire to strike every five minutes. The French don't seem particularly bothered that their economy is accepted a stagnant. But they why would you when you can stay up until 6 in the morning on warm nights in the South of France sipping an espresso watching the moon light reflect off the sea...

Where was I? Oh yes. So essentially the French economy is stagnant and the government protects it as best as it can from competition from other nations (eg CAP). As a friend of mine from Notts once said 'if you want to get on the good side of French people rememeber how to say "I love to strike".

In contrast the UK has a completely different work ethic. In the provinces, sure, life is quite laid back, you go to work at your customer telephone helpline from 9 until 5 and then you come home and enjoy your life. But that isn't the case in London. London is the free market on cocaine (sometimes literally). If you live in London the next deal/case/contract is your next breath, if you miss it you're going to die. I would say in London people eat and sleep work but that would be misleading, it would imply that they get to sleep occasionally. In London once you've worked for a week with 4 hours of sleep each night to close a contract, you don't finish and then sleep for the next two days, you hit the clubs with your fellow workers and stay awake for another 24 hours, just for the fun of it.

As a result London wages are substantially higher than everywhere else in the UK. Deservedly so too. But the real heart of London, the beating heart of the UK economy is finance. Without it would would have a deficit so big we'd be... well the United States (jk). We don't make anything in the UK after all. We don't do cars (not outside of F1 racing anyway). We don't make ships. We don't make most of the things with a high value, we just make money. This works very well for us and as a result we are the country of finance. We have two rivals (New York and Hong Kong) but we are on the top of the pile. Well, we are right now.

But now we are going to have a man making our regulations who was brought up in a French economy. This will mean that he will want strong regulation for more stability and less profit.
The thing is 'less profit' rings in a bank managers ears like the trumpet of the horsemen of the Apocalypse. It will cause any bank directors hairs to stand on end. They will have a shiver down their spine like the coldest ice and then after being planted on the spot for 10 minutes without a single movement they will reach for their phones call their board and tell them they are moving to New York or Hong Kong, or hades, whichever one has the lowest income tax.

This the French won't care about because they have no banks to lose anyway. Britain on the the other hand have a lot to lose.

So what can be done. Well what should have happened in the first place is that the democratically elected representatives of the British people should have done what they are mean to and represent the people! This would mean that we wouldn't have the Lisbon Treaty in the first place and we wouldn't have to care about Michel Barnier or Sarkozy or anyone else for that matter. But then 'politicians do know best' don't they?

Anyway, I'm focusing too much on the past, to the future!

What is going to happen now? Well thankfully regardless of what the EU thinks it is going to do if it tries to over regulate then the UK hopefully will have the 'stones' to tell them that we've not going to agree to have our country sent back to the stone age. The EU likes making these noises about how they are going to make us suffer but realistically we have a Tory government coming up who would love to have some good ammunition to shoot at the Euro-philes. Europe isn't so stupid as to provide it for them.
Anything damaging to the UK in the next few years will be equally damaging to Europe.

So maybe I won't have to move to New York, maybe there is still hope that I can live in the UK and it won't fall apart in the immediate future, still it does make you wonder what berk thought that two countries were going to get on economically when one is as red as you can be without calling each other comrade and the other is as blue as you can be without calling each other 'dude'.

Who caused the recession? Who? who? who?

Right here is a quick summary of how the credit crunch and the 08/09 recession happened and who is to blame. Why am I telling you these things? Well everyone likes to rant about these things… or at least I do and if we’re going to rant we might as well do it properly.

After all you can’t go bashing the wrong people, that would be just wrong, wouldn’t it.

1. China develops in to a massive economic power. The industrialisation of China meant that the world economy was booming. Lots of money was being made by China which meant there was lots of money to be made IN China. As a result there was lots of money freely available to the world economy. That is good right? Yep, it is good for everyone, unless of course you are a bank in which case it means that you can’t rip people off when they borrow money because it is so freely available. This means interest rates are low and the banks don’t make huge profits off lending like they would normally, unless of course you lend to people who have rubbish credit ratings and shouldn’t really be given the money because they probably can’t afford it! This credit is called ‘sub-prime’ and you can rip these people off by charging high interest and you, the greedy bank, can make a fat lot of cash, that is the theory anyway….

2. Thick American mortgage lenders started lending lots of money to people to buy houses that they couldn’t afford.

Now to begin with this doesn’t sound like anything serious, I mean if you lend money to people and they don’t keep up payments that isn’t your fault right? Well usually yes, in this case… seriously no.

First these thick Estate agents (realtors) would give a mortgage on one set of payments and often not really explain that in two years the cost of the payments would go up… now even the thickest most delinquent person can realise that poor people who can only just afford the first payment are not going to be able to pay the new increased rate in two years. As a result they will default.

Second these people cared so little about whether they would actually pay the monthly instalments that they would accept ‘stated income’ which is where you provide no proof of what you earn you would just tell them and they would take word for it. Good to know the system wasn’t open to abuse, idiots.

Third the people who were selling these mortgages would get up to $10,000 in commission so obviously they would give them to anyone who had a pulse. Some people were made millionaires selling these things.

Apparently even the president at the time (GW Bush) thought they were a good idea and endorsed these mortgages in a speech. But then he was never going to be able to criticise them because most of these mortgages were being given to low income Hispanics, which means if he said that they should be more careful he would look like a complete and utter racist/class bigot.

3. These mortgages were bundled together (good ones and bad ones) and the their risk was sold across the world to other banks including the major financial centre of the world…. London.

London’s mistake was that it didn’t bother checking what mortgages were in these risk bundles they were buying so when the American banks when to the wall they didn’t know whether they were holding a bag full of money or a bad full of rabid rats…. As a result everyone freaked out and stopped lending to each other not going what cards they were holding. This freeze on lending prevented everyone getting credit and thus the ‘credit crunch’ began.

4. Who’s fault is it? Well I am never one to start pointing out who is to fault, ha ha ha aha ha ah, ok maybe I am.

Over in the US it is the retarded banks who thought that trying to rip off poor people would be a good idea to get some extra cash.

Over here in the UK it was the stupid banks who bought the liability of other banks without really knowing what was there, but then there are people who are meant to be checking the banks are behaving themselves, what were they doing?

There is a nice little speech that was made by Gordon Brown to the British financial industry. He said (I paraphrase) ‘I was told to regulate the banking industry and I didn’t and look how well it has all turned out’. This was said a year or two before the crunch kicked off obviously. Opps, poor Gordon now you look like a bit of a burke!

So how to summarise? Hmmmm…

Well if you’re an American I guess you blame the morons who gave money to people who couldn’t afford it and didn’t tell them they were going to be paying a fat lot more in 2 years time, easy enough really!

If you’re British I guess you blame the retards in the banks who thought that it would be a good idea to purchase risk from mortgagors and not check how much of this risk was sub-prime and how much was from people who could actually pay their bills… or blame Gordon Brown for not regulating those banks.

I’m not sure if regulation would have actually stopped the banks cocking the whole lot up but what can I say, I’m just mad at him because he won’t call a election.