2007 NEW EPOCH NEWS,
Telework News, Electronic Revolution, Future-Shock, News Blog, Friday, 02 December 2011 E-Wars, IPR,
BIG-BROTHER, ORWELLIAN, P2P, MOBILE-PHONES, HOME-OFFICES, INTERNET LAW,
ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIETY.
NEW EPOCH NEWS – THE SECOND EPOCH
How the Information Society
is progressing
16 June 2012
Contribute by e-mail to: noel@noelhodson.com
The first era, including
the past ten thousand years of written history, has been characterized by tribal
politics and the acquisition and maintaining of wealth by force – essentially a
system of gang-warfare. It is a physical and psychological fact that using our
brains is the most energy consuming activity we undertake. To avoid thinking we
cleave to ‘isms – the lazy person’s what-to-think-guide. Nevertheless, over
thousands of years, in rebellion against prescribed and proscribed thought, enough
people have used their brains innovatively for developed nations to now be able
to claim that “We have worked hard to abolish work – and have succeeded.”
In industrialised
nations, due to generations of hard work, valour and sacrifice and, recently,
the Electronic Revolution - the Knowledge Economy - there is overproduction of
most consumer goods and services. Real wealth and the products of the Real
Economy are flooding developed countries. The world has never before produced
so much real wealth. But the traditional, tribal, Money Economy mechanisms, used
to count, account and to share wealth fairly, are inadequate. The Real Economy,
over millennia, has been and is maintained by the efforts of the majority of
the population while the Money Economy, the legal paper which represents real
wealth, is 75% owned by just 4% - some of whom have contributed little to the
commonwealth. Despite sweeping, historic, social revolutions to diminish the
plagues and powers of aristocrats, aristocracy has resurfaced with a vengeance,
this time rooted in
The 3 economies, Real, Monetary and Knowledge are badly out of
alignment, out of sync and disjointed. The Electronic Revolution will bring a
new, fairer, more open reality.
Though we would all rather drown in Global Warming floods than
cooperate with each other - humankind is on the threshold of the era of
intelligent-cooperation. This second phase, era or epoch is characterised by
the Electronic Revolution, automated production, free-information, constant,
instant global communications and, most revolutionary of all, by individuals
thinking for themselves. It is bringing global social responsibility and radical
changes; for example, it is probable that voting for and empowering charismatic
individuals – gang leaders in politics and business - to decide our futures, will
soon be replaced by voting on issues – democratically, well informed,
electronic-voting on everything from household waste, to health care, to car
production, to travel systems, to global warming, to taxation, to wealth
distribution, to whether we should replicate the deadly 1918 “Spanish” flu
virus, or go to war, or help the sick and the poor.
NEW EPOCH NEWS notes the key steps of progress and the resistances
to entering the second phase. We live in
interesting times.
Home to http://www.noelhodson.com
SW2000 Telework Studies – SW2000 Intelligent Transport
Telework Transport Environment Economics
15 June 2012 HOW CAN THEY NOT KNOW?
“GET WITHOUT THE LOT OF THEM!”
13 June
2012. SIN, THE INTERNET & THE NEXT GENERATION
Monday, 11
June 2012 - WILL THE WORLD RUN OUT OF MONEY?
9th
June 2012 - SPAIN, SPECULATION & NO MORE SURPRISES !
7th
June 2012. YOU ARE REALLY IMMENSELY
POWERFUL.
5th
June 2012. THE FUTURE FOR WALL STREET & MANKIND
1st
June 2012. HAPPY HUNT FOR THE HIGGS.
31 May 2012
- THREE ACTIONS TO SAVE THE WORLD
31 May 2012.
ENSLAVED, INDENTURED, ARTICLED, APPRENTICED, INTERNED
Monday, 28
May 2012 FREE MARKETS - THE BIGGEST
CON-TRICK EVER.
Saturday, 26
May 2012 MADAM DEFARGE
Friday, 25
May 2012 BULLIES – SOCIOPATHS –
PSYCHOPATHS.
Wednesday,
23 May 2012 AGING & RED FACED ON
FACEBOOK
Tuesday, 22
May 2012 THIS LEVER WILL MOVE THE
EARTH
Monday, 21
May 2012 - ECONOMIC GROWTH – SOFTER
TOILET TISSUE - OR GUILLOTINES?
Friday, 18
May 2012 NAIL A HAND TO THE DOOR ON
PAYDAY
Thursday, 17
May 2012 Greek Fallout – End of
Monetarism.
Tuesday, 15
May 2012 - Cap the price of money at
5% a year.
Monday, 14
May 2012 Support your local cyclotron
Friday, 11
May 2012 GANGSTER ECONOMICS - WHICH
BUNK DO YOU PREFER?
9 May 2012 “MOVE TO HIGHER GROUND & MOVE YOUR MONEY
ON-SHORE!”
Tuesday, 8
May 2012 OFF-SHORE FUNDS - MUCH ADO
ABOUT NOTHING?
Monday, 7
May 2012 PHARAOHS & MONETARIST
BULLSHIT.
Thursday, 3
May 2012 - HELP - How can I spend
Ł3,500 a day?
5th
May 2012 The rich will always be with
us
Wednesday, 2
May 2012 Benevolent viruses? Not on
your life!
Tuesday, 1
May 2012 Thought Police on the
Internet
Monday, 30
April 2012 My Boy The New Messiah -
Maybe!
Sunday, 29
April 2012 "ET ...Phone
Home"
Friday, 27
April 2012 Strictly Sci-Fi - Fun for
Futurists
Thursday, 26
April 2012 Cash is King
Wednesday,
25 April 2012 The Rt Hon Jeremy
Embarrassing Hunt MP
Tuesday, 24
April 2012 SPYBOT - Lavatories get
CCTV
Monday, 23
April 2012 Birthright
Friday, 20
April 2012 Barclays Ł2.1B Bonuses
& Ł0.7B Dividends
Saturday 21st
April 2012 Tarmac the Railways &
Get Britain Moving Fast
Wednesday,
18 April 2012 Hitler & The Brave
New Internet
Tuesday, 17
April 2012 USA & UK Tax Wars Heat
Up
Sunday, 15
April 2012 Will we pay taxes in the
future?
Sunday, 8
April 2012 An Easter Essay
BUILD YOUR
ARK NOW - Friday, 30 March 2012
LETTER TO
THE NEW YORK TIMES 26 MARCH 2012
Fundamental reform of the money-economy.
29 NOV 2011
- MONEY IS TOO EXPENSIVE. COSTS CAN BE REDUCED BY 90%.
Coming
soon to a city near you
cash wars –
letter to the guardian – 22nd december 2011.
dire warning
- CASH WARS (9) we are doomed – 1 december 2011
OCCUPY -
CASH WARS (8) find the traitors and deserters – 28 November 2011
OCCUPY
LONDON - CASH WARS (7) – 9 November 2011.
OCCUPY WALL
STREET - CASH WARS 6 – 7 November 2011.
OCCUPY WALL
STREET - CASH WARS 5 – 1 November 2011.
OCCUPY WALL
STREET - CASH WARS 4 – 27TH OCTOBER 2011.
CASH WARS 3
– 7TH OCTOBER 2011.
CASH WARS 3
– 22ND SEPTEMBER 2011
CASH WARS 2
– 19 SEPTEMBER 2011
stone age to
space age economics – 23 may 2011
g20 global
banking – 12 NOV 2010
gambolling
bankers – 3 dec 2009
2010 - a
pivotal year for mankind - climate-change, internet-freedom, & global banking
– 3 feb 2010
who will
control the internet? – 3 feb 2010
how can the
money-system and the real economy be reconciled? – 3 feb 2010
will we
drown? are the ice caps melting? – 3 feb 2010
think
globally, act locally – 3 feb 2010
Stupid
government abuse of the Information Society – UPDATED 16 JULY 09
Bankers and
banking – 10 JULY 09
Cyberspace
can still stop Emails – SME’s & the Internet - 9 JULY 2009.
Universal
internet access - Power to the people – 6 May 2009.
Surveillance
Crisis – Cyber War - 23 October 2008.
Financial
Crisis – Part Two – 7 October 2008.
Financial
Crisis – Saved from my radical self by judicious editing – 18 September 2008.
Give us back
our money!– Letter to The Guardian newspaper - 15 September 2008
It’s those
pesky kids again, stealing valuable works of art - 25 July 08.
Mobile
phones and cancer - 25 July 08.
Open letter
to the Prime Minister. 16 July 08.
23 June 08 –
Will the world’s thick-headed transport and energy planners ever get it?
7 April 08 –
Famous Journalist liquidated?
12 March 08
– Point and Counterpoint – Worried about the “Credit Collapse” ?
19 February
08 – Capital repatriation flood begins with a trickle.
11 February
08 – Offshore Exiles – Repatriate, Repatriate, Repatriate.
11 February
08 – Kids on-line.
17 January
08 – Greenfield and Darwin.
11 October
07 – Breathless Big Brother/ Sister.
3 October 07
– Oxford Brooks & Big Bucks for Bus Owners.
25 September
07 - Teleworkers – one-third of UK workforce.
25 September
07 – The MIT $100 laptop gets to market.
19 AUG 07 –
GLOBAL FINANCE – OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!
18 AUG 07 –
PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF THE GLOBAL BANKS?
13 AUG 07 –
FUNDAMENTAL REDSIGN OF TRANSPORT AND CARS
2 JUL 07 –
TAX FORCE & POVERTY.
13 FEB 07 –
E-DEMOCRACY WILL BE TONY BLAIR’S LEGACY
29 NOV 06 –
THE SAID BUSINESS SCHOOL, OXFORD.
2 NOV 06 –
THE SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY HAS ARRIVED IN THE UK - OFFICIAL.
2 OCT 06 –
MICROSOFT CHALLENGED.
11 AUG 06 –
WIRED DEMOCRACY – AN HISTORIC PRECEDENT.
12 Jun 06 -
British Sex on the Net – Time Magazine
9 MAR 06 –
PESKY PIRATES THREATEN BLUE MOVIES.
24 FEB 06 –
$80M CASH STOLEN FROM THE BANK OF ENGLAND.
24 FEB 06 –
SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL – PORNOGRAPHY FOR THE NANO-TECH GENERATION.
3 JAN 06 –
US INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES INTRUSIONS CRITICISED
3 JAN 06 –
MIT DEVELOP STACKABLE CARS
3 JAN 06 –
ENRON CASE THREATENS DIRECTORS WITH 25 YEARS.
7 DEC 05 – A
diversion into Intelligent Design
4 NOV 05 –
BIG BROTHER in the workplace – A backward step
4 NOV 05 –
Microsoft invest in VOIP & “Live Office”
24 OCT 05 –
Time is running out, maybe – The oil fuel crisis
19 OCT 05 –
GALILEO is Watching You
12 OCT 05 –
Hands off our Internet!
10 OCT 05 –
GOOGLE and free libraries.
7 OCT 05 –
God guides George Bush.
7 OCT 05 –
Youngsters make their own news
7 OCT 05 -
$100 laptops run on LINUX.
23 SEPT 05 -
Tracking Offshore Funds.
5 SEPT 05 -
Hurricane Katrina. The Scrooge society.
26 AUG 05 -
To google or not to google.
26 AUG 05 -
Music files go legit’
31 JUL 05 -
The Future – Accurate social and scientific predictions
17 MAY 05 -
Brain Tumours from cordless & mobile phones debate continues
14 MAY 05 -
US Supreme Court to Rule on film and music controls
10 MAY 05 -
Feature Films on Mobile Phones
24 APR 05 -
Music Industry pur-sues schoolchildren swappers
9 MAY 05 -
Internet Pornography, Masturbation and Self-Abuse
16 MAY 05 -
Electronic Paper Screens
16 MAR 05 -
344 Million customers a month
16 FEB 05 -
Nokia and Microsoft Make Music
16 FEB 05 -
Who is listening? The Mafia or the Government?
13 FEB O5 -
BT channels money to fraudsters
12 FEB 05 -
More WEB Music Downloads
3 FEB 05 -
Spammers mock the US laws
20 JAN 05 -
VOD – PVR – DVD’s – NTL – BBC – ETAL
20 JAN 05 -
Super Fast Broadband
7 JAN 05 -
Cell-phones change body’s cells and genes
The
transport letter the Guardian dared not publish – Tuesday 21st
December 2004.
Pirating
films – Wednesday 15th December 2004.
Round-up –
Thursday 25th November 2004.
SPAM fried
by court – Monday 8th November 2004.
Banks
overdose on spam phishing scams– Monday 8th November 2004.
WorldCom
directors in Court – Monday 8th November 2004.
Pirate
Movies – The big players start a war – Thursday 28th October 2004.
Drowning in
Ignorance – Friday 22nd October 2004
EPICUS –
Embryonic E-Democracy & Money Laundering – Friday 22nd October
2004
NEW
EPOCH NEWS: ARCHIVES FEB04-DEC04 AUG03-FEB04
JUN02-AUG03
15 June 2012 HOW CAN THEY NOT KNOW? “GET
WITHOUT THE LOT
OF THEM!”
Today’s newspapers headlines shriek in panic “
How can the Chancellors, Treasuries, bankers,
politicians, civil servants, economists and financial journalists not know who owes what to whom and
when? It is their job to know. It is what we pay them vast salaries to know -
and to control.
In other industries, executives know what their rivals
are doing; what their contracts, risks and Balance Sheets are. They watch each
other to spot strengths and weaknesses and to copy best-practice; except it
seems in the easiest of all industries to track by computer – the
money-economy.
One good quality laptop with Microsoft EXCEL could hold
and publish all the daily Balance Sheets of all the world’s currencies, banks,
dealers, wheelers and financiers. The global money-industry has hundreds of
huge IBM mainframes – what do they use them for? Cannot these executive overfed,
overpaid clowns count? It is only simple arithmetic, simple bookkeeping, not
rocket science or brain-surgery. Don’t we pay these dummies enough
multi-millions per year? Or are they so busy spending their “rewards” that they
haven’t got time to go to work?
As Harold Bailey, who started work aged 12 in the
dark-satanic-mills of
13 June 2012. SIN, THE INTERNET &
THE NEXT GENERATION
As
the
The
untainted self-righteous preach that only wicked people with sins to hide fear
routine, constant interception. I am easily persuaded that Internet bullies,
trolls, terrorists, deranged psychopaths, financial crooks, organised
criminals, bankers, main board
directors, the inevitable alleged gangs of paedophiles who allegedly threaten
all our children, bent coppers, dissembling politicians, election riggers, evil
gossips, commercial cheats, war mongers, peddlers of fat-killer-foods and other
dangerous addictive drugs - and all habitual sinners, should be monitored,
punished, banished, beaten, beheaded, have their naughty bits cut-off and be
cast into the exterior darkness.
But,
one person’s sins are another’s radical rights. Should Islamic Sharia Law
govern the Internet? So, I am equally easily persuaded that ordinary citizens
have rights to communicate without being spied on; that the Internet is like
the road networks that all can travel on without moral judgement; that many
governments are malign, much of the time, and cannot be trusted with our
personal data; that intrusive corporations will spy on our health, habits,
finances, wants and needs and tediously, incessantly target us; that employers
and other authorities will secretly auto-judge us via mad-mathematicians’
algorithms and block the progress of all eccentrics.
WHAT
WILL HAPPEN? Governments and humans have forever spied on fellow citizens.
Whispering conspirators were eavesdropped, letters were intercepted, war radio
signals and codes were broken, rooms and phones were bugged, tracking devices
put in cars, and etc – and thus many traitors, Enemies of The State and Ungodly
Heretics were tortured, burned and otherwise discouraged. But modern blanket surveillance and data
capture is of a different order – and yet is inevitable as long as
civil-servants exist and have tax-revenues to deploy. The response will be cyber-war with non-hackable new Internets,
evolving to counter each excess of surveillance until a balance is reached
between sin and privacy. As the world is
full of loonies, many hearing messages from diverse assorted gods, (about 49.5%
are currently deranged) the cyber-war will span many decades – even centuries –
until evolution creates The Next Generation – those without Stain or Sin.
Monday, 11 June 2012 - WILL THE WORLD RUN OUT OF MONEY?
TO: John
Humphrys, Presenter at BBC Radio 4 Today.
CAN
Read these 600 words to
gain more understanding than 90% of economists.
The Real-Economy – The
Money-Economy – The Knowledge-Economy
Goods, Services – IOU’s,
Invoices & Agreements – Currency – Cash – Loans – Interest & Charges –
Debt.
You and I agree to trade
my house for your BBC IPR Rights & Royalties. This is a Real-Economy
transaction/deal which we value at Ł10M each.
We swap IOU’s. We have just created “Money” and trade. This is the base
of all money – real deals between real people for real things of value, noted
by ourselves (money). The limitation you ask about is in the existence of real
things of value – which are created by human effort and ingenuity. But – we
cannot trust /have confidence that each will deliver title and not cheat so we
go to a 3rd Party – the Queen HMQ or Mervyn King or our local Bank
Manager who for a price – Interest/Charges – will guarantee our deal to both of
us and thus inject Trust and Confidence into our complex transaction. HMQ looks
at the deal and finds it to be Fair & Reasonable & Realistic and she
buys/ swaps /underwrites our IOU’s for her IOU’s – for Ł10m
ALL money is an accurate
bookkeeping process to record such real transactions in the real economy which
would otherwise be impossibly complex “swaps” of goods and services. Currency
& Liquidity is the amount of personal-home-made IOU’s converted into
bank-notes which as “cash” are Bearer-Bonds (who holds them owns the value) or
as Cheques /Card Payments are specific to the Parties to the transaction (e.g.
you and I swap named cheques, guaranteed by HMQ or her licensed banks). All these papers are the Money-Economy
reflecting the reality of the Real-Economy (the world of work).
We will draw a veil over
the crooks, criminals, auditors and swindlers who pervert Trust &
Confidence; except to say there is a surfeit of crooked bookkeepers gouging out
money tax-free from our august institutions; a bleeding wound which must be
stopped.
Is the German fundament
/well of currency infinite? No – but it is very deep. I will swap 100 new BMWs for my house,
Confident that I can swap /rent a BMW this week for food or a new coat. Most
humans would do that deal – and
Into the calculation of
the depths of
The global production of
goods and services every year is about US$60 trillion or $17,000 per worker per
annum. The 100 billion set aside for Spain is 0.16% of one year’s real-economy
– if it is a 10 year deal then it is a mere 0.016% of global production. You
may rest easy in your bed – for now.
Follow my blog on these
and other future matters:
MY BLOG
http://sci-fi-future-fact-fiction.blogspot.co.uk/
Best wishes
Noel Hodson
REALITY CHECK: The
global annual production of goods and services (GGDP) is $60 trillion a year,
to supply 7 billion souls – wealth created by a workforce of about 3.5 billion
people. $60,000,000,000,000 (60 with 12 zeros) divided by 3,500,000,000 workers
(3.5 with 9 zeros) is a yearly production of $17,412 per worker. Most is
consumed in the same year. The $18 trillion Tax- Haven cash is 30% of the
annual global $60 trillion production. The GGDP surplus p.a. is about 1% - for
30 years siphoned to tax-havens (30 years x 1% = 30%).
9th June 2012 - SPAIN
THE
FUTURE FOR BANKERS? It will be no
surprise to people who have read AD2516 that the future for bankers is ZERO. In
the future there will be no financial sector. The money-counters and
money-lenders will at last be driven from the temple – or, more gently, will be
replaced by the ultimate internet, the Q-Field. The inescapable logic is that
most goods now and ultimately all goods and services will be provided
robotically, automatically by computerised factories and offices. Necessity
work will no longer be necessary. Anyone who denies this is a deluded fool.
So
who owns and will own the means of production? And who will print money and
record our trillions of transactions? At present, about 1% of people own
everything, pay no taxes – and are licensed by us to print, distribute, keep
safe, lend and collect our money and to be the honest global bookkeepers – and
not to steal it all and hide it offshore and lend it back to us via “The Free
Markets”. This is a burden of trust they cannot bear. These responsibilities
require saintly qualities – in unsaintly, ill-educated,
selfish, greedy spivs, crooks, dissemblers, sociopaths and idiots.
“They”
are the executives of major corporations and governments at every level. As
Wall Street reels, London staggers, China closes its Great Wall, Russian
oligarchs defect, Greece melts into medieval times, Spain defaults, Gangsters
gamble with (our) off-shore trillions in projects that are rapidly destroying
the planet, and, this month, City lunatics upgrade from optic fibre to wireless
share & stock trading to gain a millionth-of-one-second time advantage
(gambling with our vital shares, commodities and currencies), the
Global-Money-Economy disintegrates. It has to be returned to sanity. It has to
be globally nationalised and rationalised. As President Obama said “We must put
away childish things”. It is time for the world to grow up.
Why
and How – in this marvellous age of limitless computer power where all money
transactions (bookkeeping) are logged on global IBM mainframes by allegedly
intelligent economist executives – are authorities surprised by deficits,
“mountains of debt” and “rivers of off-shore cash”? Why does not every
organisation publish a daily Balance Sheet that is integrated by The World Bank
and IMF into a daily global Balance Sheet? No
more surprises.
QED
PS - To: Mrs
Trellis of
**************
7th June 2012. YOU ARE REALLY IMMENSELY POWERFUL.
Blogwise – I woke
thinking of Maureen Jones, the foundation stone of North Wales Supplies,
E is for Energy –
Energy does work. It moves things. It lifts, pushes, grunts and heaves at
things. There are dozens of diverse, bewildering units for energy. Early motor car engines were ranked in
horsepower or HP – an 8 horsepower engine would whisk a small half-tonne car
along at a brisk 60 mph, 96 kph (27 mps) – equivalent pulling power to eight
large horses, but fuelled not with kilos of grass per day but with the
convenient essence of that grass, compressed in rock for millennia – and
released like a Genie from its bottle as inflammable rock-oil, petr-oil, or
petrol; that Americans insist on calling “gas”.
That is a store of Energy.
=
(equals)
M is for Mass – We
could write essays about defining mass – but suffice it to mean here our body
weight; say a neat, young, healthy 12 stones, 168 pounds, 76 kilograms. This is
mostly water, H2O, about 80% water or two hydrogen atoms & one
oxygen atom, mixed with carbon and trace chemicals. Science does not know how
these stick together or stay together, in the pattern necessary to make a human
– but facts outweigh the shaky theory – of Inertia. We are “dissipative” systems. We absorb
sunlight, air, water and food, add it to our structure, and excrete what we
don’t need. We are what we eat – absolutely literally; we really, really,
really are. Before bananas flew a thousand miles to our kitchens, we ate and
drank locally, we absorbed sun and star light locally at particular angles of
incidence – and, thanks to sub-atomic entanglement, we are scientifically,
eternally in contact with the long-body that begat us, the soil our food grew
in, the hills our water flowed down. We are embedded in the Earth. Think of
that next time you feel homesick. And we are intimately connected, forever,
with every other person and thing on the planet, with whom we share DNA, air,
water and excreted molecules, via sub-atomic (quantum) entanglement.
X
(multiplied by)
C is the Speed of
Light – It is the fastest thing in the universe. Try as we endlessly do, we
cannot find anything that moves faster. It does not speed like a bullet – that
is a really, really, really poor concept that leads to poor theory. Light
spreads out from an energetic event – say a light bulb or flame – spherically.
Light “propagates” in spheres, like globes. These spheres expand at the
misnamed “speed” of light 300,000 kps, 300,000,000 (million) metres per second
or 186,000 mph. Nothing moves faster.
Light propagates in waves, like ripples on a pond.
C2 means C squared – or C
X C, the speed of light multiplied by itself.
In kilometres per second, kps, that’s is 300,000 x 300,000 or
90,000,000,000 kps, or 90 billion kps.
It’s a long, long way to go in one-second.
Finally, to a crib from the WWW - …from 1kg of matter, any matter, we can get out 9 x 1016 joules of energy. Writing that out fully we get: 90,000,000,000,000,000 joules. That is a lot of energy! For example, if we converted 1 kg of mass into energy and used it all to power a 100 watt light bulb how long could we keep it lit for? The first thing to do is divide the result by watts (remember that 1 watt is 1 joule per second): 9 x 1016 J / 100W = 9 x 1014 seconds. 1 hp = 745.699 871 582 J/sec
So, one kilogram of matter is 90
million billion joules. Our 76 kilo body mass has 76 x 90 mbj or 6,840 million
billion joules – which is, according to Bill Gates’ MSoft Excel:
|
|
|
|
|
|
1 hp = 745.699 871 582 J/sec |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
6.84E+18 |
746 |
9,168,900,804,289,540 |
Or in the common tongue – it is 9
million, billion HORSE POWER per second.
As an atomic explosion takes about one second, all the light (heat) we
have compressed into our structure to make ourselves – all our in-tension or
intention to be, rather than Not to Be,
- expands outwards in one second – which would do considerable damage to
North Wales. Maureen, Mrs Trellis, you
and I are all incredibly, potentially, really, really, really powerful; much
more powerful than any atom bomb exploded to date.
Do you feel like letting go, like
expanding – and returning to the field of light you have contained, constrained
and bottled up to make yourself?
****************
5th June 2012. THE FUTURE FOR WALL STREET
We cannot progress to a bright future until the primitive,
hostile, chaotic, cruel Money-Economy and its “Free Markets” for crazed
gamblers, evolve into sanity.
SANITY:
INSANE EVIL: The
FORGIVENESS & HEALING: Fortunately – as an act of supreme
generosity to mark this Golden Jubilee Year, the 60th Anniversary of
Queen Elizabeth 11’s Coronation and continuing role as Head of State – Her
government has commanded The Bank of England to withdraw licenses from all
loan-sharks, shut them down and to re-issue their victims’ debts at Base Rate
0.5% a year. The capital sum is trifling in City terms – less than Ł300M – but
the immense relief to 2 million families is a great liberating joy for mankind.
The gangsters will be publicly beheaded at the
Make a generous and kindly act by signing and circulating the
petition:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/5_per_annum_cap_on_all_interest_rates_charges/
*************
1st June 2012. HAPPY HUNT FOR THE HIGGS.
Several irate friends ask yet again “What the hell is the Higgs?” and my wife reading my
doom-mongering economics blogs said “For heaven’s sake, lighten up!”
I can do both in one article.
STRAW INTO GOLD: The Higgs Boson, hunted by CERN, is the
magical, miraculous, momentous moment and particle created when pure-energy
turned or turns into matter. Hence it is dubbed “The God Particle”. Pure-energy
is the Electro-Magnetic (magnetism and electricity) field which is Light. Light
is the basic stuff of the universe. It includes the light we can see, plus
X-rays, Infra-red, radio-waves, TV rays, rainbows and the whole Light spectrum,
most of which we cannot see but our instruments detect.
BIG-BANG: Light filled the universe after the alleged Big-Bang
that allegedly started the universe. In science, Light is not a “Thing”. It is
no-thing. It is pure energy. It is a field force in wave form though it has no
form. It cannot be bottled. It has no existence (does not “stand-out”). So,
although the entire universe is literally filled with Light, in every place and
at every point, science calls it “empty” space – the Void. But it is
scientifically, really and actually full of Light; which is how we can see
distant galaxies and the whole universe.
CREATURES OF LIGHT: Nobody knows how Light turned or turns into
particles that make the atoms that make the molecules that make the elements
that make us (and other large or “macro” things). We are made of nothing but
Light. We are all Creatures of Light. An atomic bomb turns most of the uranium/
plutonium / hydrogen etc back into Light – hence the light-flash and monstrous
explosion. If you or I exploded atomically, we’d destroy all of
HIGG BOSON: The Higgs (Prof
Higgs’) Boson (photons and other
ephemeral tiny parts of the atom) is an alleged relatively large tiny
sub-atomic (smaller than an atom) photonic particle
that Prof Higgs (an English physicist) mathematically
calculates (Prof. Higgs still
lives) to be the particle that is missing from the “particle zoo” that
constitute The Standard Model (of the atom etc). Most other particles
that have been calculated to exist have actually been found at research centres
like the Large Hadron Collider or LHC at CERN. (“Large” means big; “Hadrons” are found at the centre or Nucleus
of an atom – made of Quarks (the tiniest of all particles. Rhymes with ‘corks’)
and include many types including pions and kaons; “Collider” means the Hadrons
are bashed together at CERN at high speed). The very expensive
collisions smash the Hadrons into bits. Scientists hope that one of the bits
will be the elusive Higgs Boson.
I have just alienated all scientists and given Richard Dawkins
terminal apoplexy by using English, magic, God and inappropriate Caps for
emphasis, instead of maths-physics-obscure-language, which is vitally necessary
to secure their budgets.
Scientists explain that the Higgs Boson confers mass on matter,
on the other sub-atomic particles such as photons and electrons that are
otherwise weightless. It weighs - or compresses light-energy of about 125 Giga
(a billion) electron volts. (WikiP -
data hints at a possibility the Higgs may exist with a mass around 125 GeV/c2 (about 133
proton masses, on the order of 10−25 kg).)
The evidence that the Higgs is indeed missing, or not yet found,
is in the calculation that in the centre of atoms, where the Quarks are, about
80% of mass is missing and that at the other end of the scale, galaxies are
“missing” up to 90% of the mass needed to glue them together. The Higgs would
provide the glue in the form of more gravity. Gravity is also a scientific
mystery.
Another way to think of the Higgs is as the boundary process
between God and Creation; between Angels and Humans; between Spirit and Mind
and between Sentience and Consciousness. On that scientifically heretical note,
I will cease.
After reading science as an amateur observer for more than 50
years, I have, as you might expect, a complete theory of how it all works – A
TOE or Theory of Everything – which has yet to be scientifically tested or even
noted.
www.noelhodson.com/index_files/universal_model_v7_nov02.htm
…And a short visual version
for busy executives at:
http://www.noelhodson.com/index_files/Life-Universe-Everything-8Mar2011.pdf
31 May 2012 - THREE ACTIONS TO SAVE THE
WORLD
1) TODAY - Stop loan sharking; to free families from inescapable debt and interest rates ranging from 15% to 4,500% (Yes - that is four-thousand-five-hundred percent per annum). Please sign the petition :-http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/5_per_annum_cap_on_all_interest_rates_charges/
2) TOMORROW - Direct the economy. Ask your Member of Parliament, Senator, Congressman or representative - "Who in government hides their capital and tax affairs off-shore?" - And press for the repatriation of the off-shore $18 trillions to be re-invested in the nations of origin such as Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland, UK, USA, Japan etc. etc. - to boost economies and create good intelligent jobs for our unemployed youngsters.
SLIDE 11 - The $18 trillion Tax- Haven cash is 30% of the annual global $60 trillion production. The GGDP surplus p.a. is about 1% - for 30 years siphoned to tax-havens (30 years x 1% = 30%).
http://www.noelhodson.com/Money-Wars-2012-V5SHORT.pdf
3) THIS YEAR - Press for reducing the immense and unnecessary costs of the Money-Economy which could and should be entirely computerised, with minimum cost transactions via mobile-phones. The future is for one single global currency and inter-nationalised banking; to cut the prices of all goods by 25%.
31 May 2012. ENSLAVED, INDENTURED,
ARTICLED, APPRENTICED, INTERNED
Protecting young workers from
exploitation is a cyclical battle as old as mankind. Babies of slaves were the
“property” of slave owners – to be screwed in every sense and worked to death.
Indentured workers signed contracts to work unpaid for years in return for
food, beatings and work-experience. The “dark satanic mills” from 1750 onwards
housed workers, paid them a wage then took it back in rent and via the
mandatory factory-shop. The casual abuse of apprentices underlies many
Dickensian novels when for example “sound Victorian values” shoved children up
carcinogenic chimneys as human brushes and child prostitutes roamed the
streets. Before the 1950’s, only the rich entered the professions, paying for
their articles – then they were unpaid – then at last articled-clerks were paid
for their office work. In emerging economies, now, children are often cruelly
abused with underpaid twelve hour days of dangerous and dirty work.
The minimum-wage and the living-wage
exist to prevent such abuses. They need to go global.
Employers and economists raged against
their introduction, prophesying total collapse if their slaves-by-another-name
were freed. The bosses have been raging against their workforces for the past
five-thousand years, on and off. Rights of peasants, serfs and freemen to wages
and free movement were only won after bitter social battles following the great
plagues of the middle-ages, which killed up to sixty-percent of the workforce,
empowering labourers. Before those revolutions, serfs were classed as cattle,
herds of uneducated families in hovels as “chattels” owned by the landlord; as
was their daughters’ virginity. Today, politicians thoughtlessly exploit unpaid
Interns.
Over the millennia the good guys have
freed the slaves and paid wages. The bad guys have cheated and screwed
employees. The good guys are marginally ahead in this long war; but the
sociopathic bad guys never rest from oppressing their neighbours while gouging
out obscene “rewards” for themselves. For a bright future – we must continue to
Fight the Good Fight.
****************
Monday, 28 May 2012 FREE MARKETS - THE BIGGEST CON-TRICK EVER.
Moral
philosopher Michael Sandel, (Havard,
Freedom
must be exercised by responsible mature evolved human beings – or it turns into
anarchic chaos. Since Milton Freidman, after 40 years of half-baked experiments
with “free markets” and “monetarism” – we must surely have identified the
theory’s grossest stupidities.
The
world constantly hovers on the brink of economic collapse, while top executives
gouge out obscene “rewards” tax-free to hide off-shore. The City of
Our
leaders are simply too damn lazy to think ahead. Would you trust them to build
a plane or plant our crops or plan a surgical procedure? We need to apply
science to planning human affairs. We must dismiss and eradicate at all levels
belief in fairy-tale secret mechanisms that operate magically to set wages,
prices and commodities. Our leaders need to realise there are no fairy
shoe-makers who work while we all sleep to do their jobs and organise our
world. Those silly ideas are just a load of old cobblers; a massive con-trick
by the 1% of gangsters to exploit the 99% of honest workers.
Its time to grow up!
http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/5_per_annum_cap_on_all_interest_rates_charges/
Saturday, 26 May 2012 MADAM DEFARGE
MADAM
LAGARDE – MOVE BACK ON-SHORE
Christine
Lagarde, Head of the IMF, tells the Greeks to pay their taxes – or else.
Italian activist, Beppe Grillo, though studiously ignored by the Italian media,
calls for
The
thunderous silence in the UK and USA about repatriating $18 billion of
tax-haven and off-shore funds to meet national deficits testifies to the fact
that, for example, 2,500 UK senior civil-servants have fiddled their taxes for
decades; Treasury officials, The Prime Minister and The Chancellor of the
Exchequer and other Ministers are from families embedded in tax havens; the
head of tax collecting does “confidential” deals to write off billions of
corporate taxes; the head of Barclays is paid his wages via tax-haven
companies; Courts strangely favour the most obvious and visible tax-evading
crooks; TV and media top presenters always, without fail, hastily assure their
public about massive tax-evasion cases “…They are of course acting perfectly
legally” when it is obviously not so; and despite oft repeated enquiries MPs
and Peers refuse to allow or answer the question “…which of you is involved in
off-shore arrangements?” And then they quickly sack half the investigating
tax-officers under the guise of austerity.
My
current guess, from measuring the thunderous silence of our Demi-Gods on
But,
if you are off-shore, in London, Delaware, Jersey, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Isle
of Man, Switzerland, The Caribbean, Panama and the hundred other tax-havens, do
not be fooled into assuming your secret funds will stay secret. The growing
anger against sociopaths, who rape their home economies leaving them with
“mountains of debt” and consigning their youngsters to lifelong unemployment,
is being echoed by authorities responsible for European,
When
the political will changes, all the tax-collectors need to show to tax-assess
the past 30 years of transfers, valuations and transfer-pricing and to open a
back-duty case, is that the transfers were not “wholly and exclusively
necessary for the business”. Madam Lagarde and Angela Merkel and others may
even now be gathering the knitting patterns they will take to the foot of the
public guillotine – to watch the heads roll.
Friday, 25 May 2012 BULLIES – SOCIOPATHS – PSYCHOPATHS.
BULLIES
– SOCIOPATHS – PSYCHOPATHS.
A
standing joke among my siblings is that our family was so dysfunctional that we
locked the sane people up in the attic.
It
is not an entirely accurate definition of our parent-child relationships, with
dutiful, hardworking, sober, condom-free parents clothing, feeding, housing and
educating six ungrateful monosyllabic kids. But many English families will
recognise the metaphor.
Dysfunctional
families cease to be amusing when parents stuff plastic bags into their teenage
daughters’ mouths, pin them down and suffocate them to death; allegedly as did
the unrepentant
They
are also unrelenting control freaks and terrible bullies.
Sociopaths
are as narcissistic and insane as psychopaths, but have just enough awareness
that others exist – and might arrest them – to dissuade them from crude
violence. They also are conscienceless bullies who only see others as
competitors and, if weaker, then fit for exploitation. Sociopaths lurk in the
guise of cheats and liars in business, employers who pay less than a
living–wage, by definition consigning people they work with eight hours a day
to ever increasing inescapable debts and no life. Slave owners had the same
instincts. Powerful sociopaths in governments, banks, cash-hoarding
corporations and the private, tax-evading “Free Markets” are currently depriving society of sufficient
re-investment and cash (society’s bookkeeping) to enable normal transactions
and lives – such as having a job, a home, travel, health-care and good food;
while their hoarded cash, gouged from communities, soars in value.
Like
murderous psychopathic parents, convinced they are doing the “honourable”
thing, sociopaths also convince themselves of the righteousness of their
relentless bullying. However much they have, they want more, and they want
others to have less, so they become relatively more and more powerful. The
others should have lower wages, lower pensions, longer work hours, lower social
security, pay more tax and live on sink estates, breeding ever cheaper child
prostitutes; a return to real Victorian values. It is time that the 99% refused
to continue to be victims.
Wednesday, 23 May 2012 AGING & RED FACED ON FACEBOOK
After
fixing the foundations of the socio-economic system in the last ten blog-posts,
we now get back to the serious business of forecasting, guiding and
creating the future.
When
Friends Reunited was launched, I had a go and made contact with people from
primary school (age 5 to 11) and secondary school (age 11 to 16) all the way
back to 1947 onwards. It was interesting and we few aging survivors even
planned a reunion - but it never happened. After 6 months the
communications faded away. Applying hope over experience I joined
Linked-In and built up about 50 business contacts until the website took
an unauthorised Ł180 from my card (which they repaid) and I cancelled.
Invitations arrive weekly from several other business networks that
seem to know my birthday, age, height, weight and legendary priapic prowess
that their half-price miracle medications would boost - which I
ignore. Undaunted - on baffling advice about "viral marketing"
I have joined Facebook, to sell my E-novels, set up this blog and I have a
Twitter account.
Facebook
is primarily for students - ages about 18 to 25 looking for parties and
partners - or so it seems to me. I am daily offered friendships with
dozens of beautiful girls and handsome boys, fifty or more years younger
than me. I ignore most of them, except close family connections, to avoid being
embarrassingly tagged as either a potential paedophile, a good old fashioned
predatory dirty old man or a totally self-delusional old fool. A few Facebook
friends are massive commercial corporations, whose friendship fluctuates with
the amount of money I spend with them. None of my "friends" admit to
sharing any of my interests or aims - Futurology, Physics, Science-News,
Comparative Religions, Internet, Socio-Economic Systems; which redefines
friendship as I understood it. Perhaps it is more like family?
Facebook
has cleverly provided all the millions of members with their own free
websites. Free so far. Many members already have/had a website.
Several
of these social-networks have made it into big business - crowned last week by
Mark Zuckerberg's spectacular launch of Facebook - UNIVERSITY TERM REPORT -
"Very Well Done - No Need To Try Harder". But what will happen
next? What of the future?
I
guess that like Friends Reunited, the members will age and move on. They will
find little more to say to each other or to boast about themselves. Younger
members, school leavers going to university - also seeking parties and
partners - will replace them. Thus there will be a fast "churn" rate,
which is the expensive bane of all membership clubs, gyms etc. There will be an
"event-horizon" where so many millions are on Facebook that it will be
a "so what?" status. When everyone wins the badge - it
distinguishes no-one. Facebook might evolve with its members, it might hold
their loyalty, it might find a vital service or product it can sell them - to
pay its bills. Facebook might become another Amazon or Google but it will not
replace the internet. Or, it might be buried at the back of the stationery
cupboard with all the other dusty, tired, old address books.
Who will
dream up tomorrow's social-network successful business-model?
Tuesday, 22 May 2012 THIS LEVER WILL MOVE THE EARTH
|
Hello!
The research shows: 98% of MPs and 93% of the public believe there is a problem with payday lending. 66% of MPs and 65% of the public support a cap on the total cost of credit. This afternoon MPs can help tackle the
problems caused by legal loan sharks in The Government has not brought forward any
alternative proposal, making this amendment the Help me make a difference to
the families in our communities struggling financially because of these
Stella Creasy p.s. Please also share this email with your family and friends to
ask them to defy the Government
Dear XXX As one of your constituents I wanted to
remind you that today you have a chance to vote for amendment 40 of A new poll by ComRes for R3, the
insolvency practitioners, released today shows that overwhelming the 98% of MPs and 93% of the public believe there is a problem with payday lending. 66% of MPs and 65% of the public support a cap on the total cost of credit. This amendment would allow the new
financial conduct regulator to cap the charges these firms can apply I look forward to reading that you voted
for this amendment. |
Monday, 21 May 2012 -
ECONOMIC GROWTH – SOFTER TOILET TISSUE - OR
GUILLOTINES?
21 May
2012.
Politicians, economists, commentators, journalists and Jeremy Paxman endlessly
go on and on about “GROWTH”, a term which glides smoothly over 99% of their
audiences’ heads, leaving no trace, impression or illumination.
The concept is quite simple. In the 1950’s many “slum” houses did not have
bathrooms and had solid, outdoor lavatories, (whence came the phrase “Built
like a brick-shit-house” to describe a hulking rugby forward), a dank cubicle
furnished with lashings of cold fresh-air and yesterday’s newspaper torn into
convenient squares. Economic growth, stimulated by government grants and
delivered by the great British building and plumbing industry, gave all homes a
bathroom and indoor WC. The activity created jobs, plumbing apprenticeships,
soft-tissue-toilet-rolls and higher living standards; and was, incidentally,
the beginning of the end of the
The problem today is having no easily identified cause that can fire the
politico-industrial imagination and indignation as did non-absorbent,
lead-printed newspaper squares, threaded on a string, hanging on the back of a
damp brick-shed door. Bankers, civil servants and politicians could really get
behind that issue.
To stimulate the
(A) A shared vision from our leaders
(B) 10% government grant to get it going, and
(C) 90% private sector funding (the High Street banks) to deliver.
Sadly, we have no leaders, no vision, no bankers and no trained plumbers. All
we have are terrified off-shore hoarders, too dim, frightened, selfish and
paralyzed to stimulate anything – in case they inadvertently improve anyone’s
life but their own. They might be stirred into action by a
ressurgence of the Guillotine Industry.
Friday, 18 May 2012 NAIL A HAND TO THE DOOR ON PAYDAY
Stella Creasy MP – House of Commons -
“Above all, the rates
charged by high-cost credit companies often do not reflect any economic rate,
meaning one that reflects competition in the market or the cost of lending.
That is why rates vary so substantially, from 4,500% with Wonga to a mere 2,500% with Uncle Buck, 1,700% with Kwik
Cash or 1,200% with PaydayUK. There is simply a lack of competition in the
market to drive the price down in the way Ministers expect.”
Stella
Creasy MP is bravely pushing against the massed ranks of the
super-rich for a law to control such charges – it will be voted on 21st
May 2012. If passed, which is unlikely,
it will take years to have any impact on credit charges while “Free Market”
villains, rogues and lunatics protect their favourite loan-sharks and
borrowers fear the knock on the door every pay-day. One of the few cases
my accountancy practice refused was a loan-shark or
"journeyman" who nailed his victim's hand to the door if they
couldn't pay up - just the one hand - before he got really nasty. To free
oppressed families caught in debt traps, there needs to be an instant, global
5% Cap, now, today. The price of money is far too high - from 16% credit cards
upwards. The money-economy is as expensive as all national health (private
and state) services.
The lenders who Stella Creasy identifies buy money at 0.5% and sell it
at up to 9,000 times the cost. The borrowers earn less than a living wage and
so are locked into inescapable debt. This is indentured slavery. It is immoral.
It is evil. It is against all world religions. Reducing interest to fair levels
will reduce all prices of all goods by 25% and boost the global economy.
Sign our Avaaz global petition for a 5% per year Cap on interest &
charges.
5% per annum cap on all interest rates & charges
************
Read the MPs debating the issues for
years at a suitably sedate pace while their pals collect 4,500% from the
poorest.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201212/cmhansrd/cm120423/debtext/120423-0002.htm#1204234001689
HANSARD
EXTRACT - STELLA CREASY MP - It is little wonder that Payplan, a debt charity,
is seeing a deluge of people in financial difficulty as a result of the payday
loan market. It says that nearly half its clients had six or more payday loans
in the last year alone. More than half owe more than Ł500 to those companies
and, crucially, 61% had more than one loan at a time. Eighty-six per cent. of
Payplan’s clients used their loans for basics such as food, transport and the
everyday costs of living, not luxuries.
Such lenders are exploding across our towns and cities. Dollar Financial
underpins Money Shop. Money Shop had just one store in 1992; it now has 450
shops across the
The FCA has many toxic practices in the market to address. As the high-cost
credit industry admits, a quarter of home credit users and a quarter of payday
users have no other form of credit. As consumers, therefore, they do not have
the power to shop around for more affordable forms of credit. That many of
those firms do not do credit checks means that customers who borrow regularly
from them cannot build up a track record to show to other lenders to prove that
they are credit worthy so that they can borrow at more acceptable prices.
High-cost credit companies have high fixed costs, so they make their money
by repeat lending, meaning that their entire business strategy is geared
towards repeat borrowing and the “rolling over” of loans, about which many hon.
Members are concerned. Thirty-two per cent. of payday loans are refinanced—the
average is twice—and 15% of doorstep loans are refinanced before the end of
their term. All hon. Members know what “rolling over” means: it means that interest
can be charged on interest accrued as well as the initial amount loaned.
Such companies also engage in aggressive marketing campaigns to encourage
that repeat borrowing, persistently offering customers the opportunity to
extend their loans and take out new ones. There is strong anecdotal evidence
that many of those companies lend consumers more money than they can afford to
pay back in a month to ensure that they have to roll over their loan.
Above all, the rates charged by high-cost credit companies often do not reflect
any economic rate, meaning one that reflects competition in the market or the
cost of lending. That is why rates vary so substantially, from 4,500% with Wonga to a mere 2,500% with Uncle Buck, 1,700% with Kwik Cash or 1,200% with PaydayUK. There is simply a
lack of competition in the market to drive the price down in the way Ministers
expect.
18
May 2012.
Thursday, 17 May 2012 Greek Fallout – End of Monetarism.
The banking crisis uncovered in 2008/09
that cost the
The cash exodus from major nations was
led by tax-evaders who siphoned funds to tax-havens – including to
What will become of us all?
The inevitable answer is nationalisation
of all financial institutions. The banks are incapable of providing a secure
service without 100% government guarantees and massive public funds. The
off-shore rivers-of-cash running through the so called “the free-markets” will
be repatriated from the pink-gin sunlit islands to be put to work in the
real-economy. Why major nations ever trusted the creation of cash, vital
investment and accurate bookkeeping to a bunch of insatiably greedy
privateers will be a matter for future historians.
This is the end of the sad, mean, flawed,
dispiriting, unintelligent, base, crooked and criminal “Monetarist Experiment”.
Farewell to the low, muddled, selfish thoughts of Milton Freidman,
Thatcher, Reagan and Bush. Hello to a
bright new future; free from loads-of-money, greedy, irresponsible freeloaders,
spivs and gamblers. Just return all our cash to the tax-authorities via
back-duty settlements and then bugger-off to
17 May 2012
Tuesday, 15 May 2012 -
Cap the price of money at 5% a year.
Loan Sharks lock families, individuals and whole
nations such as
Charges from 1950 to 1990 were
typically on a Base of 7.5%, quoted as "2.5% to 6% above Base" or a
maximum of twice-times Base Rate;
and banks made good profits.
Lenders can now borrow at Base Rate,
e.g. in the
Loan charges are sandwiched and
levelled at every stage of business – about 20 steps from raw materials through
to consumer purchase. Capping the rate to 5% would reduce the costs at each
step and final prices by 25%; beating inflation.
Only banks or the super-rich have
or can buy money at 0.5% and sell it at up 6,000 times the cost. It is a
privilege reserved for the 1% against the 99%. All the world’s religions and
fair minded people are against such exploitation. The charges are now horribly
greedy and excessive.
Ask your MP, Senator,
Congressman or representative to press for a national and global 5% per
annum cap on interest and charges. There is a petition on Avaaz you can sign. http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/5_per_annum_cap_on_all_interest_rates_charges/?launch
Legally capping interest on
debt is the single most important reform needed for a fair society - and
the easiest and cheapest to implement. Freeing millions of families from
grinding debts will stimulate the economy and create growth.
Monday, 14 May 2012 Support your local cyclotron
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL CYCLOTRON
CERN - MODELS – METAPHORS – ANALOGIES –
SIMILIES – WAVICLES – THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER (LHC) – EXPLAINED AT LAST.
An excellent article in New Scientist 12
May 2012 by Michael Brooks and Richard Webb about Majoranas prompts an urge to
unpick the hermetic language of particle-physics and The Big Bang that only one
in five-hundred-million people even attempt to follow. Majoranas are nothing to
do with Prime Minister John Major, or prancing Drum Majorettes, or bigger Big
Macs with fries, but are theoretical particles that may or may not exist, named
after Italian physicist Ettore Majorana, who disappeared in 1938.
The many billions of dollars invested in the
LHC at
Most readers know that the LHC is a large
Swiss/French circular underground tunnel in which bits of atoms are sent
whizzing in one direction while other bits speed in the other direction – and
are steered by huge magnets to collide. The collision debris is analysed by
earnest people in white coats, spectacles, many bad hair days and
open-toed sandals. And we know it is very expensive.
What they are looking for are the many
bits missing from the Standard Model of how all the bits we do know about stick
together. The Standard Model brilliantly explains and scientifically predicts
the very small sub-atomic (smaller than atoms) things in the universe. It dates
back to before Einstein, who added a few good ideas, and over about 100 years
has evolved to be used to make many practical things – like mobile phones and
touch-screen-computers and TV Reality Shows; in short – it works.
BUT – The Standard Model of minuscule
particles has not been reconciled with the macro-world (as big as we humans,
for example), or with Gravity, which is inexplicable, and it has 90% of the
bits missing; both from the centre of atomic nuclei, where teeny-weeny Quarks
hide, and from Galaxies as large as the Milky Way. If you had 90% missing you
would not work – but somehow we and the universe do work, so the missing stuff
is clearly not missing, it is just hidden from us.
For many decades the hidden sub-atomic
bits have foxed physicists. The current proposed solution is the infamous and
universally misunderstood Boson of Professor Higgs – which in teeny-weeny
particle terms is a biggish one, but so far elusive and invisible. The minute a
layperson quizzes a physicist about the Higgs, they cloak themselves in
mathematical, algebraic obscurity, translate normal concepts such as speed,
size and weight into unimaginable “MeVs” or millions of electron volts –
electric-charges - not little balls hurtling round the LHC; glibly claiming
that E=MC2 means matter and energy are interchangeable. And they
descend into physics-speak to confuse even the most intelligent committees who,
rather than admit utter bafflement, keep taxpayers funds flowing. In a few
words, this is what they are talking about:
Professor Hubble observed that the
universe is expanding. Theoretically tracking the expansion back by compressing
it; takes us back to the beginning – The Big Bang. This was (theoretically) a
very, very, very, very hot ball of non-material, expanding energy, lots of
MeVs. As it expanded it cooled and, just like your chemistry teacher
demonstrated crystals precipitating in saturated-solutions, bits formed in and
from the cooling stuff of the universe (which is “light” or the
electro-magnetic-spectrum). These bits were and are the sub-atomic particles.
Light was transformed into matter – straw was spun into gold - and all the
phenomena (things) in the universe started to form. The rest is history.
However, 90% of matter seems to be missing – so conjure up the Higgs and start
searching for it.
“They” think that 90% is missing because
our home galaxy, the Milky Way, spins so fast that the outer stars, such as our
Sun, should be flung away into space; there is not enough gravity in the matter
we can detect to hold the galaxy together. Thus, they say, there is invisible
matter or Dark Matter everywhere. The Higgs would fit the gap, fill the bill,
do the trick. The LHC will find it – they hope.
BUT, just as all eyes are focused on
missing matter, astrophysicists, studying very, very large things, announce
that the universe is expanding ever faster. The Hubble Expansion is
accelerating and something, another mysterious force, is pushing it outwards;
leading gloomily, depressingly and futilely to the ultimate heat-death of the
whole damned thing; rendering all of us, the whole of mankind and nature, our
lives, thoughts, trials and triumphs completely and utterly meaningless. This
annihilating force is called Dark Energy, a mathematician’s theory and
conclusion that I wholly disagree with.
QED
PS – my ideas of what Dark Matter and
Dark Energy are illustrated and with music, at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dmvCsQly2c
And without the diverting music:
Short,
pictorial, overview of these speculations
http://www.noelhodson.com/index_files/Life-Universe-Everything-8Mar2011.pdf
Friday, 11 May 2012 GANGSTER ECONOMICS - WHICH BUNK DO YOU PREFER?
PUBLISHED LETTER - THE GUARDIAN - 11th
May 2012. – Original text.
In Guardian Letters, 9 May 2012, James
Anderson of PAM, which advises on-shore and off-shore fund management, wrongly
states that “Recovery of taxes payable on undeclared offshore income and
capital gains… …would sadly make almost no impact on the huge and
unsustainable national debt mountains in Europe and America”. But,
repatriating the off-shore funds, gouged from the major economies, will quickly
repay all the debts.
Accountants with Back-Duty experience
know that where, say, $1.7 billion has been transferred to Cayman, as alleged
in the recent Olympus case, the invoice from Cayman to Olympus is likely to be
on non-commercial terms and not at arms length and therefore in breach of
developed nations’ tax-laws. A claw-back of the tax-relief, plus compound interest,
plus penalties – financial and criminal – plus tax on the off-shore capital
income, will usually repatriate the total capital sum or more. The OECD
estimate was $18 trillion off-shore in 2009, which would repay all national
deficits. This river of illicit cash flows into Bonds, loaned back to the
(indebted) communities who worked to create it. Over 30 years since
deregulation, it requires only 353 such “funny-money” or “back-to-back”
transactions per year to build up the $18 trillion; most of which could be
clawed back via back-duty laws. Mobilising the Intelligence Services to
track and claw-back the funds would be a rapid way to pay off all the global
deficits; repatriate first – ask questions later. And create good jobs for all
our young people.
Noel Hodson -
Founding Partner, McVeigh Hodson
- Blackstone Franks Accountants.
References:
PAM - http://www.pamonline.com/asp/front/index.php
CV – Noel Hodson www.noelhodson.com/SW2000/Take-the-Plunge-NH-CV.pdf
Money Wars - www.noelhodson.com/Money-Wars-2012-V5SHORT.pdf
Notes - The alleged $1.7B invoice/s
allegedly sent from a brass-plaque nailed to a palm tree in Cayman, allegedly
to the main board of directors at Olympus in Tokyo or London will almost
certainly have been granted tax-relief as a deduction from profits, by
HMRC or the Japanese tax office - lets say, 25% tax or $425M. The home-country
citizens in the
PENALTIES & PRISON
Finding such "Funny-Money" invoices and paperwork in breach
of the rules automatically cancels the tax relief so the tax-relief granted
earlier is "clawed-back" by the taxman. As such transactions are
usually spotted years later, the taxman charges compound interest on the
tax that should have been paid. E.G. As the paperwork was outside the
rules, the taxman also charges a penalty - often double the orginal tax,
another $425M. Over the years the $1.7B capital has been earning interest - in
a tax haven so no tax was paid, for say, 5 or 10 or 30 years - and
the taxman is entitled to charge tax on that income also, plus interest. If the
people involved in making the transaction/s have deliberately misled the taxman
- then criminal charges might be brought for false accounting or criminal
conspiracy. It was such tax evasion and false accounting charges
that sent the notorious
In
9 May 2012 “MOVE TO HIGHER GROUND & MOVE YOUR MONEY
ON-SHORE!”
Based on forecasts of the Internet,
increasing surveillance and as supposed futurists, for years we have advised
adventurous clients to move their money on-shore, as global tax authorities
circle tax-havens and tighten the net. The second part of our daily gloomy
mantra has been “…and move to higher
ground.”
Nobody has moved their money on-shore
and only one client family has moved to higher ground – above possible sea
level rises due to global warming. Our persistent, prophetic, truly wise advice
has been largely ignored, and even cruelly mocked.
But our reputations may be saved by
today’s report from MCCIP, The Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership, which
charts the 200 miles northerly migration by fish to escape warming seas.
Canadian and Scandinavian fisheries report cod shoals moving north – and
Mediterranean species are being fished off southern
When the seas warm-up - the ice melts
and sea-levels rise. The immediate impact and process is mapped in my E-book, OUT OF THE DEPTHS, available for a
risibly small price from Amazon-Kindle.
Will the second part of our
Cassandra-like advice – “Move your Money
On-Shore” (before the taxman gets you) be confirmed by events? I think so,
so act on the advice now. Sorting out
The Money-Economy is a pre-requisite condition for building the marvellous
future promised in AD2516-After Global
Warming, where 11 billion souls have great, long lives in a world that
functions without money. Also, as it happens, available from Amazon-Kindle for
a mere peppercorn. Buy now to avoid disappointment.
Two hundred miles north and south is
the distance that climate scientists calculated 20 years ago that the deserts
would migrate as the world warms; swallowing
9 May 2012.
Tuesday, 8 May 2012 OFF-SHORE FUNDS - MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING?
The Guardian, my favourite independent
newspaper, possibly the best newspaper in the world, reports the OECD has
recalculated bank deposits in Tax Havens at $2.7 trillion – down from the 2009
estimated $11 to $18 trillion. The OECD presented the new numbers to the G20
meeting in
SLIDE 11 - The $18 trillion Tax- Haven cash is 30%
of the annual global $60 trillion production. The GGDP surplus p.a. is about 1%
- for 30 years siphoned to tax-havens (30 years x 1% = 30%).
http://www.noelhodson.com/Money-Wars-2012-V5SHORT.pdf
No – actually. In 2010, from 2009
statistics (we all know that all statistics are wrong, but they are all we
have) in Money-Wars (slide 11 of 23) we calculated that the OECD’s $18 trillion
made sense, and it forms a part of the better documented $82 trillion in the
Bond Markets (the Free Markets), that slosh around the globe – ever hopeful of
finding a totally safe nation that can be fooled into being on the edge of
bankruptcy and thus have to pay 7.5% for the next 50 years to Bond holders.
The sensible logic is that the annual
surpluses from our national economies, about 1% a year, for the past 30 years
have been siphoned off-shore – with tax relief given in the home nations. The 1% surplus is the liquidity of any
economy – which has gone missing and been siphoned away.
It is in the annual siphoning paperwork
(transfer pricing, officers, controllers, resident status) that long
established tax laws are most likely to have been breached, creating Back-Duty
tax cases, which assess the tax-relief granted, the ongoing unpaid taxes, plus
compound interest, plus penalties – that in most cases add up to the total
capital siphoned out.
So – the apparent 75% reduction
actually reflects that funny-money is constantly shifting from tax-havens to
Bond, Shares & Commodity Markets, to on-shore banks, etc. The $18 trillion
siphoned in the past 30 years, could and should be subjected to forensic audits
– and repatriated. The secret and intelligence services could easily track it
down, as few bank computer operators will risk making fraudulent entries to
obscure the trails.
Another Guardian article, about
Facebook, tells us 2 billion people are on-line, and that 1 in 3 use Facebook.
Maybe Facebook can track the Funny-Money.
Monday, 7 May 2012 PHARAOHS & MONETARIST BULLSHIT.
This weekend, allegedly left-wing
Francois Hollande beats right-wing Nicolas Sarkozy by 52% to 48%, for the
French Presidency and allegedly left-wing Labour Councillors take control of
Chipping Norton’s local government in the extremely right-wing heartland and
homeland of conservative UK Prime
Minister David Cameron’s country seat. In
In these cases “Left” means loosening
monetary constraints and “Right” means ever greater tightening and austerity.
The alleged “reason” for austerity in the
At the base of this Austerity -V-
Expansion war is the definition of money. What is it? How can it disappear?
Where is it? Who has got it? Why do governments and banks not have enough of
it? We live in the wealthiest, most
automated, most productive, most informed and fastest growing economy ever –
and yet have persistent, endemic poverty such as 35 million Americans on
Food-Stamps and millions of families in loan–shark debt traps being paid less
than a living wage; which means – for the slow witted and low IQs among us - that they can’t live. What are
governments and corporate bosses doing?
Money is a set of political decisions.
In a well run economy it is the accurate bookkeeping record of all the wealth
and current transactions in the real economy. The real-economy is the real
goods and services owned and transacted – money is a set of IOUs that keep
track. Money cannot be “lost” but it can be rationed.
When the Egyptians learned how to tame
the River Nile and produce surpluses and became very wealthy – a major chunk of
their wealth was diverted into assuring the royal families of eternal life by
building pyramids. These immense public projects needed immense resources –
men, stone, wood, paint, gilding, sarcophaguses, embalming and funerary art.
The food, clothing and housing of the workforce was authorised by the Pharaoh
of the day, who effectively issued IOU’s (money) to the public granaries,
wine-stores, weavers, clothiers etc. for the all the supplies needed for these
large infrastructure projects. This monetary expansion, quantitative easing,
additional economic activity not only did not bankrupt the nation – but despite
the silly underlying concept, made Egypt ever more successful – over a thousand
or more years. The activity provided jobs, focused talent and education,
created national pride, tourist attractions, medical advances, writing, the
arts and military might; and transported the bosses to Heaven - maybe.
Today’s well paid, overpaid, fully
pensioned world leaders – in business and government – lack any vision,
direction, ideas or understanding of wealth creation. The majority of them are
simply scooping up as much cash as possible, as fast as possible, climbing the
golden ladder to the steel-ceiling, clambering through and smashing down the
trapdoors – onto the heads, hands, children and lives of the rest of the
world. Then they whinge and trot out
their self-serving bullshit economics, “…the money has run out”. The money has
not run out – it cannot run out – it should expand with our successful
real-economy – the richest 1% is choosing to keep what they’ve got and bully
and starve the 99%. They want to stop the
clock – freeze the process – with themselves at the top – for ever.
This is the wealthiest society ever and
the real-economy is expanding fast. The bookkeeping, money-economy has to be
reformed to keep pace. It is time to repatriate the past 30 years of siphons to
tax-havens; bring the cash ($11 to $18 trillion) back to the originating
economies, invest it in projects in those economies, and thereby re-balance all
the economies around the world. Then we can continue to build a marvellous
future for all.
7 May 2012.
Thursday, 3 May 2012 - HELP - How can I spend Ł3,500 a day?
Boardroom Pay – Shareholders Revolt
This morning in the
Meanwhile, in Boardrooms, top directors
are weeping and nursing their injuries after their wrists have been slapped
with a wet flannel by powerful shareholders “outraged” at excessive executive
pay. The shareholders are institutions, insurance giants and pension funds etc,
that hold big chunks of shares – on behalf of the bewildered public. Those same
institutions also dole out excessive pay to their executives – and many share
the same conspiratorial remuneration-committee non-executive directors who, for
a mere Ł50,000 a year or so, in three days work, will calculate that quite
newly elevated, ordinary, talentless, risk averse plodders MUST be paid Ł3,500
a day – or they will emigrate to Rockall or China leaving our nations in ruins.
And, of course, if they have to spend Ł3,500 a day on themselves – an onerous
task - the executives cannot be expected to actually turn up for work.
…So we might be forgiven for not wholly
believing that the wet-flannel wielders mean what they say.
And, of course, the revolting
shareholders (or the executives representing the shareholders) decisions are
not binding on the criticised corporations, they are only advisory.
How should it work? The most important socio-economic function of
corporate executives is to provide jobs – to create jobs – to manage workers –
to run effective organisations. Their joint pay should be a percentage of the
wages paid to ordinary workers, adjusted by the numbers of jobs they manage and
capped against average pay by, say, 5 times. E.g. – If BT employs 80,000 people
in the UK, on average wages of Ł35,000 a year, the entire executive group, say
100 mangers, should earn 80,000 x Ł200 or Ł160,000 each – but capped to 5 times
the average pay. If the workforce declines – so does the executive pot.
Shareholder power must be reformed by
law to overcome the divide & rule tactics of executives.
4 May 2012.
5th May 2012 The rich will always be with us
The UK Sunday Times Rich List was, it
seems, published last week, concluding that 0.001% of citizens, about 1,000
individuals among 63M souls, own or are worth Ł414BN – enough to pay off
the
There are arguments about precise
definitions of personal wealth but the Blessed 1,000 undoubtedly wield and
direct great economic power. Society needs these rich-nodes of independent
wealth to counterbalance and be alternative investment centres to the vast
cumbersome wealth of government. While it is true that most major industries
are born from long term, futuristic government backed risk investment,
(Christopher Columbus, Walter Raleigh, Captain Cook, Empire Building,
Scientific Research, The Spitfire, Wars, The Jet Plane (post-migrant
recognition), NHS, North Sea Oil, Computer Industry (posthumous recognition),
British Leyland (ouch!), the BBC, BT, BP, Nuclear Power, Gas, Electricity,
Water, Railways, Agriculture, etc.), the entrepreneurs do thereafter bring the
products to the people for their enjoyment – usually efficiently and
sustainably. Industrial heroes, industrial leaders, major employers, innovators
and entrepreneurs fully deserve their enviable day-to-day rewards, their power
and their alleged “wealth”- which in reality is mostly shares in corporate
organisations employing millions of people, which few of us would care to work
hard enough to own, control and manage.
The social contract goes awry, as it
has done this decade, when the Blessed 1,000 and the Government (“2,000 top
civil servants are fiddling their taxes”) shovel their assets into elevated
off-shore, off-planet tax-havens, convert as much into cash as they can, pull
up all the ladders, slam down the steel trapdoors, cut themselves off from the
communities that have enriched them, and refuse to pay taxes or to re-invest in
those communities. Currently this self-elevation into the International
Super-Rich, into the Drones Class, is denying jobs for up to 40% of 15 to 25
year olds, paying millions of families less than a living wage, trapping them
in loan-shark debt, letting infrastructure crumble and sabotaging vital social
organisations. Angry critics from the 99.999% might holler a vulgar
In previous centuries, the Blessed
1,000 were mostly pillars of their communities who built Model Villages, Town
Halls, free schools, hospitals and infrastructure. That was and is the economic
justification for allowing their glorious power to continue. In
Power and Responsibility are opposite
sides of one coin. Power without responsibility will always self-destruct. The
rich will always be with us - as long as they act responsibly.
3rd May 2012
Wednesday, 2 May 2012 Benevolent viruses? Not on your life!
Wednesday 2nd May 2012.
Sickness & Diseases - Health &
Miracles
Having dispensed the forgiveness of all
sins to all mankind (on the Internet) in yesterday’s blog, I was reminded
again, by a TV documentary of an American asking what wiped out the entire
Mayan population in Mexico in 1210AD – that we love a really nasty, deadly
global pandemic. Several million Mayans died – (they are the ones like the
Incas who built stepped pyramids and revelled in gory human sacrifice) – but
they died not of The Black Death, The Plague, Spanish Flu or German Measles
imported by the Conquistadores, but died of drought; in the middle of a
tropical rain forest. Apparently when the North Pole gets very cold, the rains
fail in
But I digress. The researchers found a
large pit full of skulls – heads without bodies; the type of mindless violence
we like to indulge in, in hard times, when we have no TV game shows to amuse us
– and speculated if they would find a deadly virus or bacterium in the bones.
Similarly, about ten years ago, Norwegian scientists dug up deep-frozen human
corpses in
It is now widely accepted by science
that our DNA, within our cells, bathed in seawater, has acquired and tamed and
married innumerable bits of virus DNA or RNA – many of which were once
dangerous enemies to us – and would have caused pandemics. It is also accepted
that we swap DNA continually, all the time – through body contact, food
sharing, water and breathing; criminals famously daub DNA on every surface, for
the convenience of detectives. When dealing with bones from diseased victims,
we have recently learned to be cautious. Those invisible, minuscule, squirming,
reproducing, parasitic nasty life-forms, packets of foreign DNA, can do us to
death. We are all quite comfortable with the knowledge that the bones of old
sinners can fatally infect us with their altered or malevolent packets of
DNA. We gleefully list the 100 top
killer diseases – and try to avoid and eradicate them.
But what of the old bones of Saints, or
the DNA of living Saints? Are there
benevolent strands of DNA that we share? Can we be infected with goodness? If
not -Why not?
Our existence and reproduction are
evidence that benevolent DNA is ubiquitous and universal. Our parents generally
bequeath good or benevolent packets of DNA that enable our lives. By
malevolent, I mean harmful to our life, and by benevolent mean life enhancing.
Perhaps the company we keep is more important than we yet fully realise.
Perhaps the famous billionaire recluse, Howard Hughes, had a point. And perhaps
the millions of medieval pilgrims, walking thousands of miles to revere saintly
remains, hanks of hair, cups used by Saints and chips off The True Cross and
other Holy Relics, though mired in ignorance and deluded by spivs, had a
glimmering.
But – NO! We can believe in nasty killer pandemics; we
love a great malevolent virus to fight; we like to be shocked as we pile up the
innocent bodies – But benevolent viruses that help us? …Not on your life!
http://www.cellsalive.com/howbig.htm
SCALE: A human cell as
big as a house contains bacteria as big as a football, viruses as big
as golf balls and DNA strands like human hair.
DNA is very small.
2nd May 2012.
Tuesday, 1 May 2012 Thought Police on the Internet
File Sharing – Internet Shoplifting – A
Question of Scale
It is difficult to sort the distortions
from the outright lies from the statistical interpretations from the paranoid
delusions from simple bullying power “you-will-obey-me”, in the file-sharing
and internet censorship debates.
This week a
The main arguments for censorship are
that file-swapping is stealing expensive content and will ruin the
entertainment industry – and that vulnerable people must be protected from
things they should not see, hear or speak. But, printed comics, magazines and
books were for hundreds of years, and still are, swapped extensively without
ruining the publishing industry. Kids copy music and give it to friends – as
they always have done – yet the music recording industry is thriving and
millionaire stars are in the ascendant. The creative-content industries have
not shown that file-sharing damages their revenues; they would be only too
happy to pay millions for campaigns to publicise their wares as widely as
file-sharing does. Case not proven.
SINS - Schoolboys have shared grubby
pornography since Adam – and posh, quality pornography adorns the walls of most
stately homes, art galleries and glossy magazine covers; as it always has.
These irreligious, sticky-handed “sins” cannot be blamed on the Internet. I
blame the kids’, particularly the male kids’ deoxyribonucleic acid and their
parents – and grandparents and all their heavy-breathing progenitors. Nubile
females have danced, dressed, flirted and writhed provocatively since the
beginning of time – the internet is not to blame for human sexuality. Maybe it
is the intelligent designer who got it wrong. Horrifying weapons have been
made, copied and used in terrible wars since Cain and Abel – the internet
reflects the innate primitive human urge to maim and destroy to get what we
want. Sins of violence are inherent and have traditionally been punished only
when acted out. The internet thought-police are blundering into confusing
fantasy with reality.
Obsessive surveillance and censorship
of Internet content will lead to an alternative system being created that circumvents
all “authorities”. Today’s youngsters, almost wholly disengaged from the old
laws, business and politics, will go their own way.
1st May 2012.
Monday, 30 April 2012 My Boy The New Messiah - Maybe!
Observations by an insightful parent.
We have friends from
Like Proust, the young man writes a
stream of consciousness which might not contain a verb, subject or object for
many pages. In the context of Professor Susan Greenfield’s theory that computer
memory and internet data are a giant evolutionary step for mankind, dispensing
with the need to learn anything by rote, the father is forming a theory that
the electronic revolution could be liberating previously untapped, constrained
and restricted intelligent and creative potential, denied to previous
generations – reared in the strait-jackets of sombre, sober, perhaps
stultifying received wisdom. He observed that today’s generations live in a
very different place to us older, mature souls and that they are so
disinterested in our “old” value systems and work and social structures that
they simply ignore current politics, business and organisations; and ignore our
presumptions, assumptions, prejudices, fears and, of course, our advice.
We, elder statesmen, agreed that not
only did our children and grandchildren use the new technologies a thousand
times faster then we are able to – but they appear to do so without learning
processes that we can identify – and they are universally incapable or
unwilling to explain intellectually. These futuristic skills seem to be
absorbed through their skins and exist in their hands. Verbalising and defining
in old fashioned terms seems to be unnecessary and sabotages the processes.
They are applying playful instinct where we would grind through dull
educational courses.
For the future – it is conceivable that
this quite different method of mobilising our brains will create novel
solutions and initiatives that all generations to date have not dared to allow
into our socio-economically trained minds. To those of us berated, beaten and
honed to be good, compliant and useful citizens through effort, pain and
discipline this new way of, in our terms, “playing” with the new and ever
changing technological gizmos, forming ephemeral, constantly communicating
networks that transcend all geographic, time and class boundaries, could be not
just “one giant leap for mankind” but the donning of ten-league boots to set us
(or them) racing into the near and far future at speeds and in directions
beyond all our past dreams.
But can they also tie their own shoe
laces? (Sorry – Velcro straps).
30 April 2012.
Sunday, 29 April 2012 "ET ...Phone Home"
Your universal home is where your
deoxyribonucleic acid is.
I recently watched a beautiful
true-life Australian film The Rabbit Proof Fence, set in the 1920's, where
three little aboriginal girls, cruelly wrenched from their parents by bone
headed, stubborn, persistent British administrators, walked 1,200 miles home –
partially navigating by a fence erected to contain the plague of rabbits,
thoughtlessly introduced by British colonists.
It reminded me that whenever I travel,
unconsciously I map out how to walk home, and on what compass bearing. This
homing instinct has been with me always. Homesickness has been officially
recognised for thousands of years as potentially rapidly fatal to soldiers,
when fighting wars far from home. They would simply take to their beds and die.
The only cure was to return them home. Sci-Fi master Douglas Adams alludes to
it when a glance from Ford Prefect, a traveller from another galaxy, shockingly
conveys to a
We are all products of our home soil.
Science can tell from old bones where the owners were born, lived, travelled,
who and what their parents, descendants and credit ratings were, and what they
ate. The earth and water of our homeland, cunningly wrought by patterns from
the Aether, inertia, sunlight and starlight into the energetic dissipative
creatures we are, writes its unique signatures into every atom of our being.
Photonic and sub-atomic entanglement ensures that wherever we may roam the
focal points of our physical construction call to us, via the Aether, at all
times. If you did happen to wander into a galaxy 10,000 light years distant,
the local friendly scientists could analyse your chemistry and quickly locate your
precise origins – whether they could ship you home is another question.
For future space travellers – for
example on the Space Chimney Drive craft in AD2516 – as they move further and
further from Earth, their homeland beacon links will stretch, infinitely, and
for some the unconscious message of great distance will invoke the most
unassuagable homesickness ever experienced. As with medieval soldiers and
sailors – the only remedy to save them from certain death will be to send them
home.
29 April 2012.
Friday, 27 April 2012
Strictly Sci-Fi - Fun for Futurists
From: Noel Hodson – to New Scientist
Magazine
16 Brookside,
Lisa Grossman’s article “A curious case
of missing darkness” NS 28 Apr 2012, reports that 3 surveys, one by Christian
Moni Bindi’s team at the University of Concepcion, Chile, do not find Dark
Matter, nor elusive proposed WIMPs, within a 13,000 light years radius of Earth
and the teams can balance the forces holding the stars they observed together
without the allegedly missing 83% invisible matter. Perhaps Hubble Expansion
provides an alternative idea worth investigating. Continuous expansion, of
about 6.819E-19 % per second (circumference of the
observable universe disappearing at light-speed) of all spheres on all scales
from Planck’s minimum to the observable universe, attenuates the
electro-magnetic field, the stuff of the universe, causing partial temporary
vacuums into which the energy field flows to balance the field – acting not
unlike the force of gravity.
http://www.noelhodson.com/index_files/Life-Universe-Everything-8Mar2011.pdf
This in-flow would be invisible,
ubiquitous and persistent; it may be the “dark-matter” that mathematicians need
to explain the cohesion of spinning galaxies. It is an idea that could be
tested.
Noel Hodson
Thursday, 26 April 2012 Cash is King
From: Noel Hodson to The Guardian, UK
If so, how does it work? The OECD estimates huge cash
deposits in tax-havens; up to $18 trillion. Even half that repatriated and
reinvested would pay off the World’s deficits and boost graduate jobs, growth
and all social services. This off-shore hoard is controlled by the cash-rich,
including most millionaires, most corporations and tens of thousands of
highly-paid executives.
In the good old days, Thatcher and cronies stripped the
flesh off the
Scarcity – cash starvation – in a world where well paid
jobs evaporate; where the young are forced into unpaid indenture; where
millions are paid less than a living-wage delivering them to loan-sharks; is
Osborne’s choice. By making cash scarce and driving down wages – the value of
cash soars; we all need cash. What now is the going free-market price for a
child-prostitute? The 2008/09 bank collapse lost a trillion pounds from the
Noel Hodson
Wednesday, 25 April 2012 The Rt Hon Jeremy Embarrassing Hunt MP
The
Such official sleaze is not new and is all too familiar. People in
office can be seduced, bribed, blackmailed and
bamboozled into bad decisions. It is extraordinary that we
vote for, say, Tony Blair, because he figures out an attractive social
policy - and then expect him to have an intelligent grasp of a hundred
other policies - such as the Iraq War, which voters knew nothing of and
did not want. The current Prime Minister, David Cameron, promised voters a
thousand times "No top down re-organisation of the National Health
Service" which he immediately reneged on in his first weeks of tenuous
power.
IN FUTURE: The Internet enables democracies to vote - not for smiling, baby
kissing, grinning, vacillating, U-Turning, lobbied, lying individuals -
but for issues. There are no technical barriers to putting all Senate, State,
House of Commons and all other issues to the voters - daily or weekly -
locally or nationally. Strictly Come
Dancing organises polls very well. Audiences vote on many TV
& Radio programmes, such as the exemplary TV show Big Brother, host to George Galloway
MP, now a newly dignified Member. Website AVAAZ organises mass petitions
on serious issues. It is time for us to have real democracy - where we really
get to vote. The politicians can do their best to convert us to their points of
view - and News Corporation will doubtless have its say - and Civil Servants
will massage the information - but the final word should be with the
electorate.
Too lazy? Too dim? Too uninvolved? Too primitive? Too biased? Too uninformed?
Too bigoted? Then use the Internet to properly educate the voters - and usher
in the era of Internet-Democracy.
25 April 2012
Tuesday, 24 April 2012 SPYBOT - Lavatories get CCTV
While the British Conservative-Liberal coalition government squabbles, bites
its own ankles and turns somersaults, patient civil servants, who
collectively never sleep, press on with the real long-term policies of
Whether at work, at home, in hotels, airports, stations, prisons or
elsewhere, too many citizens spend too much time in bathrooms, water closets,
loos, lavatories etc. etc. on so called "comfort breaks". Mr
Maude argues that it is in the public interest to know just what people do
on these timewasting, possibly sinful, potentially illegal and often
disgusting visits. Experts advise that an average healthy defecation
(number two's) should take no more than 6 minutes, without the Times
Crossword or a mobile-phone, and urination (number ones) take 2
minutes. Researchers believe that analysing the live-data at GCHQ Cheltenham
from all 63 million
The Minister also claims that currently on 1.2% of visits (828 million events
per annum) drugs, alcohol and other harmful substances are abused. "These
anti-social habits behind closed doors will be stamped on" vows Maude
"Only those horribly guilty citizens with something to hide object to this
data being collected for the good of the nation. It will also at
last end the arguments, the vast, endless, time-wasting, male mass
debates as to whether yours is bigger than mine. Which it
isn't"
All SPYBOT data will be automatically shared across all government departments.
Number Ten Downing Street and
Monday, 23 April 2012 Birthright
On
St. George's Day, celebrating that transnational Greek /British/ French/
Russian /Chinese etc. heroic slayer of dragons, which is also my wife's and
my 47th wedding anniversary, and prompted by a call in New Scientist
magazine, 21st April, to close the sociopathic gulf between the Haves
and Have-Nots, the overpaid and the underpaid - it is appropriate to revive the
futuristic and heroic wealth-distributing "Birthright" and slay the
dragon of insatiable human greed.
http://www.noelhodson.com/index_files/brightsummaryjune2000.htm
"Birthright" was born from European Commission discussions in the
1990's in Brussels about The Information Society - The Electronic Revolution -
Automation - and the embryonic Internet, which concluded with the great
news that mankind (including women) had worked hard to abolish work (hard,
crippling, tedious, necessity work) ...and had succeeded. The
downside was that necessity jobs would increasingly disappear. Today, with
significant percentages of young people without jobs and millions otherwise
occupied as older students and supermarket packers, that prediction is
demonstrably coming true.
Centuries before we abolish money completely - as in the book
AD2516 - we MUST, for our own survival share out today's
unprecedented wealth. Or the only consumers left, able to buy any products
and services of the wholly automated economy, will be Bill Gates, Warren
Buffet, The Royal Family, Chinese Billionaires, Footballers and mad
dictators; while the rest of us huddle in tent cities, our houses boarded up by
the Courts, beset by debt collectors, stripped and beaten by bailiffs - without
any hope of paid work or disposable income ...ever. Birthright is a
sensible, fair, evolutionary, not revolutionary, method of distributing wealth
and liquidity, from birth, in a way that creates more wealth.
How else will the next generation of babies - born helpless and naked into this
world of grasping, aggressive, greedy, crazed, selfish, purblind, armed, gated
"owners" - new babies with no hope of ever finding paid employment -
How will they get a share of the vast wealth created by the intelligence and
toil and sacrifices of the past 5,000 years?
The dragons guarding their hoards of gold will hiss and scream with rage
and vomit fire at the huddled masses who dare to approach - but we must be
heroic and slay, or peaceably reform, the dragons.
Bring in Birthright, now.
Saturday, 21 April 2012 TAXING TIMES FOR THE INTERNET
The Guardian’s Saturday issue, 21 April 2012, brings a
letter writer’s dilemma; to comment on the Cameron’s family tax-havens or the
cyberspace war. Both are crucial to our future and happily they can be linked.
The Internet is recording all our personal data – and – all
our financial data. There is no hiding place.
All that is lacking in the battle to repatriate taxes and
capital from tax-havens (which were a British invention) is the political will.
Very, very, very few off-shore arrangements would stand up to scrutiny by “the
ordinary man on the Clapham omnibus” under past and current
The usual weak spots in the tax-free paperwork are:
The owners who shovel funds overseas must thereafter be at
“arms-length” from the ownership and management, which means handing the
capital to a Panamanian tobacco chewing lawyer to do with as he likes. The
management must be in the tax-haven – which means all key meetings must be held
there (now modified for teleconferencing). Or, the owners must live in the
tax-haven – Cayman is interesting for about 3 days; over populated Monte-Carlo
has a sewage problem; Switzerland pre-licenses home celebrations of more than a
handful of guests.
UK to Funny-Money-Land transactions have to be on “normal
commercial terms” including accurate valuations of properties, IPR and
assets transferred, interest charged, management-fees and the sale of brass
nails at $2,000 a nail. Values can be assessed retrospectively. Bent
accountants and lawyers who file-dress the transactions quickly lose their
creative-flair and give the game away in silly descriptions. All “brass-plate”
firms – where your family “charity” pins a plaque to a coconut palm and calls
it an office, then channels Ł10 million through it – are un-commercial, thus
illegal and the transactions can be unwound and taxed.
Essentially – if a family has set up a “trading-post”
operation to dump profits for example in Jersey (a fun island for one
afternoon) that off-shore company must be real, with real goods, real
employees, really managed in Jersey by real residents, run on normal commercial
terms and the owners, resident in London, New York, Paris etc must have no
material interest or control. In the deeply relaxed decades since Thatcher set
up the Margaret Thatcher Foundation as a charity in
How? The intelligence services particularly track criminal
money globally – for obvious reasons. Remember how they recouped every penny of
miners’ union funds, hidden offshore in the 1980’s. They sometimes visit your
friendly, secretive
If western governments are too coy, too busy, too polite,
too complicit to reclaim the $18 trillion, and repay every global fiscal deficit
– even in
Friday, 20 April 2012
Barclays Ł2.1B Bonuses & Ł0.7B Dividends
In 1985 an old fashioned City
stock-broker advised me - "Never, ever, ever invest in companies where
the executives are so highly paid, they no longer NEED to work". It
is difficult advice to follow today.
Saturday 21st April 2012 Tarmac the Railways & Get Britain Moving Fast
Addison-Lee, the civil-disobedience
No accountant ever meant to be an accountant - but I reluctantly accept that I
am a long experienced professional bean counter (and Futurist) with a natural
inclination to count and to try to be balanced - neutral politically - when
counting. I have professionally studied the real costs of transport systems for
decades.
THE FUTURE - FACTS: In correspondence with Lord
Weinstock, Chairman of GEC
These ideas were formed before the 2008 FOODTUBES Project (Google it) to
take 50% of vans and lorries off the streets.
In a powered vehicle study for New Zealand, we found that in money and
pollution terms per passenger mile, trains are the worst (because they
are so damned heavy, often empty and need exclusive routes),
one-person cars, buses next, and the most efficient are cars with two or more
people. Best of all - the purpose of the study - stop commuting and work at
home by computer.
Will
Wednesday, 18 April 2012 Hitler & The Brave New Internet
Not all regimes are benevolent.
Who would you trust most with your personal data - Hitler,
Stalin, President Carter or your Employer - or GCHQ Cheltenham, the CIA,
Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon or your local Parish Council? Sir Tim
Berners-Lee, inventor of the Internet, fears for its safety, survival and
independence.
In today's world of ever increasing automated production, robots and
computer systems, we have ever increasing, relatively effortless wealth,
which augers an increasingly peaceful future, which is fertile ground for
stability, civilisation, intelligent co-operation and personal and
group creativity. This coming Utopia leaves little room for Nazis, the
Stazi, the KKK and other mad extremists to flourish. But somehow mad dictators
still rise to power, buoyed by the mass thugish hysteria of deluded mediocrities
and incompetents. We do not want our personal data in their anti-life
hands.
Many authorities, from local to national governments through to major
corporations are trying to control the Internet. They want to stop us
talking to each other without their permission, analyses or intervention. They
will ultimately fail, but in this time of dangerous transition
- from the present gangster-economics where neurotics, bullies,
spivs, crooks and sociopaths grab and hoard trillions of dollars and
create the largest gaps ever between Haves & Have-Nots - to the future
brave new world; there will be upheaval and unrest, before wealth flows
evenly across the whole world. We are living in "interesting
times" and more lunatics will rise to power. (We follow and support
lunatics because they offer us certainty in bad times. But that's another
topic).
FUTURE-FACT-FORECAST - What will become of us and our Internet? The
massive intrusions, surveillance, snooping, spying, marketing, spamming,
scamming, harassing, recording, tempting, seducing and censorship
will get worse. There will be a technological cyberwar as, on the one
hand, users, ISPs, hardware and software manufacturers, land-line and
satellite telecoms engineers, are bribed or beaten into spying on all their
neighbours - and on the other hand as science-savvy, young at heart,
impertinent, disobedient, clever, energetic rebels resist being corralled. If
the snooping-interference does not reduce to sensible, socially acceptable
levels - a new, global wireless internet will emerge for people who respect
that the internet should be like a network of roads that anyone may travel on,
irrespective of nationality, class, wealth, religion, health, reputation,
credit-rating or mental stability. We all use the roads, largely unfettered,
with a few sensible safety protocols, and so we will travel on the Internet. It
would be a pity if the vast investments into the present system and the
dominant Western influences and technologies are abandoned and lost due to the
abuse by today's powerful organisations.
18 April 2012
Tuesday, 17 April 2012 USA & UK Tax Wars Heat Up
The Anglo-Saxon model is attracting some fierce critics. Economist Milton
Friedman, Prime Minister Thatcher and President Reagan ushered in Monetarism,
Greed is Good, Light Touch Regulation, The Big Bang and The Free Markets in
1980. Thirty-two years later, the great and the good are wondering if it was
the right policy for democracy; and billionaire Warren Buffet proposes that
even the loftiest of the super-rich aristocracy should pay the same tax-rate as
middle-class families. President Obama has the temerity to take up the
baton for
I am afraid this is my current hobby-horse, so as long as the media focuses on
wealth, business and taxes you may have to suffer more articles on this topic.
There is a neat slide short show with pictures, which explains the
money-economy. www.noelhodson.com/Money-Wars-2012-V5SHORT.pdf which is also on You Tube with
music.
Of course - several of the tax-relieved charities are not what Joe Public
thinks of as charities. They only dispense charity to their own family and
friends - usually via tax-havens.
What has all this to do with the Future? I think these issues are leading to
massive global socio-economic changes that, allied to the Internet, will result
in societies that do not need the Money-Economy. We are witnessing the
beginning of the end of money. - 17 April 2011.
Sunday, 15 April 2012 Will we pay taxes in the future?
As both a self-promoted Futurist, Sci-Fi novelist and
a veteran tax-planning accountant, I am honour bound to prophesy the evolution
of taxation. Dominic Lawson in the
REPATRIATE THE LOOT: Both Polly and Dominic miss the main damage done to the
99%, to the rest of us. The tax dodgers not only fiddle the books to pay less
tax - but many of them, in fact probably most of them, fiddle via off-shore
companies, trusts, family charities and other sham organisations - and not only
pay no taxes but they siphon the capital out of the very economies that have
made them wealthy. Having imaginatively created invoices, agreements,
bonds, trusts and other funny bits of quasi-legal paper to get tax relief
on their profits at home - from industrious, stable, reliable, hard
working communities - papers which currently many tax-authorities approve
even though they are obviously fake; they take the cake and the icing to
strange little countries with funny little governments that do as
they are told by the super-rich.
The icing is the Homeland tax relief granted - billions and billions of
unpaid taxes that the 99% have to compensate their Homeland for; the cake
is the total capital they gouge out of the main economies and hide off-shore –
before telling us our nations are bankrupt and have no liquidity. Currently,
Christian Aid and the OECD in
What do the 1% do with the capital
they have extracted from our businesses and High Streets? They first globally
gamble incontinently with it and distort every key price of vital
commodities - distorting all prices everywhere - then, tiring of those silly
games they lend it back to us via "The Free Markets" -
those mysterious shadowy entities that set conditions for international
Bonds, Bail-Outs and other "rescues", which are only needed because
the 1% have purloined all the cash. $14 trillion will pay-off every deficit on
Earth. The money-economy is bust because THEY have taken all the
money out of our nations tills and piggy-banks. This is true for
Will this last into the Future? No. In the far future there will be no
taxes.
It is an unsustainable, mad state of affairs. The Internet will reveal all. The
past 30 years of siphons will be reversed and the taxes and capital repatriated
to the countries of origin. My best professional advice is - Move your Money
On-Shore (repatriate before the government does it for you) and Move to Higher
Ground (before the land based icecaps melt). Read OUT OF THE DEPTHS and AD2516
to see how it all pans out.
And - remember, if you are a smug Off-Shore-Johnny, President Bush Snr said in
the 1980's about the Internet - "Forget privacy - Privacy is
dead". They (your friendly tax-officers,
secret-service-intelligence agents, Internet government snoopers and
Julian Assange) do know where you live.
15 April 2012.
Sunday, 8 April 2012 An
Easter Essay
CREATURES OF LIGHT - TILL THE END OF
DAYS
Easter Sunday 8th April
2012.
On the Spring Equinox, as the Sun ends
hoary old Winter and gives Life to fertile new Spring – as Jesus is reborn from
the implacable grip of Death to triumphantly give Birth to a new era of
unconditional Love – as gardeners plant seeds to be tugged into glorious growth
by the Moon – as Jews give thanks for the deliverance in Egypt of the
First Born - as sea-level is anxiously monitored at The Thames Barrier that
protects London – and as fond friends exchange symbolic eggs – there are a few,
an intelligent minority, some of them scientists with high IQs, who stomp on
the spring flowers, glower at the global celebrations and mutter “humbug”. These sad lonely soured souls have nothing
they can believe in.
But, this message from the manmade
magical blogosphere; enabled by the mysterious transmission through metal
wires, printed circuits, silicon wafers, thin-air and allegedly
empty-space-time, of, we firmly believe, trillions of utterly invisible
sub-atomic particles and extraordinarily well ordered, eternal, coherent
electro-magnetic spherical pulses, waves, that speed out to the boundaries of
the Universe …and back again – might inspire them all; believers and
unbelievers alike, to recognise their own immortality.
The fundamental stuff of our universe
is an ever-changing matrix, a criss-crossing, of these very same coherent,
indestructible waves that scientists study and manipulate and that the entire
population unwittingly but undeniably experience energising their
mobile-phones, radios, televisions, Ipods, laptops, Mars Explorers and – if
they pause to think for a moment – their own brains and nervous systems. We are
all, along with all phenomena, with every material thing, embedded in and
formed by these electro-magnetic waves.
Each of us starts as a seed-within-a-seed-within-a-seed, inside our
great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother (you might like to count
how many mothers you come from) – a seed that we can track scientifically back
to about 1750 where it magically existed in a sphere smaller than the Planck
minimum – which scientifically cannot exist – but we or it did; and with a
little help from just one, per generation, of billions of otherwise superfluous
and abandoned male spermatozoa, maybe at their wriggling and
bumptious best at Easter, our unique selves emerged. The energy patterns
from which we, undeniably, emerge are electro-magnetic - commonly and
collectively known as Light. We are all Creatures of Light.
23 Aether-Matrix Illustrations
http://www.noelhodson.com/index_files/Life-Universe-Everything-8Mar2011.pdf
We at all times, without pause or
effort, transmit every movement and every thought, electro-magnetically, into
the stuff of the universe, that I call the Aether-Matrix. This Aether-Matrix is
both incredibly delicate and extraordinarily indestructible. It changes to
accommodate all the signals from all phenomena – it is constantly informed and
reformed by those signals – yet it is also the Inertia of the universe, another
mysterious and immensely powerful force that keeps Galaxies and Atoms in shape
and in their places, and prevents boiled eggs from falling through the surface
of the table. We all emerge from, inform and reform and return to the
Aether-Matrix. Our unique message, our light-waves persist and are coherent,
scientifically speaking, until The End of Days. - Happy Easter.
Tuesday, 3 April 2012 Total surveillance by
sinister agents of RIPA
The intended HM Gov surveillance of ALL Internet traffic by the UK's
GCHQ radio interception centre at Cheltenham takes the world a step nearer the
Q-Field in AD2516-After Global Warming, where all 11 billion citizens have a
priceless diamond PC on their foreheads, connected both to their brains and to
the quantum-field of communications.
While the civilised, advanced and democratic people of 2516, living in a
world without money, illness, want or poverty, bless the global, indeed
universal, telecoms - AD2012 is going to experience interesting times as
governments, corporations and lunatics of all types try to control all our
communications on today's fledgling Internet. When Sir Tim Berners-Lee
created hyperlinks and the World Wide Web at CERN, on the foundations of the
USA's "nuclear hardened" military telenet, he envisaged it as free,
open, non-commercial, intelligent, private and beneficial.
As control freaks pervert its development and route our every exchange via
spies, spooks, snoops, police, employers, medics, head-teachers,
data-marketeers and nosey neighbours, I foresee that a 2nd Wave WWW,
the 2WWW, will quickly be created by alienated and new ISPs, innovative
hardware enigineers, useful free websites like Wikipedia, impertinent
emerging economies and disrespectful, disobedient users
everywhere. Initially, the 2WWW will
be the intelligent-cooperation network that Tim Berners-Lee
hoped for. It will almost certainly be hand-held, wireless, global and low
cost. This 2nd Wave Internet is the tool that will evolve and eventually give
birth to the marvellous and indispensable Q-Field of AD2516.
* RIPA is the UK
NH
BUILD YOUR ARK
Have
you started to build an
The good news is we may not last long enough to have to migrate away from the
coastal margins. New Scientist also tells us that the killer flu virus that is
variously called Bird Flu, Swine Flu, and Spanish or Trench Flu from the
1914-18 World War One, is still dodging the best efforts of virologists to
understand and confine it. The experts have identified that people with a
faulty version of a protein, IFITM3, are more likely to die from the 2009
version of flu.
Move to higher ground to avoid the floods and wear a gas mask to stop the
viruses. How high? And when? my e-book OUT OF THE DEPTHS gives you chapter
and verse in the factoid summaries above each chapter, as well as showing how
people might survive in
LETTER TO THE NEW YORK TIMES 26 MARCH
2012
Following recent letters from Canadian visitors (How Not to Attract Tourists,” by Mark Vanhoenacker - Op-Ed, March 16): In the two hours we
stood in line a few weeks ago at JFK - hot tired thirsty and furious, along
with other pensioners, among families with weeping infants - facing your surly,
slow, shambling, mumbling and lazy officers, frequent NY visitors from the UK
told us that when possible they fly to other US cities with efficient
immigration and then go to NY. We wrote to Mayor Bloomberg and the NY Chamber
of Commerce that we would enjoy spending another several thousand tourist
dollars in your great city – after you’ve fixed this chronic problem. How
about some zero tolerance of official hostility? Otherwise – we loved NY.
- Noel & Pauline Hodson,
Have you been abused at JFK airport?
THE FUTURE WILL BE SO MUCH BETTER - AFTER THE FLOODS!
Contrast this hassle at JFK with the reception the heroes of
AD2516, the controversial book of the future, are given when they
visit New New York after being thawed out from a 500 year cryogenic
nap on a diverted Concorde flight.
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
Fundamental reform of the money-economy.
29 NOV 2011 - MONEY IS TOO EXPENSIVE.
COSTS CAN BE REDUCED BY 90%.
I think that implementing the
recommendations below will repair the global (in fact the USA-UK-Euro) economic
crises.
The underlying premise for immediate
action is that the $18 trillion cash in tax-havens is the surplus from the
Real-Economy from the past 25 years. And that repatriating it by claiming
back-taxes for the source nations will fix all the deficits and on-shore bank
liquidity in Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, UK, USA, Japan
etc. In the computer society, all the transactions can be traced.
Nations should move very fast before the
A major problem blocking reform is
that many "superior" peeople, many in the top layers of
society, have off-shore and tax haven accounts. Top people no longer pay
tax.
Ask your government to identify them,
starting with the governors. EG in the UK, ask both Houses of
Parliament and the Civil Service – “Do any of you, or your families,
business colleagues or agents, have any interest in off-shore bank accounts,
tax-haven bank accounts or tax-haven companies, trusts or other such
arrangements?”
********************************
November 2011. In
industrialised nations, due to generations of hard work, valour and sacrifice
and, recently, the Electronic Revolution or the Knowledge Economy - there is overproduction of goods and services.
Products of the Real Economy are
flooding the world. Mankind has never before produced so much real wealth. But
the traditional, tribal, Money Economy mechanisms,
used to count, account and to share wealth fairly, are inadequate, warped,
crooked, socially unfair and distorted.
It is time to tame the paper-tiger.
Brave protestors such as OCCUPY and UK-UNCUT need to voice
clear and powerful demands.
(1) Repatriate and Tax
all Off-Shore Funds. The $18 trillion in
tax-havens (OECD 2010) is the surplus from the Real Economy generated by the
99% over the past 25 years. This will repair all fiscal deficits, feed the
hungry and restore national banking systems. Such monies can be taxed under
existing laws. Tax all annual incomes over $200,000 at 90%.
(2) Cap Interest at 5% -
Reduce the Cost of Money. Thatcher and Reagan
abolished the interest cap on ancient usury laws. Interest is now charged from
5% on mortgages to 3000% by loan sharks. A 5% per year legal cap of interest
& charges on all loans will reduce most prices by 25% and substantially
reduce inflation.
(3) Pay an hourly rate equivalent to a Living
Wage: equivalent in the region
where the workers live. All Quantative Easing should be used to bring in a
Living Wage worldwide. This will eradicate most poverty and bad-debts.
(4) Stop speculation & gambling: Gambling is an
addiction which has wrecked our vital markets and money-systems. Ban banks from
speculating & create a 2 months buy-sell-buy transaction gap.
ACCURSED NEW ARISTOCRATS
There is a global war
between Haves and Have-nots. The Haves hold $18 trillion offshore (OECD 2010),
mostly siphoned, with tax-relief, through fraudulent bookkeeping.
The mysterious so-called
“Free Markets” control this hoard. They drive-up the interest on bonds and
restrict cash in circulation. Their agents are the trans-border banks. They
gamble incontinently in commodities, currencies and shares – wrecking systems
we all rely on.
The Haves gouge out ever
increasing “rewards” while suppressing the wages of the Have-nots; taking
incomes now 230 times the wages of the low paid – driving the poor to borrow at
15% to 3000% interest, and ultimately to lose their jobs & homes.
The Haves mythologize
“The City” and “Wall St”, which enable their stateless, trans-border, tax-free
status, claiming it earns fortunes for the host nations. The reverse is true;
The
All national fiscal
deficits can be met by rapidly repatriating and taxing the offshore cash to the
countries of origin. In the longer term it is inevitable that all financial
activities will be regulated globally, which may require nationalisation – at
least for a decade or two.
How it will really be
After 500 years of deep-freeze
Coming soon to a city near you
Global Floods & Glacier Flu
cash wars – letter to the guardian –
22nd december 2011
The OECD estimates $18 trillion is
held off-shore, which from my tax-planning experience I estimate equates to
about 7.5 million tax dodgers globally, or less than 0.5% of the global
workforce. I ask the influential and informed signatories to the letter “Tax
avoidance must become taboo” Guardian 22 Dec 2011, and my own MP, Rt. Hon
Andrew Smith, firstly, to ask Parliament to identify the few elected representatives,
senior civil servants and other executives who have assets in tax-havens,
however cunningly hidden, and secondly, to press for a 500 person
tax-recovery-team from the Intelligence Services, examining “false-accounting”
and paid 2.5% of recoveries, to repatriate the UK’s portion of the $18
trillion, which I estimate as not less than $3 trillion. This amount will
fully restore our banks and repair all fiscal deficits.
Noel Hodson
See how it works - Where has all the
money gone?
http://www.noelhodson.com/Money-Wars-2012-V5SHORT.pdf
You Tube version – 21 Dec 2011 http://youtu.be/mlUjncgWG-w
dire warning - CASH WARS (9) we are
doomed – 1 december 2011
The Guardian articles (Global central
banks step into stave off second credit crunch – 1st Dec 2011) were
today followed by a dire warning by The Bank of England about vanishing global
liquidity. Both omit to ask the vital question “Where has all the money gone?”
For three decades the real-economy has never been more automated or productive.
The annual productive surplus, some $18 trillion, has gone to tax-havens; e.g.
recently Olympus cameras sent $640 million from
This cash is all “off-shore” sloshing
around in the “free markets” – held by 2% of the population - who want the 98%
of honest folk to borrow it back at high rates. Most of this $18 trillion can
be rapidly repatriated under existing tax laws by challenging the alleged
commercially priced invoices, the allegedly arms-length relationships of the
parties, and the alleged management of the funds by alleged tax-haven
residents.
The Telegraph listed MP’s
expenses. Will the Guardian list the offshore deserters, including
Members of both Houses and senior civil servants?
Noel Hodson
OCCUPY - CASH WARS (8) find the
traitors and deserters – 28 November 2011
22 NOV 2011. To: The Rt. Hon Andrew
Smith MP – Oxford East, UK
Dear Andrew,
POPULAR PROTESTS – UKUNCUT – OCCUPY
ETC.
I think that implementing the
recommendations (below text and attached PDF) will repair the global (in fact
the USA-UK-Euro) economic crises. Please pass them to the relevant
The underlying premise for immediate
action is that the $18 trillion cash in tax-havens is the surplus from the
Real-Economy from the past 25 years. And that repatriating it by claiming
back-taxes for the source nations will fix all the deficits and on-shore bank
liquidity in Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, UK, USA, Japan etc.
The
Could you ask both Houses of
Parliament and the Civil Service – “Do any of you, or your families,
business colleagues or agents, have any interest in off-shore bank accounts,
tax-haven bank accounts or tax-haven companies, trusts or other such
arrangements?”
Thank you for your work and
intervention about my row with Barclaycard. You received an assurance
from Hector Sants, CEO at the FSA that the bank was at fault – and, two weeks
later without explanation, my Barclaycard was credited with the 9
misappropriated “Continuous Payments” that the villainous on-line Californian
“Merchants” had nicked via Barclays. The FSA decision ought to be
broadcast for the sake of all those who cannot fight back.
Best wishes - Noel
********************************
November 2011. In industrialised nations, due to generations of hard work,
valour and sacrifice and, recently, the Electronic Revolution or the Knowledge Economy - there is
overproduction of goods and services. Products of the Real Economy are flooding the world. Mankind has never before
produced so much real wealth. But the traditional, tribal, Money Economy mechanisms, used to count, account and to share
wealth fairly, are inadequate, warped, crooked, socially unfair and
distorted. It is time to tame the
paper-tiger.
Brave protestors such as
OCCUPY need clear and powerful demands.
(1) Repatriate and Tax
all Off-Shore Funds. The $18 trillion in
tax-havens (OECD 2010) is the surplus from the Real Economy generated by the
99% over the past 25 years. This will repair all fiscal deficits, feed the
hungry and restore national banking systems. Such monies can be taxed under existing
laws. Tax all annual incomes over $200,000 at 90%.
(2) Cap Interest at 5% -
Reduce the Cost of Money. Thatcher and Reagan abolished
the interest cap on ancient usury laws. Interest is now charged from 5% on mortgages
to 3000% by loan sharks. A 5% per year legal cap of interest & charges on all
loans will reduce most prices by 25% and substantially reduce inflation.
(3) Pay an hourly rate equivalent to a Living
Wage: equivalent in the region
where the workers live. All Quantative Easing should be used to bring in a
Living Wage worldwide. This will eradicate most poverty and bad-debts.
(4) Stop speculation & gambling: Gambling is an
addiction which has wrecked our vital markets and money-systems. Ban banks from
speculating & create a 2 months buy-sell-buy transaction gap.
ACCURSED NEW ARISTOCRATS
There is a global war
between Haves and Have-nots. The Haves hold $18 trillion offshore (OECD 2010),
mostly siphoned, with tax-relief, through fraudulent bookkeeping.
The mysterious so-called
“Free Markets” control this hoard. They drive-up the interest on bonds and restrict
cash in circulation. Their agents are the trans-border banks. They gamble
incontinently in commodities, currencies and shares – wrecking systems we all
rely on.
The Haves gouge out ever increasing
“rewards” while suppressing the wages of the Have-nots; taking incomes now 230
times the wages of the low paid – driving the poor to borrow at 15% to 3000%
interest, and ultimately to lose their jobs & homes.
The Haves mythologize
“The City” and “Wall St”, which enable their stateless, trans-border, tax-free
status, claiming it earns fortunes for the host nations. The reverse is true;
The
All national fiscal
deficits can be met by rapidly repatriating and taxing the offshore cash to the
countries of origin. In the longer term it is inevitable that all financial
activities will be regulated globally, which may require nationalisation – at
least for a decade or two.
QED
OCCUPY LONDON
9 November 2011.
Open letter to Simon Jenkins, at the Guardian.
Dear Simon Jenkins,
CITY ETHICS
I agree with much of what you write about “empty philosophising”
but the confused purblind groping for fairness might one-day, over the rainbow,
lead to an efficient, sane, global financial system. The essential problem is
that existing laws and implicit ethics are commonly flaunted by all players,
resulting in false accounting on an historically unprecedented scale.
Bankers, auditors, lawyers, directors, officials, business colleges and regulators
are so accustomed to cheating society and the real-economy that many now
falsely believe they have Law and God on their side. If we cannot trust
the IOU bookkeeping that underpins money, it loses all value. I cite the
vast frauds of Enron, Parmalat,
The immediate practical steps are to cap usury at 5%, which will reduce all prices by about 25%, eliminating inflation and most bad-debts; to repatriate the $18 trillion tax-haven funds, and tax them, which will repair most nations’ deficits; to have a minimum 2 month buy-sell period to stop insane and mechanised gambling; and to establish a fair living wage tailored for each economic region, which will greatly boost the global economy.
You might profitably write about the UK elite, including our elected representatives, Lords, Ladies and senior civil servants, who use tax-havens; and the immense costs to society of the UK financial sector and how those costs can be substantially cut.
Noel Hodson
PS – Do you have an off-shore account? Does The Guardian pay
you in the
OCCUPY WALL STREET
LETTER TO THE GUARDIAN: Gary Younge sees that “As Wall Street wormed
its way into everyone’s life, so Occupy protests grow…” (Who knows where the
occupations are going – it’s just great to be moving. Guardian 7 Nov 11).
And he speculates on where Occupy is going. In this era when the world
has the wealthiest, automated real-economy ever, I believe Occupy is
unconsciously intent on fair-shares; by eliminating all the deeply embedded,
debilitating, insatiable tape-worms; by arresting financial sociopaths to
re-establish business ethics; and thus by decimating the price of money – the
immense and unnecessary costs of the global financial consortia.
The immediate practical steps are to
cap usury at 5%, which will reduce all prices by about 25% and eliminate most
bad-debts; to repatriate the $18 trillion tax-haven funds, and tax them, which
will repair most nations’ deficits; to have a minimum 2 month buy-sell period
to stop insane and mechanised gambling; and to establish a fair living wage
tailored for each economic region, which will greatly boost the global economy.
Will change be achieved without
violence? Each month my doubts grow that the incumbent elite will appease
the mob to create fair-shares. The global powder keg is the
Noel Hodson
OCCUPY WALL STREET
To Global Economic Protestors &
Religions – Take Aim.
Our first common objective – “GLOBAL
5% CAP ON LOANS”
St Pauls Cathedral, Church of England,
Christian congregation and all religions may find common cause with Occupy,
Uncut and the 99% economic victims across the world by reinstating or restating
the laws against Usury, with a 5% interest per annum cap on the costs of all
and any loans. 5% is 10 times the 0.5% Base Rate that, for example,
Credit Card Banks buy money at. A 5% cap allows banks to buy money
for Ł1 and sell it for Ł10.
Currently the banks buy for Ł1 and
sell for Ł16 Ł32 to Ł34 Ł68. Money lenders to the poorest buy for
Ł1 and sell for Ł3000 Ł6000.
Usury laws have featured strongly in
all formal religions and governments for thousands of years. Limits were swept
aside by Thatcher and Reagan in the madness of Monetarism; characterised by the
1980’s Big-Bang in the City of London, which heralded the obscene, sociopathic
greed that we now recognise is sabotaging the world today.
Reducing the cost of money will
powerfully stimulate economic activity, reduce bad-debts, refill bank balance
sheets and - reduce all prices in all economies - and thus prevent runaway
inflation. Interest and Charges add high costs at every stage, from primary
industry such as farming and mines, through manufacturing & distribution,
up to consumer delivery to homes. On average, prices would fall by 25% if
Usury caps of 5% are re-introduced. Reducing the cost of money will free
millions of families and individuals from crippling debt.
By citing The Bible, The Qu’ran, The
Talmud, Upanishads, Veda, Analects, Tripitaka and other holy books, the world’s
major religions could lead a campaign to control usury. It is known to be a
social evil that siphons wealth from the poorest to the richest, enslaving
individuals, households and nations in debts they can never repay or
escape.
From the politicians’ perspective –
How many votes would it lose to re-introduce a 5% cap? Who will
object? To enforce the law, penalties need to include confiscation of any
ill-gotten gains and long prison sentences for all the officers of culpable
lenders.
Tomorrow, the date of Christians’ All
Hallows Eve; as we welcome our 7 billionth neighbour, make a GLOBAL 5% CAP ON
LOANS your first common cause and demand.
Noel Hodson
OCCUPY WALL STREET
OCCUPY needs to have clear, simple
global targets, aims or demands. I think these three will repair much of the
damage and inequality - and greatly improve the global and national economies:
(1) Repatriate and Tax all Off-Shore
Funds. The $18 trillion in tax-havens
(OECD 2010) is the surplus from the Real Economy generated by the 99% over the
past 25 years. This vast amount will repair all fiscal deficits including the
UK’s, Ireland’s, USA’s, Greece’s, Japan’s etc; and will restore liquidity to
national banking systems. E.g. The current Olympus scandal of siphoning $400
million, with tax relief, from the UK to Cayman is symptomatic of how the $18
trillion surplus has been gouged from the 99% - this is done using false
accounting (is there really a huge financial Mergers & Acquisitions
consultancy beneath a coconut palm in Cayman? If not, then the transfer pricing
is fraudulent, bent bookkeeping). Such monies can easily be repatriated and
taxed under long existing laws. Use MI5 MI6 the CIA, Mr Dave Hartnett, etc to
track and return the funds – then have the court arguments about the transfer
pricing paperwork.
(2) Cap Interest at 5% - Reduce the
Cost of Money. Thatcher and Reagan abolished the
interest cap under usury laws that go back to biblical times. Since Thatcher,
interest is now charged from 5% mortgages to 3000% by loan sharks. A 5% per
year legal cap of interest & charges on Credit Cards, Personal Loans,
Business Loans, Hire Purchase, Leases and all loans will greatly reduce costs
at every stage of the supply chain (e.g. interest is 25% of the cost of
building a house, or car etc) and thus reduce inflation. Households will be
able to repay their debts as Cameron urges. In the
(3) Pay an hourly rate equivalent to
a Living Wage: equivalent in the region where the
workers live. All QE should be used to bring in a Living Wage worldwide.
QED
That will do for a start.
Noel Hodson
CASH WARS 3 – 7TH OCTOBER
2011.
LETTER TO THE GUARDIAN
The immediate reason that “
Alongside the inevitable
nationalisation of the money supply and all financial organisations, the crisis
can be quickly fixed: (1) Repatriate the $18 trillion to repair all fiscal
deficits in the UK and worldwide (2) Cap usury on all existing and future
debts at 5% p.a. to swell the spending power of the poor and to significantly
reduce every price in the economy, thus holding down inflation (3) Use QE to
lift the Minimum Wage to a Living Wage of Ł11 an hour, enabling the poor to
escape debt through work (4) Legislate that all financial companies file a
daily set of published accounts, which are collated to enable a realistic
overview of events, instead of lurching ignorantly from crisis to crisis (5)
Stop all short term gambling with our cowrie shells by insisting on real
delivery of the commodities or financial instruments and a two months minimum holding
period (6)
(full address below)
CASH WARS 3 – 22ND SEPTEMBER 2011
LETTER TO THE GUARDIAN 22 SEPT 11 -
Following your 22 Sept 2011 headline “$400bn plan to save ailing US economy”
BBC Radio today reports that nevertheless the US, UK, Greek and EU money
systems are still DOOMED and collapsing. And hysterical politicians today said
that the UK National Health Service is DOOMED and collapsing. And the sea-level
is rising inexorably – submerging 80% of DOOMED UK property. We employ 600
allegedly intelligent MPs at Ł100,000 a year apiece, advised by another 600
allegedly experienced Lords; all allegedly advised by hundreds of top civil
servants, the cream of our education system; advised by super-intelligent
economists. It is understandable, as feeble governments will not legislate,
that “The Free Markets” being a bunch of unregulated, thoughtless, greedy,
myopic, irresponsible, selfish, neurotic gamblers will panic second by second.
But our highly paid governors should either do their jobs and calmly provide a
stable currency and economy – or resign en masse in favour of competent
managers - the Chinese government perhaps.
CASH WARS 2 – 19 SEPTEMBER 2011
EMAIL
TO PLLY TOYNBEE - GUARDIAN
CC
Will Hutton; Andrew Smith MP 2008; 'Jim Messina, BarackObama.com'
Dear Ms Toynbee,
CLASS WARFARE
In case you don’t receive
these President Obama briefings, below is today’s.
At the risk of me
becoming tedious, tendentious and preachy, I think these measures will also be
aimed at repatriating the offshore $18 trillion (current OECD and Christian Aid
estimate). It requires no new legislation for the EU, US or
e.g. An Oxford UK dentist
earns Ł300,000 profit per year. He/she sets up a staging-post company in Jersey
- “Dental Mechanic Designs (
This continues for 10
years so DMDJL gets Ł2.5M which the allegedly non-controlling dentist
continuously transfers to a numbered Swiss bank account (or Barclays
International etc) and gets an unlimited debit card useable anywhere. The
dentist frets that the Ł2.5M is not keeping pace with inflation – and so
lobbies hard to stop inflation by freezing workers’ pay and scrapping the
minimum wage. The Ł2.5M is now static in value – which is an affront to the
dentist’s human rights – so he/she invests it by buying Greek Bonds at 3%,
guaranteed by the EURO, before realising that the Greeks are shiftless &
lazy and need discipline – so the dentist, now part of The Global Free Markets,
lobbies for the Greeks to be taught a lesson – to balance their fiscal budgets
– and to pay 7% on the Bonds. Simultaneously, UK Tax has lost out on 40% of
Ł250,000 x 10 years or Ł1M of revenues AND its banks lose Ł2.5M of liquidity –
and so cannot lend to SME’s. (NB it requires only 7.2 million “dentists”
worldwide to account for $18Tn offshore – a tiny fraction of the working
population).
However, a sharp,
experienced government lawyer, B Obama, reviews the Transfer Pricing paperwork
and confers with The Ordinary Man on the Clapham Omnibus to ask if the clerk in
(Arithmetic guesstimated
but truly indicative)
Readjust Schedule D
income from dentistry:
10 years ago – under
reported profits Ł250,000 – tax 40% Ł100,000 + 5% compound interest p.a.
Ł62,889 + penalty Ł100,000 = Ł268,889
9 years ago – under
reported profits Ł250,000 – tax 40% Ł100,000 + %5 compound interest p.a.
Ł55,132 + penalty Ł100,000 = Ł255,132
8 years ago – under
reported profits Ł250,000 – tax 40% Ł100,000 + %5 compound interest p.a.
Ł47,745 + penalty Ł100,000 = Ł247,745
7 years ago – under
reported profits Ł250,000 – tax 40% Ł100,000 + %5 compound interest p.a.
Ł40,710 + penalty Ł100,000 = Ł240,710
6 years ago – under
reported profits Ł250,000 – tax 40% Ł100,000 + %5 compound interest p.a.
Ł34,009 + penalty Ł100,000 = Ł234,009
5 years ago – under
reported profits Ł250,000 – tax 40% Ł100,000 + %5 compound interest p.a.
Ł27,628 + penalty Ł100,000 = Ł227,628
4 years ago – under
reported profits Ł250,000 – tax 40% Ł100,000 + %5 compound interest p.a.
Ł21,550 + penalty Ł100,000 = Ł221,550
3 years ago – under
reported profits Ł250,000 – tax 40% Ł100,000 + %5 compound interest p.a.
Ł15,762 + penalty Ł100,000 = Ł215,762
2 years ago – under
reported profits Ł250,000 – tax 40% Ł100,000 + %5 compound interest p.a.
Ł10,250 + penalty Ł100,000 = Ł210,250
1 years ago – under
reported profits Ł250,000 – tax 40% Ł100,000 + %5 compound interest p.a. Ł5,000
+ penalty Ł100,000 = Ł205,000
Total - Ł2,326,675
QUESTION – IS THE DENTIST
GUILTY OF FALSE ACCOUNTING AND CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD THE INLAND REVENUE?
IF APPLIED, WHAT WOULD THE PRISON SENTENCE BE?
Then HMRC investigates
the undeclared income on the investment of offshore funds – which will be very
approximately Ł250,000 x 2% = Ł5,000 a year, which on the same basis as above
is 2% of the dental work taxes, interest and penalties = Ł465,335.
Amount diverted to
TOTAL BACK DUTY BILL –
REPATRIATED TO THE
The vast majority of
dentists, surgeons, lawyers, company directors, politicians, bankers etc will
pay up rather than risk going to prison. In the
Crises over – as long as
The City /Wall St is not allowed to either gamble it away or to pretend to lose
it in “markets” while in fact conducting back-to-back contracts (lose it in the
UK /US and secretly and simultaneously gain it in the Bahamas).
The EU,
Yours truly,
Noel Hodson
From: Jim Messina, BarackObama.com
[mailto:info@barackobama.com]
Sent: 20 September 2011 00:38
To: Noel HODSON
Subject: "Class warfare"
|
|
|
Noel
-- |
CASH WARS – 16 SEPTEMBER 2011
LETTER
TO THE GUARDIAN
Your advice to Chancellor Osborne
(World Economy – All in this together, Guardian 6 Sep 2011) would have even
greater impact by re-stating the fundamentals which are often obscured.
(1) There is a global war between
Haves and Have-nots. The Haves hold $18 trillion offshore (OECD), the majority
of which has been siphoned tax free from national economies by fraudulent
Enron-style bookkeeping, which would not stand Court scrutiny. This $18
trillion should be repatriated and taxed today by applying existing tax-laws.
The Have-nots are kept in ignorance of this vast hoard.
(2) The mysterious “Free Markets”
are the controllers of this illicit cash, with licit pension funds, who try to
invest the cash risk-free, at high rates – mostly in Government Bonds. They
manipulate national debt markets to drive-up the interest on bonds and to
further restrict cash in circulation which enhances the value of their cash.
The Haves are enabled to hide and move this flood of money by the trans-border
banks. Failing a safe-haven in Bonds, they gamble in commodities, currencies
and shares – destabilising vital price systems that we all rely on.
(3) Globally, the Haves gouge out of
national economies ever increasing “rewards” while suppressing the wages of the
Have-nots; currently taking 230 times the wages of the low paid – driving them
to borrow cash at 15% to 3000% interest, and ultimately to lose their homes, as
is happening in the USA.
(4) The Haves mythologize “The
City”, particularly in the
(5) The 2008/09 collapse on Wall
Street and consequent de-leveraging, took many trillions out of the
money-supply, further enhancing the value of cash held and slowing transactions
in the Real Economy. The few billions of
dollars, Euros and pounds put in by quantitative easing has not replaced it,
bringing the Real Economy to an emergency stop.
The national fiscal deficits can be
met by rapidly repatriating and taxing the offshore cash to the countries of
origin. But in the longer term it is inevitable that all financial activities
will be regulated globally, which should start with nationalisation – at least
for a decade or two.
PS – Do the economists calling for
lower taxes on pay over Ł150,000, earn more than that? It would be ruinous for
the
(Mr) Noel
HODSON
Business Expansion
Services
16 Brookside,
Tel +44 (0)1865 760994
http://www.noelhodson.com/SW2000/Take-the-Plunge-Home.pdf
***********
The FOODTUBES
Project
http://www.noelhodson.com/Ftubes/19APR2011-Foodtubes-ISUFT-OnePage.pdf
stone age to space age economics – 23
may 2011
To TIME MAGAZINE
Re - Fareed Zakaria’s article A
Flight Plan For the American Economy. May 30 2011.
Fareed Zakaria’s article (May
30th 2011) on the
g20 global banking – 12 NOV 2010
12 November 2010.
The G20 summit leaders could make
the world a far better place and fix most of the current economic problems by:
creating a single world currency; nationalising all banks and financial services;
using the launch of the single-currency to repatriate trillions of criminal
off-shore capital to the countries of origin, which will meet all budget
deficits and feed the starving; direct the coming dollar and sterling
quantitative easing (QE2) into a decent minimum wage – for example in the UK
Ł12 an hour, Ł480 a week, topped up from the present minimum by QE2 for 2 years
then taken over by employers (and please don’t whine that it will bankrupt the
nation). This QE2 would reduce mortgage and credit card defaults and quickly go
into the banking system to help re-build bank balance sheets, thereby it would
stimulate the economy.
In the meantime – it annoys me to
buy goods and services from
(Mr) Noel HODSON
times up – 22 feb 2010
22
FEB 2010 Time Magazine
In saying that Japan,
India and China owe their economic success to following the American
model, away from big government, Michael Schuman (Essay, TIME, March 1
2010) is blindsided to the long-termism of Asia - planning and
investing for generations ahead - compared to the short termism
of our "free" market model, which is now so extreme that 90% of
transactions look less than than one minute
ahead. Addicted gamblers, who use our vital markets as
casinos, have wrecked the money system several times. All margin
trading should be banned and all investments should be for a minimum of six
months, fully paid for and delivered. I think the
Noel Hodson
************************
gambolling bankers – 3 dec 2009
3 Dec 09 Guardian Newspaper
Bankers argue that bonuses are critical to retaining "investment" bankers. These specialists, most natural mathematicians who be-dazzle and baffle their colleagues, make and lose vast amounts by gambling, second by second, on futures, commodities, currencies, shares and indices. They use our normal bank assets, such as savings accounts, as stakes. Their activities have been deemed to have "no social or economic value". In fact, such speculation drives up global prices, distorts reality and periodically collapses the world's money-economy; economists cannot yet count their total 2008/09 losses. The bonuses are often siphoned to tax havens. Gambling is as addictive as drugs and alcohol; like most addicts, these gamblers will do anything to sustain their habit. We should bless Mr Darling for finding a trigger to have them all emigrate, taking their unique skills as far away as possible.
2010 - a pivotal year for mankind - climate-change,
internet-freedom, & global banking – 3 feb 2010
This year will witness strenuous
battles for control of our climate policies, our money and our internet. These
3 vital elements, among others, are under savage and determined attack as the
electronic-revolution disturbs and discomfits the primitive, established habits
of the intelligent ape. So far, mankind has applied apelike tribal and gang
rules, often violent, to take everything and anything we desired, regardless of
consequences. Now we, the self-acclaimed
pinnacle of God’s creation, are being obliged to grow-up and, as President
Obama quoted in his inauguration speech, “It is time to put away childish
things”. No overindulged, overweight, greedy,
thoughtless, selfish, narcissistic, physically powerful teenager wants to be
initiated into becoming a responsible adult human-being. I believe this year, 2010, is a pivotal year
for us. Will we try to do ‘Business as Usual’, or will we move into the era of
intelligent-co-operation? Thanks to the internet and the world-wide-web and
Wikipedia, we all have the required information and we all can see the global
picture – if we choose to look. Three
further quotes to take time to reflect on, “An Elder is one who pre-considers
the consequences of actions for the next seven generations” and, “We hate to
have to think – thinking uses more energy than any other human activity.” And, from
another
In an era of almost limitless
automated, mechanised, computerised productive capacity; the wealthiest
Real-Economy ever, we must learn to share, to cooperate …or else. We live in
interesting times. I think 2010 will be a memorable, historic year for mankind.
Below – is news of the three
elements, as we enter the New Year.
who will control the internet? – 3 feb
2010
From Oxford Institute for the
Internet - OII
18
January 2010
I
would like to draw your attention to a Policy Briefing written by our Visiting
Associate Tony Wales, former General Counsel of AOL International, responsible
for the company's worldwide legal affairs outside the
***********************************
To OII. Thanks for your thorough briefing on the Digital Economy Bill.
If Lord Mandelson and the music and film industry do succeed in their
crazed, world-domination objective of obliging ISPs to spy and report on all 2
billion Internet users, allegedly to stop a few children and impoverished
adults swapping products, which the distributors lack the competence to
protect; will OII then steer its followers to the new alternative internet
routes and hardware peripherals, which will spring-up, free from government,
business and advertisers supervision?
PS - Unauthorised copying
or sharing of my website and texts in whole or in part will be reported to the Peter
Mandelson IPR Revolving-Door Media Trust (Bahamas) Inc. and result in
Oxford University losing all internet-connections, paying large fines and
having its officers imprisoned.
LETTER TO THE GUARDIAN:
Comic Swaps & Copyright 23
NOV 09 - As a boy, did Lord Peter Mandelson never swap his Dandy for a Beano,
his Superman for a gob-stopper, or show his Titbits to a
pal? Did swapping wreck the publishing industry? Now he wants to
track and criminalise 2 billion internet users, who may or may not copy and
pass on content. The simple remedy for the music, film and Murdoch news
providers is to get off the net; withdraw their precious content. Or should
millions of internet users retaliate by suing all media companies for
their use of plagiarised and copied content? This is a Pandora's box
that Peter should not open - unless, of course, he is being
guided by the hand of God. -
***************************************************
19 Nov 09
Email to: Mr Rupert Murdoch.
CHARGING FOR ON-LINE CONTENT
Part of my business is forecasting the future of the Internet. I also advise businesses on novel solutions. If you use this information, please pay me a reasonable, commensurate fee - or - publicise my novels; see the address-block below.
1) I pay an annual subscription to New Scientist. They post me a weekly magazine and give me full access to an excellent website. This business model should work for The Times and other quality or specialist newspapers.
2) VIP FILTERS - As the
Internet grows and adds other alphabets, many, including Sir Tim
Berners-Lee, are designing "intuitive" search engines.
They recognise there is a pressing need for VIP-FILTERS to narrow search
results down to the top 100, rather than e.g. "Email Rupert Murdoch -
2,560,000 results". News Corp does not have to wait for the new
technology. Your teams/or machines can review and feed VIP DATA to
subscribers by web-searching, archiving popular, intelligent information, and
interposing a NEWSCORP search engine, which becomes the first search the (VIP)
subscribers try. This turns today's media business model on its head.
You copy free information off the web, repackage it, vet it and sell
it on high-cost subscription to elite customers in particular niche markets, in
specialist languages if needed (including the arts, sports,
finance etc).
Subscription Sales: Yes, you have to invest in a sales campaign - but you have an edge via your media businesses - and via existing niche-group viewers and readers.
2a) VIP-MOBILE hand held screens. I am reasonably sure there is also an existing market for ultra-high quality, Sony-book-reader-size, mobile hand held screens with good sound and picture quality (good enough for e.g. Opera (n.b. The Met now broadcasts live) - Ballet - Snooker - Football etc). Allied to the quality data from VIP FILTERS, owning such a mobile phone would be a high level status symbol. The technology parts exist but you need a 15 year old nerd to pull it together for you. NEWSCORP-VIP-MOBILE would quickly be the top-end mobile-phone-internet-search of choice in many diverse niche-markets - say, Ł100 a month subscription. From there it would spread downwards.
Almost daily, I search for
reliable statistics and calculators - make a STATS-VIP-FILTER for me.
Yours sincerely -
***************************************
how can the money-system and the real
economy be reconciled? – 3 feb 2010
26 January 2010 To
"The standard Taylor Rule would have recommended that the Fed raise the rate to a range of 7 percent to 8 percent through the first three quarters of 2008, “a policy decision that probably would not have garnered much support among monetary specialists,” Bernanke said. A variation of the rule used by the Fed focused on anticipated rates of inflation, not actual rates, he said. "
Dear Mr Lanman - Stealing from the poor to give to the rich,
via the Base Rate, was most effective under Margaret Thatcher 1979-1989, when
And move to higher ground. – Regards
-
****************************************************
PUBLISHED IN THE GUARDIAN
NEWSPAPER -
3 Dec 09
Bankers argue that bonuses
are critical to retaining "investment" bankers. These specialists, most
natural mathematicians who be-dazzle and baffle their
colleagues, make and lose vast amounts by gambling, second by
second, on futures, commodities, currencies, shares and indices. They
use our normal bank assets, such as savings accounts, as stakes.
Their activities have been deemed to have "no social or economic
value". In fact, such speculation drives up global prices, distorts
reality and periodically collapses the world's money-economy; economists cannot
yet count their total 2008/09 losses. The bonuses are often
siphoned to tax havens. Gambling is as addictive as drugs and alcohol;
like most addicts, these gamblers will do anything to sustain their
habit. We should bless Mr Darling for finding a trigger to have them
all emigrate, taking their unique skills as far away as possible.
-
**************************************
LETTER TO THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
NEWSPAPER -
17 November 2009
Sir - Defenders of City
bankers, including I fear, parts of your 17 November editorial, and
several readers' Letters, seem to be blindsided to the trampling herds of
elephants in the room. The City lost so many billions of clients', savers'
& pensioners' money in 2008/2009 that our cleverest economists
cannot yet give a total, other than that globally to date
$14 Trillion ($14,000,000,000,000) of tax dollars has been transfused
into the system. The population, saddled with decades of new national
debt, is justifiably enraged and would gladly throw the culprits to
the dogs - not pay them to stay in office. -
********************************
LETTERS TO THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER
-
The Toxic Homeless - 13 NOV 09 -
UN Rapporteur Raquel Rolnik (...America's housing shame - 13 Nov 09) met with
dispossessed LA families, representing the feckless, reckless poor, who
Wall St. and The City claim wrecked the global system by defaulting on
loan-shark contracts and triggering toxic debt; so far needing $14
trillion tax-dollars to patch it up. $14 trillion would pay-off 56
million $250,000 mortgages - half the homes in
27 OCT 09 - Please deliver
this heavily capitalised, expletive message, via Letters, to City
pundit David Buik, of BGC Partners, who complains about proposed
Tory limitations on bonuses (Osborne angers City with plan to curb
cash bonuses - Guardian 27 Oct 09). He says "... (Osborne) is far too
rigid if he wants
Hey, David !
Wake Up ! do we have to hit you with
a brick! The City of
**********************************
will we drown? are the ice caps
melting? – 3 feb 2010
(Un)Settled
Science - Hole in the AGWzone Layer!
by
James P. Hogan
January
14, 2010
Dear
James Hogan,
I
have followed the climate-change and extreme-weather debate for more than 10
years - and I do recall the many scares you refer to; such as the numerous
terminal threats to mankind (scientifically) analyzed in the 1960's in The
Doomsday Book by Financial Times science journalist Gordon Ratray-Taylor.
It
seems to me that the present Who-Dunnit squabble is a science-village gossip
diversion from the main questions - Are the Ice-Caps Melting? …And… Can we Slow
the Process?
The
weather fluctuations, including unusual cold spells, were predicted at a
meeting I attended about 12 years ago at the Climate Change Study Unit,
I
don't think it matters a tinker's cuss whether or not it is anthropogenic -
what matters, if the ice is melting - as seen on TV - is, can we fix it.
In
the meantime - read my novel, Over the Rainbow, move to higher ground and move
your money on-shore.
http://www.noelhodson.com/index_files/novels-table-15FEB07.htm
Thanks
for an interesting paper.
******************************
To The
8 Dec 09
Three climate-change economic myths need correcting:
(1) We can't tackle the additional work: The UK could work 133B hours a year, we actually work 37B hours. There is 72% spare capacity to tackle the crisis.
(2) It will cost the world economy a lot: On the contrary it will create useful work, economic activity and extra wealth around the globe. What we really mean is "I might have to change my income-stream and leisure activities".
(2) Who dun' it? Mankind or Nature? : It does not matter a tinker's cuss who or what caused it. Are the ice caps and glaciers melting? Will it cause disruption, deaths and chaos? Can we fix it?
*********************************************
think globally, act locally – 3 feb
2010
Sebastian Johnson, Oxford Strategic Partnership, c/o Oxford City Council, Oxford Town
Hall, St Aldates, Oxford OX1 1BX
21 Jan 2010
Dear Mr Johnson,
One of my colleagues has brought the OSP to my attention. I have looked through the 2008-12 aims, which are worthy and ambitious.
Twenty-five years ago, we
corresponded with Lord Weinstock at GEC, for a year or so, discussing
integrated interlinking transport for
On my local, Headington,
transport front, you may like to consider adding for discussion the attached
idea for the
NB – The Ł33M cost of the underpass would
be recovered in 2 years from saving the time and fuel of commuters.
The JR-Road Tunnel
1 Dec 09
As winter gridlock
freezes traffic on the
Local firm, SW2000 Intelligent Transport, claims that delays to the 10,000 vehicle movements a day, in and out of the JR, costs the JR staff, ambulances and visitors 15 minutes and an extra litre of fuel a day; 10,000 gallons a week; an extra 19 million gallons of toxic exhaust a week; losing Ł25,000 in productive time every work-day. Add the other non-JR road users and this traffic congestion costs the community Ł18 million a year in time & fuel; plus the impact of toxic exhaust gases, which endanger health and increase global-warming.
The JR should build its own road tunnel link to the ring-road; that is what ring-roads are for. Oxford's traffic planners could be inspired by Switzerland's visionary 35 mile long, 150 mph, double rail tunnel under the Alps, being built this year to banish freight vehicles from Swiss roads; and by the dozens of long tunnels on the Italian Autostradas; or, nearer to home: by the 249 miles of Victorian tunnels built for the London Tube; by the prize winning 31 miles Channel Tunnel built 250 feet deep beneath the sea; and by the 2,300 metres, air-side-road-tunnel (ART) built in one-year under Heathrow, in 2008.
To bore a 1/3rd mile - 550 metres - traffic tunnel, from the Ring Road to the JR car-parks will cost about Ł33 million; which is less than two years of the costs imposed on the travellers and the besieged residents of Marston and Headington. The tunnel would be a low-cost, hugely valuable, permanent investment.
The JR-Tunnel can readily be built with modern boring machines, as used at Heathrow, in less than a year.
The long-term value, for ambulance crews, for sick patients, for JR staff and visitors, of having rapid, direct access - and of reducing daily traffic jams for the whole community - is incalculable.
END
Stupid government abuse of the
Information Society – UPDATED 16 JULY 09
16 July 09
Popular, successful
*****************************************
14 July 09
To: Counsellor Jiang Fan
(Commerce), Chinese Embassy, LONDON
Dear Counsellor,
Electronic Surveillance
Over the past 3 months, I have
read media and science reports saying that computers, telephones and other
communication electronics, which are made in
Yours truly, Noel HODSON
*************************************
Bankers and banking – 10 JULY 09
Letter to the Guardian - 8 July 09
Alistair Darling and the Treasury are not addressing three monstrous and dangerous faults in the system (This mortgage can damage your wealth - Treasury's bank reforms propose risk alerts - Guardian 7 July 09). First, casino banking must be confined as it was, to individual crazed gamblers risking their own money, not shareholders', depositors' and taxpayers' money. Banks should invest not gamble, with a minimum holding period of, say, six months between shares and commodities transactions. Second, some credit card and personal loans charges rack up to 50%. Loan sharking should be capped at 10% above Base Rate, subject to long prison sentences and fines. Third, it is alarming for UK savers and the City of London's reputation that while the US authorities send Bernard Madoff to prison for 150 years, for losing Ł31 billion of savers' funds, the UK sends the ennobled Sir Fred Goodwin, held to be responsible for losing Ł28 billion of RBS savers' funds, to Monte Carlo to enjoy a tax free pension of Ł450,000 a year for the next 40 years.
Cyberspace can still stop Emails – SME’s & the Internet - 9
JULY 2009.
'cristina.matinez@ec.europa.eu'; 'gerald.santucci@ec.europa.eu.'
This email couldn’t get through to the European
Commission.
3rd email send - maybe the internet will work this time.
2nd email send - Cristina Matinez seems to be off-line.
Would Mr Santucci's PA please
forward this note to the authors of the draft paper on SME's:
20090708-fines-position-paper-draft2
- Public Consultation
9 JULY 09
20090708-fines-position-paper-draft2 - Public Consultation
Dear Ms Matinez,
I advised UK SME's on finances for 25 years; promoted Teleworking for 12-14 years; launched the first teleworked business-expansion-service (BES) franchise in Europe (Morton Hodson & Co Ltd) and I am currently promoting a CO2 saving, alternative, freight transport infrastructure, "Foodtubes".
I have the above draft paper and recommend further thought might be given by the authors to:
1) AUTO-COMPLIANCE - If launching a new small enterprise today, little has changed in 30 years. SME's realistically, continually complain about the cost of "red tape" or compliance with regulations. The Internet could carry out all compliance, registration and reporting tasks, transaction by transaction, and enable all SME's to automatically set aside taxes etc.
I proposed such an automated one-book-entry system in 1990, called The Electric Cheque Book. It would save significant amounts of productive time and large direct financial costs. It would provide highly accurate statistics on all SME business activity. What was difficult with 1990 's technology, could now easily be done.
2) CONFIDENTIALITY - "Forget
Privacy - Privacy is Dead" - said the first President Bush (Senior) about
the launch of the Internet and the WWW. However, today's SME's do need to
know that the Advanced Telecommunications they are being encouraged to use
are private and confidential. Last month, the Chinese government insisted that
computer manufacturers build in tracking, spying and
reporting hardware and software - and this month the
3) VIRTUAL CURRENCY - A large percentage of SME's trade is done with other SME's. The Internet needs to provide a currency that enables such business-to-business trades. Given the present banking chaos and the complexity of bank loans and financing, such a virtual currency will eventually lead to a new banking system and the creation of a global business currency; this should be the "Business-Euro" and it should exclude all previous bad financial practices, cartels, greed, loan-sharking, casino gamblers, etc. The costs of operating such a virtual money system would be a fraction of traditional banking costs.
4) RE-DEFINE PROFITS & LOSSES - In the long term and in contrast to paragraph 2 above; the Internet does open all doors to and provides previously well guarded secret knowledge about capital ownership, trading margins, business models, pay structures and executive rewards. It is inevitable that such information will become accessible to all. The EC should create a socially-responsible new definition of Profits and Losses for pension, taxes, environmental, employment, wealth-sharing and all other purposes. The presently applied legal definitions as expressed and used by governments, tax-collectors, accountants, auditors and lawyers, come to us from the 18th Century based on 18th Century politics and philosophies. It is high time the definitions, the accepted protocols, were updated for the global Internet era, taking into account social responsibility and eliminating the exploitation of human and scarce resources.
Please circulate this note to all relevant persons.
With regards
Noel Hodson
Universal internet access - Power to the people – 6 May 2009.
It seems that the Information
Society is thriving and has not yet been diminished by censorship - So far so
good. But we should be alert to the
numerous threats from would-be censors of every shape, size, hue, religion,
political belief, greed and insanity; and we should be rapidly developing
internet protocols and delivery technologies that will protect everyone’s right
to share and use the network.
In the year of 2008 (taken from a
New Scientist article 2 May 2009)
210,000,000,000 (210B) emails per
day were sent.
78% of Emails were spam.
Google searches 1 trillion web
pages. (1,000,000,000,000)
ALL USERS – number approx 1.58B via
computers (mostly fixed telephone)
Plus 1B via mobile
phones
Japan 94,000,000 internet users -74% of pop.
92% of the population in
Internet growth is 50% per annum.
On-line advertising spending - $65,000,000,000 ($65B) globally.
Danger of Hi-jacking: The use of Non-Latin
alphabets, including Chinese, Arabic, and Cyrillic could divide the internet if
such alphabets lead to the creation of national or regional website directories
which are not accessible to the central ICANN directory – and thus would not be
searchable by existing methods. This
could enable regional government control.
POWER & ENERGY – Bobbie
Johnson writing from San Francisco for The Guardian – 4th May 2009 -
tells us that a single Google search uses as much energy as driving a car one
mile (really?) and that US data centres used 61 billion kilowatts of power in
2006 (what does that convert to in litres of diesel?), enough to supply the
whole of the UK’s power for 2 months and/or 1.5% of electricity used in the
USA. Google has invested $2.3B into infrastructure in 2008 (presumably to
supply electric power and use less of it). And Microsoft engineers are also on
the case. However, my opinion is that the energy used sending an email is a
tiny, tiny fraction of delivering a physical letter – and that internet
searches and data preservation use a minuscule fraction of the equivalent
physical libraries and physical searches of libraries. Maybe we should mothball libraries and give
access only over the internet – to save the planet.
Historic, momentous, epoch changing, world turning, inspiring,
uplifting, hopeful… Words fail us - 5 November 2008.
Senator Barack
Obama today is President-Elect of the
Whatever happens tomorrow; this
extraordinary, transforming event truly announces the second epoch.
It is so unexpected that
Microsoft’s spell checker doesn’t recognise his name.
Surveillance Crisis – Cyber War - 23 October 2008.
The
Most computer savvy people are
convinced that all communications are already being recorded; in the
THE FUTURE: So the “proposed” laws will merely ratify the existing status quo. How
will angry and younger people react to such total surveillance? They will wage cyber-war. The seeds of civil
disobedience are already evident. The inescapable computer law of ‘Rubbish in –
Rubbish out’ will sabotage the governments’ best efforts to track everyone all
the time. The integrity and value of the data relies on accurate identity and
location. Hoodies, youngsters on the streets, hide their heads from CCTV
cameras – the next stage will be masks. Petty
crooks clone or steal credit-cards and financial identities, use and discard
them. There is a lively internet trade in cloned number plates to disguise vehicles;
the favourite numbers belong to politicians, judges and celebrities. Free and
pay-for software, which hides computer internet identities, abounds on the
internet; some of it may even work. People buy, borrow or steal other’s mobile
phones, use and discard them. There is probably software that hides telephone
number identities – or if not, there soon will be. Traffic cameras photograph
license plates (cloned) and drivers’ faces; (masked drivers). To overcome these
deceptions, government will have all vehicles carry embedded chips; all music
and film downloads will be reported by embedded chips. The kids will re-program
the chips or simply dig them out and throw them away. Clever kids will dispose
of all spy-ware in their cars and computers – or steal or swap other people’s
machines. The ubiquitous CCTV cameras are vulnerable to crude physical attack
and as they are put on taller poles and buildings, the kids will find ways to
disrupt the cameras with electrical signals – or catapults. Gangs of otherwise
compliant citizens will flood systems with false data. Otherwise law abiding citizens will
habitually give erroneous information when form filling.
As the Nazi Party proved beyond
doubt; when the State oppresses people relentlessly, the terrible irresistible
government pressure and force eventually confronts, or perhaps it creates, the utterly
indestructible diamond intelligence and spirit of the oppressed – and it is the
State machine that is ultimately smashed.
The pity is that much of the data
being gathered for benevolent purposes is of great value to society, but
revolutionary cyber warriors will not discriminate. Will governments learn to act intelligently?
Financial Crisis – Part Two – 7 October 2008.
On the day that the town sized
population of Iceland (250,000 souls) nationalise a bank and are financially ranked
willy-nilly alongside China and America by hysterical journalists; markets
continue to crash, pundits to pontificate, bankers to grieve, global politicians
to dither and super-rich city executives to fearfully hide their ill-gotten
gains. Mr Richard Fuld, CEO of wrecked bankers, Lehman Brothers, with only a slight
and modest hesitation, yesterday told
This crisis is an Information Society issue. We cannot
properly communicate and trade globally in milliseconds if spivs, gangsters, loan-sharks,
bribed officials and bent accountants and lawyers install themselves at key
points in the system like parasitical tape-worms, deliberately spread Disinformation and, under the
obscurantist cover of gobbledegook numbers, they fiddle the books, create false
back-to-back transactions and siphon off billions and trillions of the people’s
common-wealth – without being taxed.
It is worth repeating, to counter
the many hired PR, media, Wall Street and City lackeys who parrot-fashion report
otherwise - This crisis is NOT CAUSED BY
US MORTGAGE DEFAULTERS. If missed monthly home loan payments were the basis
of it all, billionaires President Bush and Senator John McCain would have
stepped up like good citizens, put their hands in their own very deep, well
lined Trust Fund pockets and personally made up the arrears of the poorest in
society, to save the world from meltdown – perhaps with a little help from the
US Treasury. A few million dollars a
month, supporting home owners in difficulties, would have made the underlying
assets strong and non-toxic. The root
cause is actually the 28 years of Regan/Thatcher economics, monetarism and
unrestrained manic gambling, feeding gargantuan amounts tax-free to the rich
while freezing pay and support for the poor – and fiddling the books to hide
the damage being done to gouged corporate balance-sheets. It should all be clawed back.
Western governments, unthinkingly
anxious about escalating credit card and mortgage consumerism (by the poor),
saw in the alleged sub-prime crisis an opportunity to screw and make an example
of some of them; young first-home families and poor late-home buyers, all with
large mortgages, via the loan-sharking, boiled frog syndrome; frightening them
into prudence and frugality with a property crash and homelessness; without
having to hike up base rates and thus stoke up inflation, as Thatcher did to
crash the UK economy and create 4 million unemployed. In disseminating for a
year the frightening rumours that homes would plummet in value, the governments
did not realise what destructive demons their fanciful middle-class doom
mongering would unleash.
If only they had properly audited
their own nations’ transactions and verified them with global comparisons. The
world must learn to count accurately. This fundamental neglect has not been due
to lack of computing power. Money is nothing more than a reliable book-keeping
system. It has been badly abused and is no longer an accurate account.
How can the Information Society
fix the global system that is bust?
1) Nationalise ALL financial
institutions – world-wide.
2) Properly audit and publish all
corporate and national balance sheets; eventually include all businesses.
3) Publish all the balance-sheets
every day and explain trans-border variances and sinister siphons. Cap fat-cat
salaries.
4) Create a
single-global-currency and oblige everyone to convert all their assets.
5) During the conversion process
– confiscate and repatriate all proceeds of crime, fraud and tax-evasion.
6) During the conversion process
– recoup all “City Bonuses” of the past 25 years and examine their legality.
7) Create a global Domesday Book
of all significant assets and who owns them. Start with Land, mapped onto
GOOGLE E
8) Convict and punish all fraudsters
– whoever their friends are.
9) Banish all speculators from all
vital markets – energy, money, water, food, homes, air, metals, shares etc.
10) Record all the above on
computers and publish daily on the web.
11) Reform all political systems
as E-Democracies – voting on issues, not for leaders or Parties.
12) Introduce a global minimum
wage of $10 an hour; sufficient to support a modest home loan.
These actions are radical; but
lesser interventions and structures will not suffice.
Financial Crisis – Saved from my radical self by judicious editing
– 18 September 2008.
THIS IS WHAT I WROTE:
17 Sept 08 – Excuses, Excuses, Excuses - The continuing, if not escalating, USA and UK financial crisis is repeatedly punctuated in the media by failed brokers & bankers and their press-officers blaming it all on the fall in property prices. But it is illogical that the booming real-economy should wreak havoc in the money-economy. The reality is that massive amounts of our cash have been siphoned off - much of it via tax-havens - to enable global gambling in impenetrable derivatives, beyond the understanding of senior executives, by unsupervised crack-heads; which has so confused the regulators, auditors and the corporate world that few, if any, understand the banks' Balance Sheets and have lost all track of the relationships between the real-economy and the money-economy. The alleged property "crash" is a tiny percentage of housing stock being auctioned off. 95% of property is not in forced sale and it retains its (real) value to the owners & tenants. And when traditional banking returns, in a month or so, property, land, factories, machines and other real assets in the real world, used and needed by real people, will still be the banks' main securities for loans. It is the banks' loss of liquidity through once illegal gambling that has depleted mortgage funds, halted property transactions and driven up food, oil and other commodity prices. The real-economy, where real-work is done, is fine. It is the money-economy that needs fixing - and it is a primary duty of government to fix it. We cannot leave our currency in incompetent hands. I suggest the wholesale nationalisation of all City interests, to stabilise currencies, and the immediate repatriation to their source-nations of all off-shore assets - calculated by the OECD to be $10 to $13 trillion. That will more than repair all the deficits.
THIS IS WHAT
THEY PRINTED – MAYBE IT IS AN IMPROVEMENT:
Risk, recklessness and financial stability. The Guardian, Thursday September 18 2008
The continuing, if not escalating, US and UK financial crisis is repeatedly
punctuated in the media by failed brokers and bankers blaming it all on the
fall in property prices (Banks: the contagion spreads, September 17). But it is
illogical that the booming real economy should wreak havoc in the money
economy. The reality is that massive amounts of our cash have been siphoned off
- much of it via tax havens - to enable global gambling in impenetrable
derivatives; which has so confused the regulators, auditors and the corporate
world that few, if any, understand the banks' balance sheets, and have lost all
track of the relationships between the real economy and the money economy.
The alleged property "crash" is a tiny percentage of housing
stock being auctioned off; 95% of property is not in forced sale and it retains
its (real) value to the owners and tenants. And when traditional banking
returns, property, land, factories and other real assets in the real world will
still be the banks' main securities for loans.
The real economy is fine. It is the money economy that needs fixing - and
it is the duty of governments to fix it.
Noel Hodson
Oxford
Give us back our money!– Letter to The Guardian newspaper - 15
September 2008
Lehman Brother's bankruptcy filing and the massive tax-payer bail-outs for Merrill Lynch and insurance giant AIG, indicate a subterranean fault line of foolhardy transactions over several decades, which will cause frightful after-shocks in the money-economy (Banking crisis - Guardian 15 Sept 08). It is a primary duty of government to maintain stable currencies as "a means of account and a medium of exchange" which accurately represent what we value in the real-economy; which is more productive, automated, flexible and reliable than at any time in history. The real-economy has never been healthier. In fixing the money-economy and wealth distribution, government must (1) rid the global system of addicted gamblers - margin and "derivatives" speculators - particularly from money-markets, food-markets, energy-markets, carbon-trading and other vital supply chains, and (2) must claw-back all overpayments made to executives in the last two-decades - which Polly Toynbee's timely new book defines as 'Unjust Rewards' - including all tax-haven accounts. The rationale for repatriating these assets (OECD calculate $10-$13 trillion) to their source communities is that much of it has been siphoned off, by stealth or brass-necked greed, by controllers of large and small companies, which are now insolvent or collapsing in value. In UK Company Law - and in the US as Conrad Black learned - such massively disproportionate self-awarded dividends, salaries and bonuses constitute criminal frauds against the creditors and shareholders of depreciated firms; and also in fact defraud all the employees and ordinary citizens who trusted them. These two measures, affirmed by new and existing laws, would repair the cash deficits, discourage executive theft and give us back monetary stability.
Noel Hodson
16
Brookside
It’s those pesky kids again, stealing valuable works of art - 25
July 08.
The media is full of the news that all the major UK ISPs are collaborating with “The Music Industry” to spy on kids and punish them, their parents, their families and their friends for swapping music tracks on-line. This, for example, is from Time Magazine today:
If the voluntary (
That
So what will be the
consequences? Firstly the music swappers
will do it off-line, away from the prying eyes of governments and media
corporate executives and their lawyers. Secondly the swappers will adopt, adapt
or create identity scrambling software to baffle the ISPs’ filters. Thirdly the
youngsters or adult internet freedom fighters will set up their own outlaw ISPs,
beyond the reach of the authorities. Fourthly rebellious musicians will flout
the spying systems, change their business-models and issue new swappable music.
How soon? Well kids are very quick and there will be fortunes to be made – so
the rebellion will start today and make an impact this year.
The established ISPs will of
course make conciliatory noises and claim they are being forced (by law?) into
spying on their customers; and they will hope to make a fraction of a penny for
every royalty they help to collect from licit downloads. But ultimately and quite
soon the ISPs will lose the confidence of large numbers of their other
customers – who will fear that they too are being spied on by ISPs who have
sold out to high pressure sales operations.
Nuke the Spooks!
Mobile phones and cancer - 25 July 08.
Time Magazine ran this story
today, which follows up the fears raised by earlier research spanning several
years that cell phones (and cordless phones) might cause cancer of the brain. It
is an issue of public importance that ought to be resolved by a major
government sponsored study.
(
Open letter to the Prime Minister. 16 July 08.
Dear Prime Minister,
For a man with great power, the
vision to see that the ice-caps are melting (Guardian 16th July 08) and
with little to lose electorally, you are being extraordinarily timid about
tackling
1) Lead - do not wait to follow
others - in creating all the energy
2) Lead - do not wait to follow
3) Lead - do not wait to react to crises - in controlling food supplies and prices. The banks, the City, Enron, Parmalat and Wall St etc. etc. etc. have proved that private enterprise cannot be responsible for the essentials of life such as water, energy, money, land, houses and food. The coming era will urgently need massive re-nationalisation for a long period to protect the essentials of life from Thatcher's cavalier, cavorting, chortling "free-marketeers". Food is far too important to leave to laise-faire, cum-day-go-day, magical-market commercialism - a hungry public becomes a very dangerous mob.
4) Lead - not wait until
after other OECD countries do it - in immediately nationalising the
collapsing money system. As even the
And, you might
enjoy making these changes. All other problems, like your MP's
John-Lewis-List and getting Aunty Nellie's hip treated 1.03%
sooner, can be delegated to minions. Drop all ambitions to be
"popular", focus on statesmanship, make your place in history,
rebuild
Noel Hodson (Mr)
Coordinator, FOODTUBES
"THE TRANSPORT INTERNET - REALLY FAST FOOD"
Runner-up - 2008
http://www.noelhodson.com/index_files/foodtubes-project-team.htm
http://www.noelhodson.com/index_files/NCH18NOV07LewisMediaGroupV8.pps
SW2000 Intelligent Transport
16 Brookside,
Tel +44 (0) 1865 760994
website http://www.noelhodson.com
The present and future of Global-Warming - read:
http://www.noelhodson.com/index_files/novels-table-15FEB07.htm
23 June 08 – Will the world’s thick-headed transport and energy planners
ever get it?
For an InterCity train with 150
passengers, it would be greener to stop the train and give every passenger a
Rolls Royce to continue their journey.
Why? Because a UK InterCity train, the
great-iron-horse-that-crosses-the-prairies, weighs 475 tonnes, before any
passengers get on it, which is 3.14 tonnes per passenger. A Rolls Royce weighs
a mere 2.5 tonnes and its engine and rolling efficiency is far better than the steel
on steel slipping and friction of trains. Tarmac the railways! When will traffic
planners understand the inescapable schoolroom physics of energy, weight and
friction – and insist on MWV (Minimum Weight Vehicles) principles in all
transport designs – including those damn great, diesel spewing, often empty
buses which block urban streets. Doh!
Before our planners are
re-educated in minimum energy Gulags, US and NASA scientist James Hansen may
achieve his wishes reported in today’s Guardian of (1) putting all oil
executives on trial for killing the planet and (b) having America completely
wired to enable green energy to be fed into the national grid – regardless of
who makes it or where the generators are. Is the
On the IT and ACTs front – little
new stuff is happening – other than national and local authorities inevitably
abusing the existing technologies by spying on their citizens. I think the IT
world is in for a period of navel gazing before the next generation of really private,
personal PCs, telephones and fast-internet products are created by the
upcoming, ever more spied-upon teenage generation. Every bedroom, bathroom and WC should be
officially monitored for illicit activities and self-abuse; after all, if you
have nothing to be ashamed of you can have no objections – …And sleep with your
hands outside the sheets!
For heavens’ sake - Nuke the
Spooks.
7 April 08 – Famous Journalist liquidated?
Dear Letters Editors - I was
hoping to post this comment/essay in your
If not - where is it?
SEARCH:
"Larry Elliot" Monday April 7 2008 - We're in a winter of discontent again - but this time big finance is the villain. Page 28 Comment&Debate.
********************
7 April 08 - Economies in Crisis
The global economy is not in crisis. In fact, the global, real economy has never produced more goods and food, more efficiently, more automatically, with so little human labour, in our entire history. We have never been wealthier. Once we stop people burning things for energy (coal, oil, gas, trees, crops, cooking oils, sugar, uranium rods etc) and harness the almost limitless energy from the sun, geothermal and tidal energy - supplemented by our western overweight kids on treadmills - the world will be fine.
What is wrong is that the Money-Economy is out of step, out of alignment with the real economy, and has been hi-jacked by myopic, greedy, aggressive, neurotic, power crazed, IQ challenged, compulsive gamblers; gambling with our money - our sweat and toil. Money is "a means of account - and a medium of exchange". It exists to make it easier for us to swap the real-goods and services we create and to be a handy record of who owes what to whom. It is a paper trail that should be impeccably reliable (or gold, silver, cowry shells or whatever else we decide to ac-count with. To protect the bits of paper we have legitimately collected, friendly bankers offer us their safes and vaults. That is the money-economy. The City exists to keep accurate track of the paper and to be a focus for collective investment into major social enterprises.
But, many of the bankers and their friends, relatives, fans, admirers, copyists, main board directors, dependents unto the fifth generation and tribes of compromised auditors, brokers, debt-raters, loan sharks, lawyers, judges, politicians and book-keepers have been cooking the books in ever more imaginative ways and found that dipping their fat, sticky fingers into the global tills and raking out handfuls of money at an ever faster rate, is not only not challenged as criminal behaviour, but is applauded and awarded by the vast majority of the political system and the media. If you have defrauded your neighbours and work-mates and half-inched a thousand times more loot per hour than they are awarded in a week - you are deemed to be a hero. A little less obviously than grasping wads of money, our politicians and top civil servants guide their careers and policies towards the revolving doors held open for them years before their early retirements. Every unearned, unwarranted shilling that these sociopaths grab is an inflationary act and, worst of all, their ill-gotten gains impoverish, demean and insult the vast majority of patient citizens who work for a reasonable reward. The unstoppable money siphon from the average, poor and starving to the already wealthy, super-rich and grossly over-rewarded - has to be stopped; globally.
So, it is the money-economy, not the real economy that is broken and needs to be fixed.
How? (1) Retrospectively cap executive rewards with a 98% tax band, back to Thatcher's last stand. (2) The present money-system is broken, so introduce a new system that bans speculators and gamblers by ensuring minimum time holdings of real stocks and commodities, and remove all obfuscation - make it simple - and register all business transactions daily for public record (a good laptop should cope - or maybe a few laptops). (3) Without warning, introduce a world currency, EURODOLLARYUEN, and oblige everyone to convert their wealth, on record - or lose it. Repatriate all offshore, tax haven assets to the countries where the real-economy created them and ensure they are properly taxed or are confiscated. This will pay off most global deficits. (4) Introduce capital distribution mechanisms such as BIRTHRIGHT to share the wealth base fairly and a minimum wage to provide a decent family living for a 40 hour week (not less than Ł10 an hour). This will abolish poverty. (5) Consign the present incumbents to lunatic asylums equipped for their eternal pleasure with super-casinos, where they can play to their hearts content with old money.
Or - the solution at a stroke - abolish money. Read my book AD 2516 to see how that will work.
In the meantime - Move to Higher Ground.
Noel HODSON
http://www.noelhodson.com/index_files/novels-table-15FEB07.htm
12 March 08 – Point and Counterpoint – Worried about the “Credit
Collapse” ?
Subject: The Credit Collapse of 2008
The Credit
Collapse of 2008
by Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D.
The Credit Collapse of 2008 has begun.
The place is every home, business and government.
The time is now.
The credit collapse is not just an ordinary recession that repeats itself with each new business cycle of the 21st century. Nor is it the Great Depression returning to haunt us from the depths of the 1930s.
The credit collapse is a sudden surge in debt defaults by borrowers ... and an equally sudden disappearance of new loans by lenders.
It's an unprecedented surge in home foreclosures ... and an equally unprecedented cutback in new home mortgages.
It's causing unexpected corporate bankruptcies ... plus equally unexpected demands by banks to put up more collateral.
It's threatening to sink businesses, paralyze local governments and gut the investment portfolios of millions of Americans.
It's even starting
to sabotage the best laid plans of government — neutralizing the Fed's interest
rate cuts ... pre-empting Congress' economic stimulus plan ... and threatening
to strip
And I'm not the only one who sees this.
Yesterday's New York Times reports ...
that the government's usual fiscal and monetary policy tools are failing ...
that this failure is raising questions about what more the Fed can do, and ...
that its actions so far have done little to counter sinking housing prices, the falling stock market and disappearing jobs.
"The Fed's main weapons against a downturn," says The Times, "are ill-suited to a crisis that stems from collapsing confidence about credit quality."
Meanwhile, economist Edward Yardeni, formerly still holding to the theory that the economy was OK, has now reversed course. Ditto for economists at JPMorgan Chase and Lehman Brothers.
They don't yet call it the Credit Collapse of 2008, as I do. But they see it just the same — and they are beginning to recognize how serious its consequences really are.
What they may not
yet recognize is that the Credit Collapse of 2008 could attack everyone and
everything that depends on debt, including, ultimately, the
And it's moving fast!
Just in the past three months, we've seen the Credit Collapse of 2008 drive a dagger into the markets for prime home mortgages, commercial mortgages, business loans, student loans, credit cards and municipal bonds.
We've seen the credit collapse rip apart little-known-but-important "structured" securities — Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities (RMBS), Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities (CMBS), Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs), Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs), Auction Rate Securities (ARS), Credit Default Swaps (CDS), Structured Investment Vehicles (SIVs) and Variable Interest Entities (VIEs).
And just last week,
to the shock of federal authorities, the credit collapse struck bonds issued by
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Although not backed by the full faith and credit of
the
The New York Times puts it this way: "If investors lose confidence in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have become the only major remaining source of mortgage financing in recent months, Fed officials fear that homes sales and housing prices could plunge further and foreclosures could climb even higher than they already have."
Plus, there's still another, unspoken fear:
If the Credit
Collapse of 2008 can slam into the market for government-sponsored bonds, could
it not do the same to government agency bonds like Ginnie Maes, which are
backed by the full faith and credit of the
Further, if the Credit Collapse of 2008 can hit agency bonds, then, at some point, could it even bring down long-term U.S. Treasury bonds?
Fed officials are afraid to give an answer. They're even afraid to ask the question. But on Friday of last week, March 7 ...
They Could Wait No
Longer.
They Were Frightened.
And They Panicked.
In a desperate attempt to avert a full-scale collapse of credit markets, the Federal Reserve declared it would offer ...
An unprecedented $100 billion in long-term loans, accepting virtually any kind of debt instruments as collateral — including bad paper that's at the core of the credit collapse.
An equally unprecedented $100 billion in short-term loans, accepting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds as collateral.
Plus, as much additional funding as needed to ease the pain for the next victims of the credit collapse, whomever those may be.
That's a heck of lot of new paper money flooding into the banking system — especially considering that it stems from economic weakness, not strength ... and that it comes in the form of devalued paper, not wealth.
*************************
10 Mar 08
Thanks for the interesting paper
by Martin D Weiss, where he extrapolates from recent and past news to
forecast near and far future economic outcomes. Overall he sees
governments losing control of money - in its broadest sense as a "medium
of exchange and a means of account" - as has happened in
My view is that world treasurers / chancellors know what they are doing - and matters are not out of control.
However, I believe that the 4 economic continents, Land Labour Capital & Information, are badly out of sync and that the money economy is operated on 17th century principles and no longer properly reflects (as the major "means of account" or the world's bookkeeping system) the Real 21st Century economy. The very much automated and computerised Real Economy has been built over thousands of years of effort, cooperation, invention and war/defence by all the population and our ancestors - and yet through rapacious and good old aristocratic crooked instincts, is increasingly "owned" by a tiny minority (e.g. in the USA by about 3% of the population) and the Legal system has been hi-jacked to affirm this perverse warping of the money system (means of account).
So for very different reasons from Martin Weiss, I see a turbulent time ahead for the world's economy as it adjusts to having the most efficient and extraordinarily wealthy Real Economy - mostly and increasingly being generated by robots - alongside the sociopathic resurgence of the insatiable greed of aristocracy; such as the French, the Russians and many republics violently rebelled against in the past 200 years.
So I agree that "we live in interesting times ". But the aligning of the 4 continents and the corrections of ownership in a fair and reasonable and intelligently cooperating society need not involve primitive bloodshed, destruction and guillotines - this time. There are clear signs that cooperation between nations (OECD Paris - NATO, UN, etc etc etc etc) and treasuries within nations are moving strongly towards curbing aristocracy and towards fair wealth distribution. These trends are being propelled by our new global knowledge and the Information Society through crises that demand global cooperation - such as Global Warming, Oil shortages, Water wars, Food crises, Banking crises etc.
To deal with these in an intelligent way - (1) I think a world currency will emerge (in some senses we already have a world currency via computer translations of trading) (2) That offshore capital (maybe $10 trillion) will be repatriated by a sudden issue of one-currency, requiring all existing assets to be re-valued in the new money (3) That the 80% or so of gambling in the money, stocks and commodity markets will be outlawed - and steady prices will become the norm (4) That massive re-distribution programmes will share out the world's wealth in a fair way.
The more accurate Martin Weiss's Cassandra forecasts are - the more rapidly will world governments bring forward the changes towards a single-global-money-unit (the EURO-DOLLAR-YEN). A basic requirement for the stability to prevent chaos or the world plunging back to a barter economy is a stable society and economy where the Real (houses, food, clothes) is valued over the gamblers' insane, unstable, anxious, neurotic Unreality.
Noel
Noel Hodson (Mr)
Coordinator,
FOODTUBES
"THE
TRANSPORT INTERNET - REALLY FAST FOOD"
http://www.noelhodson.com/index_files/feb08foodtubes-croydon-v5.ppt
http://www.noelhodson.com/index_files/foodtubes-project-team.htm
19 February 08 – Capital repatriation flood begins with a trickle.
It seems that the
first to blink are the Germans. A headline in The Guardian newspaper, Tuesday
19th February 2008, reads “Tax swindle
police raid companies across
There is between $7 Trillion (TIME) and $13 Trillion (OECD) out there for repatriation – so the Germans have just started the tap trickling. Let us all hope that our governments don’t leave it too late.
11 February 08 – Offshore Exiles – Repatriate, Repatriate,
Repatriate.
As we forecast some
years ago vis-ŕ-vis the ENRON, Parmalat and similar massive accounting frauds
and thefts by sociopathic, insatiably greedy criminals, an infamous list which
may come to include the recent possibly back-to-back $7 billion “losses” from
Societe Generale, the Information
Society is enabling governments and all interested persons to accurately track
wealth, earnings and taxes – and “they” the newly informed, habitually defrauded
majority are starting to react angrily while the new aristocracy gather their
shock-and-awe troops to strike back. Examples include the UK’s Sunday Times 10
Feb 08, spitting tacks with headlines such as “Non-dom raid will lead to
capital exodus”, as the UK and many other OECD countries close the net around
wealthy families who opt to remain stateless – and tax-free – on the capital
and earnings they or their ancestors have creamed-off from the sweat and
sacrifices of their neighbours and communities where the wealth was created.
TIME magazine February 18th 2008 reports that $7 trillion dollars in
offshore assets is held in private banking centres around the world; $1.82
trillion in Switzerland, $1.57 trillion in “others”, $970 billion in the Isle
of Man, Channel Isles & Dublin, $900 billion in Luxembourg, $870 billion in
The Caribbean and Panama, $320 billion in Singapore and $270 billion in Hong
Kong. This is half of the OECD & Christian Aid estimate of $14 trillion but
either amount would clear all the budget deficits of every OECD country – and
feed all the world’s starving poor. The
super-rich are being lured from one tax-haven to the next as rules change –
11 February 08 – Kids on-line.
Another long
forecast emergence of the Information Society is gathering pace. School
laptops, originally designed for third world communities and based in LINUX and
other freeware systems, are being adopted by schools in developed countries and
distributed to all school-children. Next year they will also have Microsoft
software. Who knows – this subversive movement may enable the kids to track who
is fiddling the accounts and where all the money goes, before they start
working and saving. We should never have taught them to read – never mind
count.
17 January 08 – Greenfield and Darwin
Students and
schoolchildren who copy large chunks from the www for their assignments and
homework – may be signalling a practical demonstration of Prof. Susan
Greenfield’s theory that personal computers and the information society are
driving a rapid evolutionary change in humans. Prof Greenfield believes that
the memory of computers, “the C-Drive”, and the world-wide-web, the largest
library ever – and fully accessible, are being subsumed into our being,
supplanting the age old need for memory by rote. What the plagiarising pupils
may be really saying is – “its all out there on the web – what we need to do is
to use it, not to memorise it”. This
evolution, it is conjectured, includes growing larger areas of the brain that
control the texting speed of thumbs. What would
11 October 07 – Breathless
Big Brother/ Sister.
Email to
BBC Radio 4,
(Editor - The proposed laws
would presumably be enforced by satellite and computer tracking of the novice
drivers.)
3
October 07 – Oxford Brooks
At least
one major shareholder in these privileged, privatised bus companies has
bought a castle in
LETTER TO THE OXFORD TIMES -
Brookes has forecourt space - its
buses should pull off the road, as should all buses. Bus passengers should
pre-purchase tickets. Or put clippies on the buses. Better still, run a
free hop-on-off single bus service along
...And to pre-empt the inevitable shower of green insults and assaults - I rarely travel by car and for 15 years I have actively promoted the reduction of business journeys.
Noel Hodson (Mr)
25 September 07 - Teleworkers – one-third of UK
Pollsters YouGov UK, commissioned by Zurich Insurance,
questioned 1,000 UK workers and found that a third telework at least “16 hours a month” at home – and that more of
the workforce foresee that they will telework in the coming year. The
25 September 07 – The MIT
$100 laptop gets to market.
Good news – The new wind-up/solar powered, low energy laptop
designed for children in the emerging world is being offered for sale in the
17 September 07 – “IF WE
DON’T PAY WORLD-CLASS SALARIES, THEY WILL TAKE THEIR SKILLS ABROAD!” SHOCK –
HORROR!
*********************
This is the week that the 5th largest
The
***************
Guardian
Letters – 17 Sept 07
On the
6pm news, I have just heard the sensible decision by the Chancellor to fully
guarantee Northern Rock's depositors' savings. The announcement is being
accompanied by hysterical accusations that Gordon Brown has presided over
an incontinent borrowings decade and unnecessary house price boom.
Noel Hodson (Mr)
Coordinator, FOODTUBES
http://www.noelhodson.com/index_files/foodtubes-project-team.htm
17th September – to BBC News:
The Northern Rock crisis arises from the
familiar mistake of the bank lending long term (20 to 30 year mortgages) and
borrowing short term from other banks.
What is extraordinary is that the blithely
enthusiastic CEO, Mr Applegarth, last year took Ł1.3 million in pay and this
year (2007) is scheduled to take Ł3 million - with the support of the executive
and non-executive directors. Did none of them, including Sir Derek Wanless,
recognise the business risks?
Best advice to all savers and share investors
is never, never, ever invest in any company, of any sort, where the executives
have siphoned off or arranged their own retirement millions - and so lost the
motivation to work for a living. The exceptions being innovative, workaholic
tycoons like Gates, Branson, Sugar etc.
Noel HODSON
**************
17 Sept
07 – Guardian Economics Editor
Dear Larry Elliot,
Do I understand from your recent articles correctly? - That bankers world-wide have been buying packaged mortgage debts for tens and hundreds of millions of pounds, without knowing what's in the packages? Should any of them keep their jobs? Is any banker really that incompetent?
I read yesterday (Sunday Times) there are 690,000 US defaulters (If that's accurate - it is 7 times larger than earlier estimates - but lets say $200,000 loans, X 7% interest X 690,000 = $805 million a month of repayments) . They are highly unlikely to be 100% write-offs as people cling onto their abodes - lets say 50% write offs = $402 million a month. This is hardly enough to bring the global system to its knees. It is equivalent to about 80,000 people losing their jobs and going on benefits. Surely the OECD world deals with that every other day - without a blip.
Are we being conned into a cash-crisis - by the City or by Government or both? Is this a cunning ruse to carve house-financing away from the Bank Base Rate?
I will read your columns with interest.
Noel Hodson
*************
14
September 07 – to The Guardian journalists –
FYI - These are the directors the public are bailing out ...Did they get their Maths O level?
Northern
Rock plc
Annual
Report and Accounts 2006
Recommendations
from 2007 for director's incentives, made by the Remuneration
Ms N Pease (check out the paid, non-exec directors below)
Mr N A H Fenwick,
Sir Ian Gibson
Mr M J Queen
Miss R A Radcliffe
Sir Derek Wanless
Executive Directors
1)
Internationally competitive basic salaries (compared to the 8 largest
2007 basic pay:
A J Applegarth Ł760,000 (2006 total package Ł1,364,000)
D F Baker Ł530,000
K M Currie Ł415,000
D A Jones Ł415,000
A M Kuipers Ł415,000
and 15 other directors from Ł90 to Ł250,000
PLUS
2) 200% Short term bonus e.g. Applegarth Ł1,520,000
3) 200% (of after-tax bonus) Share issue e.g. Ł912,000
4) A long term incentive plan Ł???
5) Must retain 50% of any vested share awards (not sell half their shares up to 100% of salary).
6) Plus pension - 2/3rds of Final Salary, at 60. If died, 4 X salary as a lump sum + 50% pension to spouse.
PLUS substantial accumulated share options.
Non-Exec Directors
Chair Ł315,000
Senior Ł72,000
Basic Ł45,000
+ additional fees for e.g. committee work.
Dr M W Ridley
N A H Fenwick
Sir Ian Gibson
N Pease
M J Queen
R A Radcliffe
Sir George Russell
Sir Derek Wanless.
Noel Hodson
16 Brookside
OXFORD OX3 7PJ,
email noel@noelhodson.com
+44(0)1865 760994 Fax - phone in advance
website www.noelhodson.com
***************
Liam Halligan's report and his article (Can
we count on the Old Lady to get it right? Sunday Telegraph, September 9 2007),
tell us that the executives of major
19 AUG 07 – GLOBAL FINANCE –
OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!
Three of the letters, below, reflect that the most important
element which urgently needs reforming to make a better world is the control
and redistribution of wealth. The
Real-Economy, the Money-Economy and the Knowledge Economy are badly out of
alignment. The jigsaw of What we make, What we know and Who owns it, is
fractured. The August 07 global banking crisis is being manufactured on the
back of a few thousand poor Americans struggling to pay overpriced mortgages on
their homes. Wall Street’s reaction is being broadcast in the vacation
“silly-season” by irresponsible city-players who would celebrate financial
chaos as “opportunities” for gambling with the lives of honest citizens. The so
called crisis pretends that the mortgage defaults have been sold-on in such
complex ways that are now untraceable and unknowable. In the computer-age, when
we can guide Mars explorers and track tens of millions of cars on the roads
from space satellites – we know this supposed miasma of financial ignorance is
complete bullshit. It really is time
that these incompetent, greedy, overpaid, IQ challanged spivs, scam artists and
compulsive gamblers “working” in the global financial system were evicted – and
banking and investment put on a proper footing.
Perhaps we should consult the Chinese on appropriate treatment of
financial crimes against the public interest.
Then, as the ice-caps are melting, we can tackle global-warming with investments into massive infrastructure changes.
18 AUG 07 – PUBLIC OWNERSHIP
OF THE GLOBAL BANKS?
LETTER
PUBLISHED IN THE GUARDIAN -
Today's
(17 AUG 07) Guardian headline and Larry Elliot's scary analysis of the
(possible) $54 billion deficit on $1,300 billion of
Noel
Hodson
18 AUG 07 – LEARN TO COUNT.
LETTERS TO TIME
Magazine:
Barbara Kiviat's authoritative account (TIME Aug 27th, 07) of the local and global impact of sub-prime mortgage defaults, worries me in that supposedly high IQ and informed global financial managers are bewildered, in this computer age, about which banks are carrying what amounts of the sub-prime defaults. Are these city people so incompetent that they cannot track a few tens of thousands of loans and repayment schedules - however thinly sliced across laid-off bets. It is even more worrying that they panic about, say, 100,000 impoverished borrows, defaulting on, say, $20,000 a year interest or a mere $2 billion, being capable of crashing the US or the global system. Are these guys kidding us - or should they all be replaced now by people who can count and make lists? Perhaps the global stock markets and banks should be taken into public ownership if the private sector can't handle the jobs they are immensely highly paid to do.
Noel Hodson (Mr)
Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2006 8:14 PM
To:
Subject: Re: US Aristocrats
The half
percent fall in average US family incomes which you report (Why Voters (and
Politicians) Are Anxious SEPTEMBER 18, 2006) works out at $25 billion dollars,
which is a very small part of executives' annual bonuses. It seems that the
Noel Hodson
16 Brookside
email
noel@noelhodson.com
+44(0)1865 760994
Fax - phone in advance
website
www.noelhodson.com
(US Labour force 143M, unemployed 4.7%, leaves 136M x wages$36,622=$5 trillion x 0.5%=$25billion).
13 AUG 07 – FUNDAMENTAL
REDSIGN OF TRANSPORT AND CARS
UNPUBLISHED LETTER
The
Guardian headline today (Revealed: cover-up plan on energy target) and Lynsey
Hanley's comments, promoting public above car transport, address
problems that require massive changes - not timid tinkering. Transport is
the second largest cause of air pollution and our biggest import cost, but
failing to force people to walk, cycle and take buses is no use. The
Noel Hodson (Mr)
2 JUL 07 – TAX FORCE &
POVERTY.
UNPUBLISHED
LETTER – THE COMPUTER SOCIETY KNOWS WHERE THE OFFSHORE-FUNDS ARE. WHY DOESN’T
GOVERNMENT COLLECT THE TAXES.
The G2
article "Who'd be an oligarch?" (Guardian 2 July 07), with the Sunday
Observer's "Tax evasion taskforce to probe
Noel Hodson
13 FEB 07 – E-DEMOCRACY WILL BE TONY BLAIR’S LEGACY
I have not been taking a long vacation
since the last News entry back in 2006; there simply has been no momentous New
Epoch news to put on record. Until, that is, one million
Why is this
petition, which the government has immediately said it will ignore, important?
Because the mechanism enabling the vote is a website built by the government –
and it is being used to vote on issues, not to vote for or against elected representatives.
Note this date. E-Democracy is momentous. It will transform society as much as
or more than the printing press did. The
day of the infallible leader, voted in as a personality and supposed to have an
answer for everything, is almost over. In the near future the policy power
handed to leaders by the people will be withdrawn – and the people will vote
issue by issue. It is scary; it liberates Caliban; it empowers mass-hysteria,
the lowest common denominator, crowd stupidity, panic, misinformation, bigotry,
bias and etc. But it is inevitable and will have to be managed – through, as
Tony Blair promised at the beginning of his long reign – education, education
and education.
On the same
theme, also in February, an angry lunatic sent several letter bombs to
addresses connected to traffic surveillance and road-cameras, chief among them
being the offices of CAPITA, a computer bureaucracy that administers CCTV for
London Congestion charging and handles similar automated government strictures
and penalties. This alarming, terrorist type news, of a criminal
indiscriminately injuring post-room
clerks, was met with a thunderous silence from most commentators and the
general public. The police considered arresting 23.5 million licensed, CCTV,
Parking Gestapo and Speed-Camera harassed, drivers as prime suspects but
realised that as
As a footnote –
the instincts of the majority of
29 NOV 06 – THE SAID BUSINESS SCHOOL ,
OXFORD
I reproduce the whole Guardian headline
article below, not because it is likely to be a significant event for the
Information Society, but from self-indulgent nostalgia and sad-self-justification
for the years 1980 to 1993, which I spent leading an excellent team of
developers and award winning architects in competitions to develop 20
brown-land acres at Oxford Station. In those stirring Thatcher and Jonathan Aitken
years of “A fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay” and British Innovation, the
old, unused coal yards at Oxford Station were owned by the British Rail
Property Board, which invited ideas and bids three times between 1980 and 1993.
At great expense we entered each competition in good faith and each time won it
and made the highest bid for the land with our Ł80 million plan to build The Oxford
Research Science Park with masses of Social Housing. Astonishingly, each time
we won, the Chairman of the Property Board then refused to deal with us. Being
paranoid, after experiencing 13 years of extraordinary obfuscation and a major
personal “City” financial attack, I began to suspect, slowly, very slowly, too
slowly, that all was not what it seemed. (Read my life story The Haunting of a
Favourite Son, ISBN 1-4137-0791-2). The site was subsequently developed, on our
winning ground-plan, but cheaply and nastily with bad housing and the most
unintelligent, gridlocked traffic system in Europe, as the
…And maybe, airing these lessons on
how to get things done in the
BAE secret millions linked to arms broker
Swiss bank accounts traced as row over Eurofighter contract
escalates
David Leigh and Rob Evans - Wednesday November 29, 2006 The Guardian
Secret payments of millions of pounds from
Mr Said refused last night to speak about the
allegations. But the discovery presents the biggest potential breakthrough yet achieved
in the Serious Fraud Office's three year investigation into allegations that
illegal commissions may have been paid to Saudi royals by BAE Systems.
Details from the accounts would help to
establish whether money was channelled to members of the Saudi ruling clan, and
the amounts involved. The development comes amid threats from the company and
its chief executive, Mike Turner, that the SFO's ongoing inquiry threatens to damage
the
The
company wants the SFO to abandon the investigation before the Saudis pull out
of the deal for a new fleet of 72 Eurofighter Typhoons.
Speculation
over the progress of the inquiry led to a dip in the company's share price
earlier this week.
But
the SFO appears determined to focus on the accounts and their links to
68-year-old Mr Said. A billionaire in his own right, he is a friend of Peter
Mandelson and has been a donor to the Conservative party. A tax-resident in
Though
he is not regarded himself as a target of the inquiry - BAE acknowledges that
the inquiry is aimed at the company - Mr Said has been a business manager for
the sons of Saudi crown prince Sultan.
He
has previously conceded that he has been an intermediary on Saudi arms deals
struck over 20 years. He is credited with playing a key role in launching the
Al-Yamamah deal in 1985, which has brought Ł43bn of revenue to BAE and has been
the focus of the SFO inquiry.
Mr
Said has always denied receiving commissions from BAE.
Legal
sources say the SFO is likely to want to inspect his accounts to see if they
show whether BAE payments were passed to members of the Saudi royal family, and
when. Officers have been looking at whether any payments were made after 2002,
when they were outlawed.
According
to City sources, Mr Said's link to the investigation emerged after official
notification to the arms broker by the Swiss authorities that access was being
sought to bank accounts of a company registered anonymously in
Both
the Swiss legal authorities in
Swiss
authorities said yesterday: "The office of the attorney general of
A
series of British newspapers were briefed that the latest Saudi contract to buy
Eurofighters was in danger and that the SFO should "put up or shut
up".
The
MoD, which is negotiating the deal to sell Eurofighters, remained silent.
The
only person with the power to halt joint SFO-MoD police inquiries is the
attorney general, Lord Goldsmith. But
Lord
Goldsmith has been scrupulous in not bringing political pressure to bear on
investigators,
BAE
said: "BAE Systems is not obstructing the investigation and continues to
fully co-operate with the SFO." Their spokesman said: "We will not be
commenting on any point of substance. This cannot be taken as any kind of
admission."
From a kebab shop to
Billionaire Wafic Said straddles worlds of Saudi royals and
Westminster
David Leigh and Rob Evans - Wednesday
November 29, 2006 The Guardian
Wafic
Said is one of
At
the age of 30, it was not obvious that he would later live such a gilded life.
Born in
It
was there the son of an eye surgeon made connections that were to transform his
life. He became friends with two young Saudi princes: Bandar and Khalid. A
charming man, he was - within a few years - organising their financial affairs,
making investments and looking after their property.
By
the 1980s, he was persona grata with the Saudi royal family including the
princes' father, Sultan, defence minister then but now Crown Prince. Wafic Said
was well-placed to manage the Saudi way of doing business. He is credited with
helping the regime buy British in 1985 in the biggest arms deal in history,
known as Al-Yamamah.
Wafic
Said's role as a fixer was initially secret. Nowadays, he admits he was an
adviser on the deal, but has always denied receiving millions in commissions.
He has said : "I did not receive any commissions from the Al-Yamamah
programme and nor am I an agent for British Aerospace. Due to my contacts in
It
has been alleged that Mr Said employed Mark Thatcher as an unofficial back
channel. Mr Thatcher has consistently denied allegations he received up to Ł12m
as part of the Al-Yamamah deal. But Mr Said certainly had entry to Mrs
Thatcher's circle, donating an estimated Ł500,000 to the Tory party.
After
Labour came to power, the 68-year-old became a confidant of Peter Mandelson.
Their introduction is reported to have been made by Charles Powell and his
wife, Carla. Mr Said had met Powell, now Lord Powell, in the mid-1980s during
the arms deal, when he was Mrs Thatcher's chief foreign affairs adviser. The
peer is close to the Syrian financier, who made him chairman of one of his
companies. Lord Powell is also on BAE's payroll as an adviser.
Lord
Powell is the brother of Tony Blair's chief of staff at No 10, Jonathan Powell.
Contacted in
Married
to an Englishwoman, Rosemary, with two children, Wafic Said now has houses in
Mayfair,
He
runs a charitable foundation these days. He gave Ł250,000 to the victims of the
July 7 bombings, and Ł20m to set up the
2 NOV 06 – THE SURVEILLANCE
SOCIETY HAS ARRIVED IN THE UK
The
If global warming does not get us
first, as last week’s Stern Report predicts it will, and if Bird Flu’ does not
wipe us out, what will all this surveillance do for society?
After some decades of data errors,
gross privacy intrusions by the morbid, stupid and credulous key-hole monitors;
after violent reactions by the spied upon, and increasing power being handed to
the gossips and self-righteous who want to spy on (and curb) their neighbours’
lives and bodily functions; the majority will eventually react and banish the underlying
concept of “sin” which drives and legitimises the spying. This revolution will
end the religious guilt that has sustained armies of clerics for millennia. It
will be led by society’s celebrities and leaders, who will crack under the strain
of having spy-cams inserted in every orifice and up their lavatory pans. “Yes!
Even the Queen wipes her bottom. We are all equally human.” All trivial
‘offences’ will be seen as normal, acceptable, human behaviour, within the
bounds of acceptable life-risks – and will be struck from the statute books.
Sane traffic, travel laws and moral laws will emerge which will include the liberalisation
of all our small self-indulgences. But, to bring about this state of relative
sanity and reality there will be an horrific period of finger-pointing-hysteria
and ‘we-know-best’ restraints – based on the primitive god-inspired-village-elders
codes. There will be spied upon people ostracised from society with or without
reason. There will be people incarcerated due to errors in the data. Third
nipples will at last be discovered under armpits and glittering eyed zealots
will punish the ungodly. There will be people whose credit, livelihoods and
futures will be ruined. It will be as terrible as and worse than George Orwell
predicted – but eventually the healthy majority will take control away from the
deluded and sickly curious – and the world will, eventually, be a better and
economically more just place for the flood of useful information which remains
in circulation. We are about to witness the end of illogical rules, which are
currently enshrined or assumed in society’s moral and religious codes – and the
beginning of international Intelligent Cooperation based on accurate facts. But
it will be hell getting there.
2 OCT 06 – MICROSOFT CHALLENGED.
The Guardian reports that monster
food supermarket chain TESCO, with 1,300 stores, has announced its own software
packages, Ability Office, to compete with Microsoft Office and other programmes
such as Virus protectors and photo-editing. TESCO is starting a price war with
prices as low as Ł20 sterling, compared to Ł300 sterling for an equivalent
M/Soft package. The software is written by Formjet,
2 OCT 06 – "LET THEM EAT
CAKE". & HEARD THIS WEEK AT A DINNER-PART Y …"IT IS THE NATURAL ORDER THAT 5% WILL ALWAYS OWN 90% OF
THE WORLD"
This month, Marie Antoinette is
being renovated. The archetypal example of uncaring, greedy, vapid French
aristocracy who married Louis XIV when she was 14 years old, did not, it is now
claimed, ever utter the infamous words "Let them eat cake" or even
brioche. She was the victim of a bunch of English criminals who set her up for
blackmail by printing pamphlets accusing her of everything from starving the
poor to incest - and far worse. The blackmail worked and the French court paid
up in exchange for all the pamphlets. But a zealous bureaucrat archived some at
the Bastille and when it was stormed by the revolutionaries the pamphlets were
found - it was decided to believe the lies - and tens of thousands were
printed. And the rest is history.
But - the curse of aristocracy did
not end with the guillotining of a few thousand French and Russian landowners.
Boardroom privateers have learned the secrets of how to raid the treasuries -
regardless of company results - and, more important to them, of
aristocratic-counting. "One for You - One for Me" What a nice man. "One for You - Two
for Me" Its OK I suppose
"One for you - Ten for Me" Golly
- but managers are really hard to recruit aren't they? "One for You -
A Thousand for Me" …Well he's such a
rich man; I'd better kow-tow to this and work harder. "One for You -
Ten Thousand for Me" …Heavens. God
must favour this man. I'd better bow down at his feet. He must be a superman.
The Guardian newspaper reports that
(mostly male) directors have awarded themselves 28% increases this year and
take an average of 100 times the standard pay package. Gosh they must be good.
In the
11 AUG 06 – WIRED DEMOCRACY
– AN HISTORIC PRECEDENT.
While the nation reels under the
“greatest terrorist threat ever” requiring passengers to dump their hand
luggage and all and any liquids before boarding their planes (we await publication
of the evidence of this threat with interest), Big Brother may unintentionally
be ushering in the political era of direct people power – and be hastening the
end of voting individual political representatives into power. The Guardian 11th
August 2006 reports that the UK Premium Rates Services watchdog, ICSTIS, is
taking seriously complaints from 2,700 TV viewers that they telephoned the low-brow,
crass, reality, Channel 4, TV programme ‘Big Brother’ in response to
invitations to vote for/against residents of the Big Brother house; only to
have their majority votes ignored and their democratic decisions reversed by
the TV producers. The voting is via high premium rate telephone lines and as
the advertised service seems to have been abused, ICSTIS is considering a $5
million fine by way of refunds to the voters. What a precedent.
I predict that this event, allowed just 100 words in the media, will be hugely more important for the world than the terrorist scare – which is dominating the media, which is devoting about half their time and broadcasting to the bomb in baby-milk news.
12 Jun 06 -
British Sex on the Net – Time Magazine
These statistics support the findings in Brett Kahr’s report, below.
Pornography on the Net – 9th May 05, which is also a survey
from the
|
TIME MAGAZINE 12th June 2006 published more of
their enigmatic stats: |
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9 |
million
British men downloaded pornography from the Internet, last year. |
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1.4 |
million
British women -ditto- |
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Our assumptions |
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Population of the |
60,000,000 |
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Lifespan |
72 |
Years |
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so born PER YEAR |
833,333 |
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50% are male and 50% female |
50% |
50% |
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Men who downloaded images in 2005 |
9,000,000 |
1,400,000 |
Women who
downloaded images in 2005 |
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Males born per year |
416,667 |
416,667 |
Females born per
year |
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AGE |
AGE |
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Interested in sex with access to
Internet from |
14 |
14 |
Interested in
sex with access to Internet from |
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to |
80 |
54 |
to |
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years |
66 |
40 |
years |
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Adult sexual males |
27,500,000 |
16,666,667 |
Adult sexual
females |
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|
Males with private/home access to the
internet? |
33% |
20% |
Women with
private/home access to the internet? |
||||
|
Men with private access |
9,075,000 |
3,333,333 |
Women with
private access |
|
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Use pornography |
100% |
42% |
Use pornography |
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9 MAR 06 – PESKY PIRATES
THREATEN BLUE MOVIES.
The new rival technologies which
compress full length, studio-master-quality versions of films onto
blue-laser-disks for home players (25 gigabytes of data) are both designing
anti-piracy codes into the disks. The blue laser is a shorter wavelength than
the “old” DVD red laser and can pack more data onto a disk. Two recording
industry giant joint-ventures are creating different systems and both hope to
make the other redundant – and to become the solo world standard manufacturer.
“HD-DVD” (Toshiba, Microsoft & the DVD Forum) uses both sides of the disk
with AACS copyright protection encryption in the playing-machine and on the
film-disks. “Blu-ray” (Phillips, Sony, Panasonic, & Dell) uses one side of
the disk with SPDC and AACS protection. AACS (Advanced Content Access System)
has been developed by a pre-competitive consortium of both teams. SPDC
(Self-Protecting Digital Content) is designed by Cryptography Research of San
Francisco. Neither system will play the other’s disks. The risk of such highly
encrypted codes and software is that they may become corrupted and prevent
honest and legitimate customers from playing films. SPDC will provide a
telephone help-line on the assumption that hackers and pirates will not call
and risk being discovered – whereas genuine customers will call – and be given
the correct codes. (Summarised from New Scientist 11 March 06).
Personally, if I had settled in on a winter’s evening with a glass of wine and a plate of sandwiches, to watch War and Peace on my new Blue Laser machine – and was faced with phoning a help-line and fiddling around with encoded settings – I’d be more likely to put an axe through the whole system and throw in the garbage, than to persist with fixing it. Maybe I’d wait until the second time it failed before utterly destroying it.
24 FEB 06 – $80M CASH
STOLEN FROM THE BANK OF ENGLAND
It is worth noting that even in the
high-days of the Information Society, thieves can penetrate the defences of
Securitas, the Bank of England’s money carrier, and without violence, drive off
with Ł50M sterling in new and used bank notes; a good old fashioned heist. What the whole if Britain is pondering, is
how can the gang launder that much cash in a society where all banks are
required to report any unusual cash transactions and even second-hand car
dealers have to report sales of old cars for cash. Answers on a post card
please to Mervyn King, Bank of England, City of
24 FEB 06 – SMALL IS
BEAUTIFUL – PORNOGRAPHY FOR THE NANO-TECH GENERATION.
New Scientist reports that Google
research shows that furtive searches for “adult material” constituted 8.5% of
desktop computer searches, 5% of PDA’s, and a whopping 20% of cell-phone’s.
Have you ever compared the size of a cell-phone screen with a desktop’s? Surely
only the youngest adults, with astonishing eyesight and rapid thumbs, can
access and relish such minuscule images. Does their vital equipment match these
tiny screens? Can we from the older generations use this as evidence of the obvious
decline and demise of youth? In defence of teleworkers, it would seem that
91.5% of searches via computers are not seeking pornography – so can we assume
they are getting on with the job?
In further defence of the old fashioned, the same issue of New Scientist reports that normal orgasm with a partner releases 400% (four times more) of the calming and satisfying hormone prolactin than does orgasm through masturbation – and that this was found in laboratory trials. Where do people get these lab jobs and how are they advertised?
18 JAN 06 – BIG BROTHER
SUED.
British writer, Christopher
Hitchens, who supports going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan and is considered
to be “right-wing” in European terms, has joined the American Civil Liberties
Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights and US editors and writers to sue
President Bush, the chiefs of the NSA, CIA and FBI and others for illicitly
tapping their phone calls and emails, without the required Court overview. The
President claims he was right to spy, to conduct his war on terror. (Source
Guardian 18 JAN 05). What are the bets on the complainants winning their cases?
But in any event it highlights the scurrilous uses that administrations will put
the internet and World Wide Web and advanced telecoms to. We can only say “God
Bless
Other American news is that the
mayor of
The Index of the Japanese Tokyo
stock exchange has “plunged” 5% overnight due to revelations of false
accounting in one of the larger Internet search companies. Thousands of small
investors are struggling to sell – but as ever, as is universally true, they
are denied access while the big investors do their dealing. Prediction - These
small investor losses will be nothing compared to the coming siphoning off of
billions of small savings from the about to be privatised Japanese Post Office
bank. Will the honest Japanese citizens be permitted to take these matters to
court?
9 JAN 06 -
Over the Rainbow. Will you survive it?
New Book - A page turning tale of survival and courage and the foul
murder of an inspired heroine, set in
3 JAN 06 – US
The White House and US agencies are
under fire for bugging phones and emails without the usual restraints and
checks & balances. President Bush claims the illicit spying is for our own
good citing the war on terrorism and excuses the placement of hidden cookies on
the PC’s of all who visit certain government web-sites. He really should read George
Orwell’s 1984, if only to learn what his administration will do next. In the
meantime – remember to run a ‘spyware’ cleaner regularly. There are some
excellent free-software versions on the WWW. (Source Guardian 30 Dec 05)
3 JAN 06 – SPAMMERS CURBED?
3 JAN 06 – MIT DEVELOP
STACKABLE CARS
US designers at MIT have built
prototypes of a lightweight Smart Cities car which “stacks like supermarket
trolleys”. The researchers see the day when we will all use such
interchangeable public vehicles which will be acquired, used and then left for
another driver at journey’s end – as easily as calling a taxi. The 2 seat cars
can manoeuvre forwards, backwards and sideways. They have electric hub motors
and more technology than a moon-lander. (Source Guardian 29 Dec 05). Combine
such cars with electric power from high and low tides – and the carbon threat
will disappear. With the ocean temperatures up 2C it is already too late to
reverse global warming – but we can still prevent global boiling. Minimum
Weight Vehicles may be on the 2006 agenda – And about time too.
3 JAN 06 – ENRON CASE
THREATENS DIRECTORS WITH 25 YEARS.
Congressional investigators cite a
“dizzyingly complex” scheme which ENRON created to enrich its executives and
hoodwink the Internal Revenue. ENRON’s CFO was recruited from Arthur Andersen
Inc, which was also the “independent” auditor. CFO Andrew Fastow has cut a deal
and will assist the prosecution. ENRON boss Kenneth Lay and CEO Jeffrey
Skilling are facing 25 years. While it is awful to contemplate any person being
incarcerated for 25 years,
7 DEC 05 – A diversion
into Intelligent Design
The media has recently given a lot of time and space to the
debate of Darwinism-V-Intelligent Design. At the extremes of the arguments, on
the one hand wild-eyed, Godless, white coated scientists insist that the
universe is accidental and evolution is chaotic, while on the other hand,
rabid, thundering preachers claim every word in the Bible is true and, as the
Bishop of Armagh calculated in 1630-odd, God made the universe sometime in
4000BC – or thereabouts – and seeded the ground with fossils just to confuse us.
As a brainwashed lapsed Catholic, once top of the class in Religious Studies,
what do I believe?
The universe does give rise to intelligence, as defined and
typified by our own intelligence, so intelligence has existed, in potential,
from the outset. The laws of physics (and chemistry & mathematics etc),
which we have so far discovered, are capable of intelligent extrapolation and
application; these laws and their interactions we would define as
intelligently, or at least logically, structured. So insofar as intelligence
and logic are defined by us merely mortal humans, I believe the fundamental
structure of the universe does manifest intelligent design. However,
Intelligent Design as preached by the most committed bibliophiles comes
perilously close to a belief in predestination – which is a heresy.
Predestination assumes that God not only made everything as it now is, but avers
that what will happen in the next moment, hour, day, week, year etc. is also
designed by God. It is God’s Will. As such predestination denies mankind’s
free-will, denying our ability and responsibility to choose good or evil or
change ourselves or our environment; it thus denies sin and, if the logic is
followed through, leads inevitably to despair. “Despair” is one of the Cardinal
Sins which condems Catholics to the burning fires of Hell for All Eternity –
whoops. So, to compromise as we enter the new epoch of intelligent cooperation,
my position is that the universe is based on vastly intelligent and
immeasurably powerful principles, but that these interact in extraordinarily
complex ways to manifest, animate and give existence and life to all the
phenomena we observe. In summary, the universe and all things in it, does
evolve, split second by split second, governed by fundamental laws – which can
be interpreted as laws of science or laws of God or both.
And finally, why isn’t the organising principle of the Life
Force, so much in evidence wherever we care to look, defined as one of the
fundamental laws of physics alongside Gravity, Electromagnetism, The Weak
Nuclear Force and the Strong Nuclear Force?
4 NOV 05 – BIG BROTHER in
the workplace – A backward step
Major abuses of Information Society technologies are occurring at
work. Termed ‘dataveillance’, relying on electronic tagging, archived CCTV
film, keyboard spyware, surveillance techniques and voice recordings, some
lunatic managers and paranoid technicians are insisting on employees being
tracked at all times. Satellite tracking is being considered. Employees are kept
under surveillance in their cars, at their desks, whenever they move, whenever
they speak and in the washrooms. Such
intrusion must surely be a clear breach of human rights. The perpetrators
should be locked away in mental hospitals for their own and the public’s
benefit. ‘Battery Hen’ employees have a moral right to rebel and fight back –
it’s time for a techno-war.
4 NOV 05 – Microsoft
invest in VOIP & “Live Office”
In
4 NOV 05 – Alt. Energy
.com
Just when we thought the world had run out of energy, medic and
MIT electrical engineer, Randell Mills, has formed Blacklight Power Inc. to
exploit a limitless, clean and cheap (1.2 cents per kilowatt hour) source of
energy he claims to have discovered called HYDRINOS. By reducing the orbit of the single electron
of a hydrogen atom, the process releases heat energy; in much the same way that
the chain reactions in atom bombs and hydrogen bombs release surplus energy
when the unstable explosive element is converted to a stable element. The major
doubt about the claim is that it contradicts the current rules of quantum
mechanics. Randell Mills relies on his own, heretical, theory “classical
quantum mechanics” (Physics Essays 2003). The debate rages on.
24 OCT 05 – Time is
running out, maybe – The oil fuel crisis
Time Magazine published one of its excellent summaries – of the
oil crisis. Professor Emeritus at
To the Letters Editor - Time Magazine - 25th Oct 05.
I'd like to
add some thoughts to your article 'How to Kick the Oil Habit' by Michael D.
Lemonick. I was director of a small, car prototype workshop where in 1979/80 we
worked on
The Can-Do
society can do all these things. The
Regards - Noel Hodson
19 OCT 05 – GALILEO is
Watching You
The EC is making progress with plans to put 30 telecommunications
and tracking satellites, of 600kg each, in Earth orbits 24,000 kilometres high.
The Galileo network will have higher resolution than the existing
12 OCT 05 – Hands off our
Internet!
This IS the epochal battle for the future. (NB - On
the 4th day of the major earthquake disaster as the Indian
sub-continent rammed
The
10 OCT 05 – GOOGLE and
free libraries.
Google are working with libraries at the Universities of
Michigan, Harvard, Stanford,
7 OCT 05 – God guides
George Bush.
The UK Guardian newspaper reports on its main banner headline, 7th
Oct 05, that President Bush told Palestinian leaders that God had ordered him
to invade Afghanistan and Iraq and to settle the Israel/Palestine
conflict. My brother was also once an
alcoholic, who thanks Alcoholics Anonymous for rescuing him 19 years ago. He
says it takes three years for a teetotal, once heavy drinker to regain their previous
level of sanity (which may never have been good) and the most common syndromes
triggered by drink are paranoia (enemies hidden everywhere) and grandiosity
(God speaks through me). Let’s hope that God doesn’t tell Bush to wage nuclear
war or liberate the recreated 1918 Avian Flu virus, which as Spanish Flu killed
50 million, from the US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology or the US Center
for Disease Control.
7 OCT 05 – Youngsters make
their own news
A significant change is happening among 14 – 21 year olds. An ICM
Poll for the Guardian (UK) of 580 14-21 year olds shows that 31% have their own
Blog or Website, writing their own news, 56% read a daily paper among 58% who
say they are interested in current news. The two-way communications power of
the internet is wooing youngsters away from traditional, delivered media into a
medium of debate and conversation. Rupert Murdoch has just paid Ł332 million to
buy a youth networking site Myspace.com.
7 OCT 05 - $100 laptops
run on LINUX.
MIT the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has built a clockwork
(driving a dynamo) powered, use anywhere, computer to be sold for less than
$100 to third world populations. The computer runs on the free open-source
operating system LINUX, which is a rival to Microsoft’s global dominance. Mobile Phones will also be designed for impoverished
regions. As American consultant Andrew Page, coordinator of the EC Telework
Forum, said “Wire the World before it Falls Apart”. It seems the world has
taken Andrew’s advice and another step into the new era.
And finally – on 7th October 05 – you will be
delighted to learn that Music Recording Industry has pulled back from the brink
of disaster. They have been threatened for at least a year by schoolchildren
swapping songs and tracks – a heinous crime meriting courts, goal, fines and
public floggings; but the industry has now adapted and is making even more
money by selling pop music – and this applies to classical as well – via
downloads from the Internet. The paranoid, delusional, probably drunk and
drugged, music executives and their lawyers and hit-men can report back to God
that they’ve solved the potentially fatal business problems posed by the junior
school kids – until the next technological innovation. Maybe the industry could
learn to lead technology instead of always scurrying to catch up. Just hire a few ten year olds.
23 SEPT 05 - Tracking
Offshore Funds.
As Hurricane Rita, a possible force 5 storm heads for
"WHERE DOES IT ALL GO? - YOU WORK AND WORK AND NEVER GET ANYWHERE? - WHERE DOES IT ALL GO?"
We discuss LVT and taxes on capital as potential contributions
to
But, while making the tax system fairer and more logical with
LVT, the UK, all OECD countries and impoverished nations could immediately
replenish community funds, pay all the outstanding bills demanded
by social justice and have surplus treasury funds, if illicit offshore funds
are repatriated. The Guardian reports today (23rd Sept 05 - page 29) that Paul
Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank, is working on a deal for Swiss Banks to
return money pilfered from Nigeria, starting with a Ł250M hoard; as part of his
new campaign against corruption. There are probably few UK citizens/residents
who have personally salted abroad Ł250M - but the amount of UK funds diverted
by the super-rich to tax-havens has been estimated to be as much as Ł2 trillion
(see Christian Aid report below). This is sufficient to repair all our schools,
pay the National Health Service deficits, pay decent pensions and give everyone
a tax holiday. Or it could be distributed as capital to every family (about
Ł2,000,000,000,000 / 25,000,000 households = Ł80,000 each). They /we could
use it to buy land or invest in
If the
*******************
18th August 05
Excuse me for again communicating with you about offshore tax and money laundering. As a significant percentage of land is also held offshore - it seems to me to be also relevant to the efficient operation of land taxes. The Information Society can track all this money.
There is more than enough illicit cash and assets to solve world
poverty, now, at a stroke. How to do this is to introduce a new global
currency without warning - e.g. the EUROYENDOLLAR and oblige all wealth to be
converted (or to become valueless) and in the process to explain its source and
pay due taxes. This technique was used after WW2 to catch blackmarketeers and
in the process
Andrew Pendleton reports in Christian Aid News, Autumn 2005:
e.g.
e.g.
Pendleton estimates poor countries lose US$500 billion each year in evaded taxes - 6 times the global aid budget.
Of the US$500B Raymond Baker, tax expert, estimates US$200 billion is corporate taxes; US$250 billion is wealthy individuals and US$50 billion is corruption.
The
Tax Justice Network estimates US$11.5 trillion (more than 12 times the UK annual Budget - NH) is held offshore (US, UK, EU and Pacific Rim citizens - NH). This US$11.5 trillion - $11,500,000,000,000 - may be the tip of the iceberg as it excludes laundered profits of businesses.
Christian Aid is launching a campaign to repatriate off-shore funds (and surely - to close the offshore banks ?- NH)
SEE
THE FUTURE! Without money!
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The EPICUS Party for Informed Consensus has been announced. It
offers radical policies for E-democracy and radical changes in many other
areas, including a call for the repatriation of all illegal offshore funds back
to their countries of origin. Honest owners would then demonstrate their
legitimacy and claim their funds. The transfer and hiding of these mysterious
assets, “funny money”, thought to be as much as $14 trillion dollars across the
World, has been greatly enabled by the Internet and WWW. In the good old days
only very rich people could arrange a “back-to-back” where they would lose
money in their own country, generating a capital loss for tax purposes, and
simultaneously make the same amount – less the brokers’ fees – in a tax haven.
Metal, Commodities and International Stock Brokers were the usual
money-laundering intermediaries. Big business would supplement back-to-backs
with “staging post companies” in tax havens, through which the businesses would
purchase their own parts or services at low prices – losing money in their own
countries – and then sell it back to themselves at high prices – skimming off
huge non-taxable profits and transferring money to a tax-haven. Today however,
thanks to Telework and the Internet, ordinary high-earning doctors, dentists,
computer experts, small traders, car-dealers, drug-dealers and many others from
the hoi-polloi, are using staging-post-companies to hide their incomes, with
respectable off-shore banks that issue a high rolling credit card allowing
profligate spending anywhere in the world – without all those nasty taxes to
pay. Will EPICUS help to roll back the
tide? (See the EPICUS
Manifesto)
5 SEPT 05 - Hurricane Katrina.
The Scrooge society.
Hurricane Katrina, a force 5 storm, hit the USA Gulf of Mexico
states and New Orleans on Sunday 21st August 05. For a week, the
world watched on TV as people died of thirst and neglect. 30% of the local
police walked out rather than tackle the emergency – they should all be sued
for breaking their contracts and be charged with manslaughter. Seven days later
the first significant government assistance arrived. It is estimated that 10,000
have died (NB – FINAL TOLL Oct 05 is 964 dead), several thousand of those
deaths in the week of neglect. While the media was able to get in and out of
the stricken areas, local, federal and state aid was paralysed.
My initial estimates, gleaned from the media, across the gulf coast
and
In the final analysis, this disaster highlights the unrealities
of the current socio-economic system, which sells us messages of universal
wealth, health, education and happiness, but in fact is still based on an
underclass, oppression, poverty, ignorance, selfishness and greed. There are
massive dislocations between the Real Economy
– which is overflowing with real goods; the Money Economy – which is concentrated in the hands of the top 4%;
and the electronic/energy/media economy, The
Information Society – which singularly failed to inform the population of
the dangers, of their escape routes and of the help available; which immediately
communicated the plight of these hurricane victims to billions of voyeurs,
including me, but was unable to help them – though it was fun, wasn’t it,
watching them die, and brought us some great TV moments. Were the
26 AUG 05 - To google or
not to google.
The media
reports a “war” between GOOGLE, the search engine company, and Microsoft which
owns search engine MSN (Microsoft network). Google founders Sergey Brin 31 and
Larry Page 32 are deemed to be worth $20 billion while Bill Gates is worth $46
billion. As Bill and Melinda Gates are giving away most of their fortune and as
Google’s founding motto is “Do no Evil” – a war may be an inappropriate term,
more suited to the old order. Perhaps both corporations are succeeding simply
by being constant innovators who are better at the jobs they do than others; and
they both make hugely complex technology available to the general public – they
are inclusive organisations, not exclusive. GOOGLE are turning their brand into a new verb
“to google” – just as
26 AUG 05 - Music files go
legit’
The UK
Guardian reports that the music industry will keep up its attacks (or defence)
on children sharing music tracks but are racing to catch up with the “new”
technology by changing their business models to offer “free” file-sharing
mechanisms. In this case “free” is Ł26 a month subscription to an internet
connection which then allows unlimited music track downloads. Ł26 a month or Ł312
a year may not seem free to schoolchildren – and having their every move
tracked by the providers and their advertising agencies may not be welcome. It
is likely the kids will find many ways to swap tracks without the industry’s
help – and without bankrupting the global media industry.
28 JUN 05 - E-Wars.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS (IPR) - The US Supreme Court
ruled on 27th June 2005 that the software writers and the web sites which
“encourage” person to person P2P file sharing of music, films and other
copyrighted materials will no longer be protected from prosecution by the 1984
Betamax/Sony video recorder (VCR) decision. The essential difference, the court
determined, is that while the 1984 VCR could be used for licit and illicit
purposes, current technology which enables P2P is specifically aimed at being
used to allow downloading – usually free – in
the knowledge that such downloads are illegal. The next stage will be a
case brought by the recording industry against the pirates. There is a danger
that the recording industries could get a veto or even tighter stranglehold on
all emerging technologies which might impact their businesses. On the other
hand, it is highly likely that the P2P software will be driven under-ground,
adapted by children and enable the same or greater rate of sharing.
In both the above, abuse and mistakes will occur in their tens of
thousands. The populace will enter an electronic war with the government – it
will be civil war. The laws and the technology are simply not yet up to the
task. The real task is to build a computer system which is as flexible and
humane in dealing with people as the present people-based system. For example –
daily traffic offences of parking, speeding, manslaughter, jaywalking etc seem
writ in stone but at the human level the particular circumstances are
considered and an intelligent decision made – by other human beings. Before our
laws are communicated to a computer as “THE LAW” flexibility and intelligence
must be injected: for example, driving past a busy school gate at the “one-size-fits-all”
legal speed of 30mph at school leaving time – is too fast and dangerous.
Driving past the same gate, on empty roads, at
18 JUN 05 - E-Wars
BIG BROTHER - The
Internet, World Wide Web, computing and mobile working are fast approaching yet
another defining moment. The Oxford Internet Institute is hosting a debate on
Internet Governance (22nd June 05) claiming that governments around
the world are increasingly trying to control content and use. The international
media industries, film, music, print etc are trying to block all file-sharing
(P2P) and lobby hard for micro-chip makers to include royalty trackers in every
computer – reporting back on all private individuals to the industry. The
WIMPS, NERDS & GENIUSES: Countering the Big
Brother tendencies to freeze and control the Internet, communications technology
innovation is racing ahead. Often created by top scientists in the most respected
institutes, then adapted by youngsters with a hobby interest rather than an
industrial ambition, inventions such as BIT-Torrent (see below) seem to emerge
from nowhere to enable youngsters to enjoy themselves. Films can be downloaded
in minutes instead of hours; (see below “Pirating films –
What the innovation argues for is a paradigm-shift in the
recording and publishing industries’ business models. What the bewildering pace
of change and conservatism argues for is a decade or two or three of a freeze –
while over burdened bureaucrats and the copyright laws catch-up. The whole
process might just lead to speeding up (and reducing the cost of) the Justice
System. Now that would be an innovation.
31
JUL 05 - The Future – Accurate social and scientific predictions
AD 2516 –
AFTER GLOBAL WARMING
PublishAmerica.com
isbn-1-4137-6870-9
Amusing,
touching, hilarious, dramatic and prophetic. A good read and an exciting view
of the future of science and society; a “MUST-READ” book. Buy from
PublishAmerica.com; Barnes&Noble.com; Amazon.com;
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for a copy to: noel@noelhodson.com
17 MAY 05 - Brain Tumours
from cordless & mobile phones debate continues
Mobile
and cordless phones have again been accused of causing brain cancer. Lennart
Hardell of the University of Orebro in Sweden claims from a survey of 1,400 brain-tumour
patients that people using mobile phones for 5 years or more have four times
the normal risk of developing a brain tumour and if they also live in rural
areas they have eight times the risk. (Guardian newspaper
14 MAY 05 - US Supreme
Court to Rule on film and music controls
Paul
Marks in New Scientist Magazine reports that 28 media empires including MGM and
the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry
Association of America are trying to have file-swapping (Person to Person or
P2P) banned by shutting down the networks which enable them. 21 years ago the
movie industry sued Sony to stop the Betamax video recorder which was thought
to herald the end of
My view
remains that Information Society Tools and modern communication systems have to
be free from interference or it will be like penalising road-builders for
enabling bank robbers to drive from the scene of the crime. I also think the
media executives are being hysterical and grossly exaggerating the financial
impact of pirating – see Music Industry report 24 April 05 below. My advice to
them is grow-up, evolve and adapt.
10 MAY 05 - Feature Films
on Mobile Phones
Rok Corporation, Wolverhampton, UK are launching a 64-megabyte Multi-Media-Memory
card and auto-player for mobile phones which will hold full length feature
films - costing about Ł15 each – and play them on the mobile phone screen. It
is compatible with most mobile phones and plays the film whether the phone is
on or off line. Buy the first film, The
Shawshank Redemption, from www.rokplayer.com – Report from New Scientist magazine. How long
will the battery last?
24
APR 05 - Music Industry pur-sues schoolchildren swappers
Latest
FACTS:
{1} Albums downloads are priced at Ł8 – they should be
Ł5.48
{2} 37% of users buy legal downloads
{3} 54% share illegal downloads
{4} 9% have tried both and use neither
{5} 44% buy more CD's etc as a result of hearing downloads
{6} 23% hear a sample from downloads and decide not to buy the
CD.
DOORS CHARTER
MUSIC RETAILERS SHOULD :
{1} Make clear that music downloads are of much lower audio
quality than a CD, with labels at point of purchase showing bit rates and usage
restrictions.
{2} Offer music downloads at various levels of quality, ban the
term "CD quality" and apply "high-quality" only to bit
rates above 160bkps
{3} End payment systems based on "credits" that expire
after 12 months.
THE RECORDING INDUSTRY SHOULD:
{4} Price download albums at Ł5 and single tracks at 50p to
reflect their inferior quality to CDs.
{5} Agree standard usage restrictions to allow storage on 5
computers, plus unlimited burns and transfers to players.
{6} Insist that online stores and hardware manufacturers -
notably Apple and Sony - enable all legitimately purchased music to play on any
secure portable player.
9 MAY 05 - Internet
Pornography, Masturbation and Self-Abuse
A new report on the use of internet pornography, based on a
massive survey of 18,000 respondents, is due to be published shortly. The
survey was organised and analysed by ex-New Yorker, psychologist, Brett Kahr,
Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Psychotherapy and Mental Health at the
Centre for Child Mental Health in London under the auspices of the Tavistock
Centre for Couple Relationships, London and will rank alongside earlier major sexology
studies such as Kinsey – 1948 and Masters and Johnson – 1966. A pre-publication
workshop indicates that the report shows that 87% of men and 56% of women
access pornography on the web. Internet users, at least those surveyed, on
average masturbate or have sex with others 4 to 5 times a week. The author speculates
that the rapid introduction into our homes of complex internet access tools has
been partly due to the powerful sex drive to see the universally gossiped about
sexual content on the WEB. In advance of the written data, which when reported in
the media is almost certain to fuel new campaigns to censor pornography, I want
to record some thoughts:-
1)
What is different about
the 13% of men and 44% of women who have never peeked and presumably are not
among those who masturbate? Could it simply be age? Do teleworkers work or do they
waste their energies on sexual fantasising – the increase in productivity
indicates that they do in fact work. Is masturbation and leisure-sex in fact
bad for your health, your relationships, your community, your country? Does it make
you blind, deaf and feeble as doctors, militarists, rabbis and priests have claimed
since the 1850’s? Will all masturbators go to Hell for all Eternity as the
Catholic Church avers? Does the habit have anything to commend it? Does it
cause or cure prostate cancer? Is it good for anything? Does the high incidence
explain the low birth-rate in the developed countries – or vice versa?
2)
Human beings have not
changed sexually in the past few hundred thousand years and there is nothing
new about pornography or perversions. For example those little, pocket-sized,
prehistoric clay statues of very fat, squat women may have been pornographic. What
has changed is that high-class porn was available only to the privileged few in
the form of painting and statuary. The plebeians found their porn in the Bible,
at home via incest, and in lewd theatre and songs. The WWW, and top-shelf
magazines, have recently made it easily available to all. Is this global spread
of naked, explicit displays, democracy in action? Should the lower orders be
forbidden to look? Are all the subjects
of pornographic images exploited victims?
3)
Excluding for the moment
fetishists who, like new born ducks, become permanently fixated on the first
thing that triggers their emerging sex-drive and captures their fantasies, what
is being sought by the majority who use web, film and magazine pornography? There
is certainly a major reward, orgasm, offered by nature to sexually active
humans. Perhaps a large part of the feverish fascination is competition; namely
the urgent need to know if someone else has found a way of having better,
bigger and longer orgasms – and should we all be doing whatever it is they do
to enjoy the same thrill. The extraordinary amount and presentation on the WWW of
almost gynaecological-medical images of people of every shape, size, age,
colour, creed, credit rating or
appearance, doing every imaginable thing to themselves and to each-other is
perhaps the ultimate expression of human credulity and curiosity. The human
race will not rest until it has examined, in the smallest detail, the flesh and
orifices of every other person on the planet. Spying on others sexual, toilet
and bedroom activities has even extended to prime-time TV – voyeurism is acceptable
mainstream, family viewing. I think that behind all the covert and overt
looking is the archetypal fascination and fear of the creative, magical sexual
act. By looking closer and closer at every bit of human anatomy, and even inside
our fellow humans – people are unconsciously seeking the secrets of the
universe. They are looking for that which animates flesh. They are seeking the source
of energy of the life force – in others instead of themselves. They are
searching for the soul. They are desperately and anxiously seeking God. But
such sacred knowledge is unlikely to be explicitly revealed on pornographic WEB
sites.
Some preliminary statistics: The site “Protect Kids” (see link
below) claims there are 1.3m pornographic web sites containing 260 million
pages. In context, GOOGLE searches (May 05) 4.285 Billion pages. 260,000,000 / 4,285,199,174; so 6.07% is pornographic and the
obverse - 94% of WEB content is not pornographic.
http://www.protectkids.com/dangers/stats.htm
Watch this space for the definitive summary of, statistics and
comment on the report when it is available in print.
16 MAY 05 - Electronic
Paper Screens
“Work
Anywhere” – is due for a huge boost from Philips’ 0.1 millimetres thick
grey-shades screen. It needs no backlight and will be on sale in March 2007.
Here comes the long heralded “wearable computer”. (New Scientist –
16
MAR 05 - 344 Million customers a month
Google
enjoyed 344 million unique visitors in January 05. Yahoo had 399 million; MSN
412 million and AOL a paltry 164 million. Not bad for a month’s work. Annual
revenues range from $1B at AOL to $3.1B at Google, with income from advertisers
making up 99% of Google’s revenues. Searching for profits, perhaps? (Time
Magazine 21 March 05). PS Can any psychologists explain why I am perfectly
happy with my excellent SWATCH watch before I read TIME – and deeply
dissatisfied with it after?
15 MAR 05 - Men at Home Alone
A remark
gleaned from a BBC Radio 4 news item about equal pay, which claimed that 14% of
16 FEB 05 - Nokia and
Microsoft Make Music
Richard
Wray in
16
FEB 05 - Who is listening? The Mafia or the Government?
For those
of us who are so paranoid that we fear all our communications are being intercepted,
the news that the Mafia was behind the World’s largest phone scam confirms our
conspiracy theories. The criminals made $650M by asking visitors to “Free” WEB
porn sites for “Adult Verification” which included their credit card details. The
gangsters then charged $90 per card. Almost 1M people were duped making $230M
for the gangs. The other major scam which made $420M, involved Americans
calling 1-800 numbers (premium rate) for psychic readings, fortune telling etc.
were hit with unauthorised monthly charges. The full report is in the Guardian,
by Dan Milmo.
Editor- Is it too obvious to ask what part the Credit Card banks
played in laundering the Mafia money, as occurred in the article immediately below.
13
FEB O5 - BT channels money to fraudsters
An
American in
When a
hapless Internet user accesses their “free” sites via an old fashioned (not
broadband) 56K modem, the site secretly sends a dialler into the customer’s
computer – which from then on makes calls to the high premium rate numbers
enabled by BT. BT pay the “service
providers” or crooks, who disappear with the money, and then BT beats up the
customers until they pay. BT claim their
hands are clean as they cannot know what traffic is going down every line and
call made. “If the customer’s phone has made a call – they owe us the call
charge.”
But
Jeffrey Robinson, a professional financial crime fighter, found that BT had
received 80,000 complaints BEFORE he was cheated and asserts that BT owe a
“Duty of Care” and are liable. He tells readers that BT are guilty of breaching
several laws including new money laundering rules (Proceeds of Crimes Act 2002,
sections 327, 328, and 329). BT says that they have to connect all calls under
EU and
Editor – If 80,000 complained then probably 10 times that many
were cheated – say – 800,000 at Ł120 a time is Ł96M. Imagine you are a lawyer;
which client do you want to represent in the argument? What Americans may not
understand is that to an Englishman, The Post Office, then British
Telecommunications, then BT, was, before it was privatised, a government
utility run as a service to the people, established as a part of the civil service,
with all the propriety and trustworthiness that implied. We have to get used
the fact that BT is now a profit making corporation out to make a quick buck.
12
FEB 05 - More WEB Music Downloads
Celeste
Biever in New Scientist tells of DJ Adam Curry and David Winer who have
invented a method of automatically updating their IPOD MP3 music tracks with the
latest releases from the 700,000 (3 months ago it was only 5,000) podcasts (sort of one man internet radio
shows). They use their own version of RSS Really Simple Syndication with
permission on selected web sites. The RSS continuously scans the sites and via
another piece of software “podcatcher” written by Curry, iPodder www.ipodder.org captures the “show” and auto-files the new music.
(Editor - I assume it goes by titles and will not download a
track it already has filed? I ask again
– when do they have time to listen to it all?).
3
FEB 05 - Spammers mock the US
Tom Zeller Jr. of the New York Times reports that the new
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/01technology/01spam.html
As reported here earlier, most spam does not enable a sale of product
and, I guess, as in the Cable and Wireless case is simply to make a fraction of
the telephone transmission charges – so it is the telecoms we should hold to
account. Or, in all the confusion, are
we being set up for an email charge.
See top right this page – News Archive Feb 04 – Dec 04 - Spam busters, Cable & Wireless, Exodus
and SAVVIS – Wed. 8th Sep 2004 .
20
JAN 05 - VOD – PVR – DVD’s – NTL – BBC – ETAL
What this alphabet soup means in the
20
JAN 05 - Super Fast Broadband
The
7
JAN 05 - Carbon Trading
The EU has opened a Carbon-Emission-Permits market for its
444 million citizens in 25 countries. (See population chart at http://www.noelhodson.com/index_files/eu_may2004.htm ). EU Permits up to 2007 are being issued to
organisations that create pollution, excluding car makers and transport. If the
polluters exceed the allocation they have to buy permits from others – who by
implication are saving on their allocations.
7
JAN 05 - Cell-phones change body’s cells and genes
The EU’s 4 year REFLEX study of radiation from mobile-phones
and power-lines tested 12 groups from 7 countries and concluded that “Electromagnetic
radiation of low and high frequencies is able to generate a genotoxic effect on
certain but not all types of cells and is able to change the function of
certain genes, activating and de-activating them”. So, to avoid becoming a mutant, keep away from
power-lines and use you mobile phone sparingly. The adjacent article to this
report in New Scientist 25 Dec 04, reports that magnetic copper bracelets worn
by many to relieve the pain of osteoarthritis “are likely to be just a placebo
effect” according to a study by the Mayo Clinic. Well they would say that
wouldn’t they. Why one type of electromagnetic radiation has an effect on us
but another doesn’t is a question for the future.
1
JAN 05 - MELTDOWN
An article by Jenny Hogan in the New Scientist 25th
December, reminds us what telework is all about. She says that ‘if’ the
(Remember that we said it first - a long time ago see - FUTURE Forecasts)
Our governments still haven’t twigged that like gravity, sea-level cannot be shielded. The warming has already occurred
so it is just a matter of when. This is NOT an SEP (somebody else’s problem) so
move to higher ground or learn to swim.
TSUNAMI - We also mark the sad affects that natural changes can
have as the
The
transport letter the Guardian dared not publish – Tuesday 21st December 2004 .
The UK
Guardian printed an excellent overview of UK Gridlock (G2 20th Dec)
but offered no solutions. The next day they printed the usual batch of
illogical, unscientific, un-thought-out, indefensible attacks on the car and
the usual pompous, crazed dictator imperatives to force the public out of their
cars and onto packed, slow buses and trains which do not go where people need
to go and are spurned by 85% of travellers – who go by car. Cars are not
necessarily the worst polluters – trains and buses are far worse per passenger
mile. We have opened a blog page for your can-do ideas on how to restructure
urban and national transport. http://www.noelhodson.com/index_files/TransportBlog.htm . Here’s
what the Guardian Letters editor dared not print.
20Dec-04 - In 1997
we produced detailed traffic forecasts for Ed King at the RAC, for 2007 and
2014, including the impact of advanced communication tools and telework. (G2
Caught in a jam 20.12.04). Despite the
continuing, miraculous evolution of telecommunications,
Pirating
films – Wednesday 15th December 2004 .
BBC TV Newsnight reports that the film industry is girding its
loins to track down and punish all those who would copy and download movies.
Old technology is being put to new uses by the pirates. BIT-TORRENT enables a
full length feature film to be downloaded digitally in about 3 hours – just
double its show-length, over ordinary broadband. The previous estimates were 15
to 20 hours. Once copied the digital film is as good a quality as a DVD. As
usual, just as they said about the advent of television and then of VCR’s, the
film industry fears this to be the end of civilisation as we know it – and as
usual they are wrong; it is simply a technical step forward and pretty soon the
industry will be offering films on-line.
BIT-TORRENT works by enabling the pirate computer to access not
only the main server where the film is being copied from, but to also access
the whole network of home-computers that are downloading the film – and to take
seconds of the film from any and all of those home-computers. This rids the
Internet of the queue that otherwise builds up which slows the process to a
snail’s pace – and BIT-TORRENT enables the download to be completed in record
time.
Ally BIT-TORRENT to the coming MIT technology FAST TCP which at
Caltech has achieved a straight download of a full movie in 4 seconds (see 28th
October 2004 report below – or at http://www.noelhodson.com/index_files/newsarchivefeb04_dec04.htm ) and it seems that real-time, full quality
movies over the Internet are just weeks away – not years away as reported in
October 04.
Round-up
– Thursday 25th
November 2004 .
On technology – I’m told I need a (very small) Blue Laser DVD, a
Blue-Tooth MP3 cell-phone that takes photo’s and plays videos, a device to
watch wireless transmitted movies, a pocket IPod that holds 10,000 music
tracks, RSS – or Really Simple Syndication software to send me press-cuttings
in my email; I should ditch Windows XP and get the Linux Freeware and I simply
MUST ditch my VCR (TV video recorder) get the latest rewritable CD film players
– though the industry cannot agree on a standard. Scientists are hard at work on molecular
computers and “spintronics” or electron quantum switches. And I should switch
to MSN Search Service as it searches 5 billion pages and Google only searches
4.2 billion. On reflection, I think I’ll wait.
(NB – 10,000 x 3 minutes tracks is 500 hours – when do people get the
time to listen? )
Time Magazine - 29 November 04 - reports on the lack of babies and
a world where we are not replacing ourselves; with rates as low as 1.5 children
per couple. According to our own statistics it does not mean however a fall in
population – not for 40 years – because the extended life span maintains the
total. But we are headed for a grey and wrinkly future with implications for
housing, health-care and IT progress. Do Bush’s and Bin-Laden’s right-wing
fundamentalist power bases foreshadow the rise of aged conservatism – and what will
that mean for the evolution of advanced communications and information technologies?
http://www.noelhodson.com\index_files\2004_telework_statistics.htm
Time also fields
an excellent article by Peter Gumbel on PARMALAT, going bust after
double-booking sales and half-booking bank loans for 20 years, to fool
shareholders and bankers alike. It is billed as The Biggest Corporate Fraud in
History with bank loans at $14 Billion instead of the supposed $5.4 Billion –
and of course the directors have skimmed-off millions or even billions for
themselves. The Terence Rattigan play, Man & Boy (en route to Broadway), with
a compelling performance by David Suchet as The Man, Antonescu, a corporate
swindler, and the brilliant rising star Ben Silverstone as his estranged son –
The Boy, is based on a similar massive collapse in New York in 1934. Then we
saw the immense US Savings and Loans scam, the Lloyds of London Names scandal,
then ENRON, Equitable Life and many other self-styled guardians of peoples’
savings, and MCI – and many more. All
these acts of brass necked theft have been assisted, concealed and often
planned by auditors and merchant bankers – pillars of the financial establishment. In this age of computers, do we have to let
this continue and see the hard work and savings of millions of honest folk siphoned
away and “lost” track of?
Appropriately,
given
http://www.noelhodson.com\index_files\ENRON_The_Future_of_Auditors.htm
Jurgen Leukel, a German tutor, musician, composer and correspondent,
informs us that Condoleezza Rice most probably was named after a term in music “Condolcezza”
which means "con dolcezza" which makes a musical phrase or a whole
piece (of music) soft and tender. Perhaps this intended tenderness
in the new
SPAM
fried by court – Monday 8th November 2004 .
Guardian 5th
Nov: On the 4th of November a court in Virginia found 30 year old
Jeremy Jaynes, “the eighth most prolific spammer in the world” and his 28 year
old sister Jessica de Groot guilty of mass-spamming and in the process
defrauding the public of $13 million for fake products and services. Jeremy
Jaynes was recommended by the jury to be sentenced to nine-years while Jessica
was fined $7,500 under new anti-spam laws banning mass emailing and concealing
the sender’s identity. It can be assumed
that the criminals’ aliases took 5 weeks to read out in court; - or did they
skip that bit? The siblings targeted AOL lists but unknown to them AOL tracked
them down by via a “report spam” button on AOL’s web site – after 10,000
reports AOL was able to zero in on the culprits. The journalist, Patrick Barkham, reports that
last month 82% of email was spam – the bulk of it coming from
Banks
overdose on spam phishing scams– Monday 8th November 2004 .
Steven
Morris in the Guardian tells us that fraudsters are recreating copies of
legitimate bank web sites then drawing victims in to give their personal
account numbers and passwords – before emptying their accounts. The criminals
plant a “Trojan Horse” via email in bank customers’ computers, which hi-jacks
the link to their bank and redirects them to the false site. Such thefts are
called “phishing” and Russian gangs are thought to be particularly active. This is similar to the false masks criminals
fit on cash-machines to read credit-cards.
WorldCom
directors in Court – Monday 8th November 2004 .
MCI
soldiers bravely on after filing for bankruptcy in 2002 and writing down its
assets by $60B, and having just been obliged this quarter against quarterly
sales of $5.1B, along with all major long-distance telecom providers, to make
another exceptional write-off of $3.5B to adjust their asset values in the
light of fierce market competition.
Ex-CEO, founder Bernard Ebbers, and ex-CFO, Scott Sullivan, were tried
earlier this year for their part in falsifying MCI’s (WorldCom) results to push
up the share price.
Pirate
Movies – The big players start a war – Thursday 28th October 2004 .
Time
Magazine, 1 November 04, reports that the OECD is monitoring the level of legal
and illicit movie downloads. They find that Americans download the most videos but
that
Drowning
in Ignorance – Friday 22nd October 2004
While we
have all been fretting about our small human concerns, such as: Where are the
WMD? Who killed Dr David Kelly? Who’s got the all the money? and Who will win
the
EPICUS
– Embryonic E-Democracy & Money Laundering – Friday 22nd October 2004
The EPICUS
Party for Informed Consensus has been announced. It offers radical policies for
E-democracy and radical changes in many other areas, including a call for the
repatriation of all illegal offshore funds back to their countries of origin.
Honest owners would then demonstrate their legitimacy and claim their funds.
The transfer and hiding of these mysterious assets, “funny money”, thought to
be as much as $14 trillion dollars across the World, has been greatly enabled
by the Internet and WWW. In the good old days only very rich people could
arrange a “back-to-back” where they would lose money in their own country,
generating a capital loss for tax purposes, and simultaneously make the same
amount – less the brokers’ fees – in a tax haven. Metal, Commodities and
International Stock Brokers were the usual money-laundering intermediaries. Big
business would supplement back-to-backs with “staging post companies” in tax
havens, through which the businesses would purchase their own parts or services
at low prices – losing money in their own countries – and then sell it back to
themselves at high prices – skimming off huge non-taxable profits and transferring
money to a tax-haven. Today however, thanks to Telework and the Internet,
ordinary high-earning doctors, dentists, computer experts, small traders,
car-dealers, drug-dealers and many others from the hoi-polloi, are using
staging-post-companies to hide their incomes, with respectable off-shore banks
that issue a high rolling credit card allowing profligate spending anywhere in
the world – without all those nasty taxes to pay. Will EPICUS help to roll back the tide? (See
the EPICUS Manifesto)
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