The Pope visits the UK

As you might know, the Catholic Pope is visiting the UK in a few weeks. Amusingly enough, a young Foreign Office fellow decided to write a memo laying out things he can do while he is here. This list just blew up and the foreign office has apologised to the Vatican and the Church and and and. So i was curious as to what they are talking about?

On the face of it, well, lets see what the face says:

• Launch of Benedict Condoms: That’s just silly. Now Benedictine wine is ok. Lack of sense of humour there, lol.
• Review of Vatican attitude on condom use: Well, quite a lot of people have asked the Vatican to change its stance on condoms, but it being one of those regulated established patriarchal churches, it will never allow the health of women or birth control to come into the way of men enjoying their bonking.
• Bless a civil partnership: Good heavens, treat people equally? allow somebody else other than the church to agree on marriages? the very idea, bah!
• Reversal of policy on women bishops / ordain woman. Now here’s another point about the Church’s hypocrisy. Have you ever heard of a single good reason why women cannot serve the Lord in the church? Oh! but then it will reduce the power of the wrinkly old white men, no?
• Open an abortion ward: Abortion is another of those things, they dont have to look after the kids for 9 months, and they wouldn't allow abortion even for rapes or incest or what have you. But then, we know that the church is misogynistic already.
• Speech on equality: The church? believe in equality? good heavens, NEVER!. It would much rather rabbit on about silly things.
• Statement on view over adoption. Then again, not everybody can adopt, it can only be people that the church approves of. Lesbians cannot adopt kids, for example. Equality of sexes and humans? NOOOOO, Jesus Christ discriminated men from men, women from women, men from women, Gosh, Mr. Pope, what would Jesus do? Their concern about the unborn child is huge when it comes to abortion but it sort of disappears when it comes to adoption. Hypocrisy.
• Training courses for all bishops on child abuse allegations: But of course, given the pretty much world wide situation with child abuse, it seems to be systemic. Give them training
• Harder Line on child abuse. Yes, defrock them and then hand over the bastards to the police to be chucked into jail. And then pay compensation to the kids. And then apologise. Ever think about the fact that we know of the child abuse situation for years now and still nothing from the Pope. In a secular area, the person would be on the child abuse register and in jail within months. But they were let go. Obviously the Pope thinks we are stupid and more importantly, the paedophile priests matter more than the kids. Another frikking hypocritical stance on children and kids versus abortion.
• Vatican sponsorship for network of AIDS clinics. Oh! yes, they push abstinence, dont they? for a way to treat AIDS? Like their priests are abstinent? And we all know what these abstinent priests got up to, dont we?
• Meet young unemployed people. Hmm, this is silly, why would young unemployed people want to meet an old man who is obviously in some other world? Just what does he have in common with young unemployed people? He is young, he is employed and as for as people, hmm
• Apologise for…, good lord, there are huge reasons..
• Canonise a group? not sure what this is about. Canonise a group? what group? The AA?
• Announce whistle blowing system for child abuse cases. Why not? but will not, yes?
• Go to job centre: see young unemployed point above.
• Debate on abortion: See abortion above.
• All catholic schools should be free entry to all. But then, the church doesnt like the idea of separation of state and church. So while its fine in taking state funding for kids, it doesnt like to open its entrance to all. Mind you, it does in other countries, I myself studied in a Jesuit school. Its just here that it has problems.
• Speech on democracy: Why not? nothing wrong with it.
• Vatican and CoE dialogue, yep.
• Launch helpline for abused children. See above.

I can see why the Foreign Office got upset, this list has couple of silly ideas but most are actually very hard hitting and truthful. The Pope, as we know, is fundamentalist, hypocritical, discriminatory and frankly a protector of paedophile priests. This would have exposed them. Just like we allow various other tinpot dictators and idiots in here, the Pope will also be allowed in without embarrassing him. Bah

SIFE Financial Literacy Awards

Over the past few months, I have been working as a business advisor to a newbie team from the London School of Economics who have developed a trading game for school kids. This is under the SIFE programme, or Students In Free Enterprise which is sponsored, besides other firms, by my firm as well. While the teams are basically off to do good things to encourage enterprise, my firm sponsors a prize for the best financial literacy programme. As it so happens, I volunteered to be a judge at the financial literacy programme judgement.

There were a total of about 16 odd teams who had applied, then the SIFE management did a first cut of them to bring them down to 11 and then another cut down to 5. These teams were then put forward to a group of bankers who were the judges. (I obviously recused myself from the LSE presentation)

I sat there and was listening to the students who have actually delivered a variety of programmes. Some examples:

1. Working with entrepreneurs and small firms in distress to improve their financial management of their businesses

2. Working with micro lending firms in Ghana, Philippines, India, Bangladesh etc. to improve their handling of their finances and that of their clients. A great example came of their work when the typhoon struck the Philippines and devastated one of the groups that the micro lender was helping. But because they had savings and some idea of cashflow management and assets, they could recover from the disaster and were back in business chop chop. Now that’s making a real difference.

3. Immigrants / asylum seekers and refugees who are waiting for processing are stuck in tower blocks, with nothing to do, cant do jobs, in damn near poverty levels. So this university teacher got together, gave them financial management teaching, helped them setup a baking and cooking business and the women have started to generate up to £100-200 per sale in profit. Small numbers, but great work. This will help regenerate the area, create a community around these women and are also creating an international cook book. Fascinating idea, eh?

4. Several projects related to teaching kids on how to setup their own businesses, such as creating jewellery out of recycled materials and then sell them at school fairs.

5. A team was training kids on demand and supply, how trading works and got them all excited about this.

6. Getting chemistry students to create drugs and then bring in Glaxo and Kings College London (my current alma mater) to assist in show how that drug can be commercialised. Now that’s a brilliant idea, no? take chemistry students from the technical to the business to the commercial. Now if that isn't going to encourage entrepreneurship and value addition, then what is?

This is all being done by students in the undergraduate degree courses. And they are doing stuff that adults are not. They have the passion, I loved to see the determination and happiness and dedication and enthusiasm shining from their eyes. Based on the back of a fag pack, just these 5 teams that I saw have made a difference, a real tangible difference to about 10k people around the world. Now that’s creditable.

Also I am very chuffed that the LSE team was recognised as the best team :), very happy for them, those boys and girls did very well, very impressed. Here are some stats from this report.

Through the HSBC Financial Literacy Programme, SIFE teams apply for grants ranging from $250 to $1000 to help fund projects of their own creation that stimulate economic opportunity by helping others develop the personal financial management skills necessary to achieve financial independence. 

• More than 1,506 grants awarded.
• 2,202 projects completed.
• 25,250 college students participated.
• HSBC contributed more than $3 million to SIFE and to support teams' efforts.
• In 2009, HSBC disbursed 287 grants to college teams.

All in all, I am very proud of these kids. They are doing something for their community. Not sitting back and just wasting time on beer or what have you. Making the world a better place. I speak to so many kids and students in my career. Very few actually have the gumption, courage and determination to succeed. Having a social or charitable conscience usually means that they are going to be good employees or great friends. And it is not difficult at all, its quite easy to help. So my plans are to see if we can help other universities and actually try to increase the coverage as well as the depth of offerings to actually reach out to more people (both here in the UK and in India)

Sheer Chutzpah in Spanish corruption

Can you imagine? they claimed for power generation during the night for solar powered plants. I quote:

The Ministry for Industry uncovers a serious fraud on solar energy' , El Mundo reveals today with the newspaper's main feature story, quoting government data on photovoltaic energy production, according to which several solar plants were actually working at night. It is suspected the solar panels are plugged into power generators or electricity-producing apparel at night, to simulate production and obtain the public grants allowed for the photovoltaic sector. According to the newspaper's sources, solar plants in Castilla y Leon, Castilla-La Mancha, Andalusia and the Canary Islands are supposedly producing energy at night-time, without the sun. Between November and January in particular, more than 4,500 megawatt per hour would have been produced at night, and the amount of State-granted frauded funds would be about 2,6 million euros. Until last year's November the energy production in Spanish photovoltaic plants didn't undergo today's severe controls, which are regulated by the National Energy Commission (CNE, where all data from authonomous communities and energy distribution companies are processed.) The responsible Minister, Miguel Sebastian, pushed CNE to further inspections and open an inquiry to investigate "fraudulent practices.

This huge outpouring of funds into this green energy, carbon trading, non conventional sources of energy stuff is like honey to all these fraudsters.

PIGS and the UK, the deficit. Stop Spending our money!

Says it all, no? PIGS: Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain and then UK. Weep for us, world. We have a bunch of muppets in the form of our politicians who cannot simply stop spending. And this will keep on worsening

Darling’s projections have been wonky

and this is what market oracle thinks of our future

And what is the Labour, Conservatives and LibDems proposal? To faff around with 6 billion of cuts. When the actual situation is

That level of cuts is just a bit under ONE MONTH’s gap. For the rest of the 11 months, the government will be borrowing from your kids and my kids, from your pension and my pension, just to maintain this level of spending. Now there is just one small thing they can do. STOP SPENDING!

A message from the 'Get Brown out of Number 10' party!

Thanks to Dickon who forwarded this email to me.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 23 April 2010 16:29
Subject: A message from the 'Get Brown out of Number 10' party!

This is what happens when labour stays in Government for 13  long years. 

---

Subject: Gordon says 'OK'

Just a few interesting facts about Gordon Brown
We used to have 6 independent regulators to regulate the different divisions

of the financial services industry, including our Banks.

(Margaret Thatcher knew what the Banks were like and in the 1988 Finance Act she bound the Banks up in regulation to prevent them from being reckless!!!)
Then Gordon Brown became Chancellor on 6th May 1997

Gordon's banker friends said "We want all these regulators to go"
"We don't want regulators watching everything we do"
AND GORDON SAID OK

So, Gordon announced on the 20th May 1997 (2 weeks after becoming Chancellor) that the six regulatory bodies would be broken up and a new Financial Services Authority would replace them. The FSA had virtually no powers over the Banks and he also took away the powers from the Bank of England to enforce regulation on them.
The result is the devastation we are all suffering today.

--------------------------------------
We used to have a Monopolies and Mergers Commission

Then Gordon's banker friends said we don't want the Monopolies and Mergers commission telling us who we can and cant "Take Over"
AND GORDON SAID OK

So, in 1998 Gordon scrapped the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and created a replacement called the Competition Commission, with very much reduced powers and  different ideas of what used to be regarded as a "Monopoly".
The result is the Massive Corporations we have today who are ruling and shaping our lives for their own benefit and profits. Not to mention the massive Monopolies held by some of these corporations through the forced purchases of all their competitors
-------------------------------------

We used to have pension regulations, which for many decades had included something called "The Pensions Cap"

The pensions cap set a limit on how much pension any scheme member (including directors) could get from an occupational pension scheme,
irrespective of how high their earnings were.
It was there to protect the ordinary members pensions. To prevent Directors paying themselves obscene salaries and then draining the pension funds with huge pensions.
Then Gordon Brown's banker friends said that they wanted the pensions cap removing so that they could get pensions related to their obscene earnings.
(The whole Pensions industry gave him warnings of the effects it would have. Even the Inland revenue put forward objections)
BUT GORDON SAID OK

Because Gordon never likes to disappoint his banker friends

So Gordon took away the Pensions Cap in 2005 and then some of his friends were able to leave their boardroom positions with huge pensions!!!
For example Fred Goodwin was apparently entitled to a pension of over £700,000

If Gordon had left the pensions cap in place that would have been a mere £125,000

Well done Fred and your mates!!!

(The Superannuations Division of the Inland Revenue have kept a record of what it should be, in readiness for when we get a new chancellor who sees fit to re-instate it. George Osborn has pledged to do that). The record of Pensions Cap limits are available to view on the Revenue's website
The result of this is that along with Gordon's "Tax Raid" on pension funds starting July 1997, over four thousand UK company pension scheme's have closed their doors to new members and many of them have had to close down altogether, leaving millions of workers without any pension provision.
This man Gordon Brown "professes to be a socialist and "for" the working man

The working man's main form of long term financial security had for many years been his company pension scheme, something to look forward to at the end of a life of hard work, his reward, light at the end of a long dark tunnel.
Gordon has put an end to that by destroying the most valuable asset

of the average British worker.

IT IS ONE OF THE GREATEST TRAVESTIES OF JUSTICE THAT THIS MAN WHO PRETENDS TO BE "FOR THE WORKING MAN" HAS IN FACT BEEN HIS WORST ENEMY FOR THE LAST THIRTEEN YEARS AND WILL LEAVE A LEGACY THAT WE WILL STILL BE CLEARING UP FOR MANY YEARS TO COME.
THE REAL INJUSTICE IS THAT ITS ALL BEEN DONE IN AREAS WHICH ARE TOTALLY OUT OF SIGHT TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC AND BEYOND THE UNDERSTANDING MANY
GORDON RELIES ENTIRELY ON PEOPLES IGNORANCE TO GET AWAY WITH
HIS INDISCRETIONS
GORDON'S MOTTO OF:
"DENY EVERYTHING AND ADMIT NOTHING"
SEEMS TO BE WORKING QUITE WELL FOR HIM SO FAR!!!
----------------------------------------
LASTLY, WHAT GORDON LIKES TO CALL THE "GLOBAL BANKING CRISIS"

Have you noticed that we were the first to be in it and are the last to be out
(and whether we are out is very speculative!!!)
As he has openly admitted, The Royal Bank of Scotland was the worlds biggest bank.
So when RBS and HBOS were about to go BUST in October 2008 and they had to be bailed out overnight so they did not take the entire country down with them, (that by the way was almost certainly a decision made by the hierarchy in Whitehall for which
Gordon loves to take the credit)
As the worlds leading banks now all lend  money to each other on a collosal scale, isn't it obvious that the worlds biggest bank going down would have a devastating effect on all the others it dealt with.
This "worlds biggest bank" had also sold bad mortgage books to other banks.
Most of the Banks in Europe which ran into crisis were dragged into it because of the crooked dealings of our big Banks. A fact that both Germany and France were quick to remind Gordon Brown of at the G20 emergency meeting shortly after the crisis.
There are many other of Gordon's indiscretions, far too many to list here, but perhaps the few biggie's shown above will give some insight into how Gordon operates.
By the way have you noticed how he has suddenly become interested in Social issues now an election is looming and seems to be able to promise the world when, as Alistair Darling put it a few days ago, there is not a penny left in the bank!!!

Think very carefully before casting your vote for this man who is probably the most extreme capitalist of the past century while pretending to be

"for the working man".

GORDON WORSHIPS THE SUPER RICH AND POWERFUL AND

CANNOT SAY NO TO THEM

Please pass this on to all you can, the whole population should know these few facts before the election.

--

Phase III of my son’s financial education has started

So this weekend begins the tyke’s phase III of his financial education. Phase I was to get him comfortable with the concepts which I started 3 years back when he was 11, Phase II was to actually give him some money and get him to start investments in British companies when he was 12/13. So for the past 15 odd months, he has been investing pretty much regularly. As of last Friday, he is 39% up since beginning of the investment period. Investments mainly in commodities, financial institutions, infrastructure, and some odd sod balancing bits in food, retailers, etc. Almost totally in blue chips, almost all of them were bought when their PE Ratio’s were around 6-7. Have done some sales, such as that of defence stocks and jewellery and and and. The return bounces around, but generally he is doing good. Good trajectory anyway. Even if growth in his portfolio drops by 50%, I think in 3 years, his full undergraduate education in the UK will be paid for.

So Phase III begins. This is to expose him to purchasing global stocks, understand the impact of FX movements, learn how the other markets and firms move, how future cash flows can be impacted, so on and so forth. So he has to start reading the economist magazine weekly to get his general knowledge up. And then we will search for direct investment channels (such as becoming a client of ICICI for India) or buy stocks which have exposure in those countries or buy funds which have those country exposures or get people to purchase stock for us directly in the country (like my father in law does for both the kids).

Bit nervous and excited about this step. Lets see what this experiment brings forth. He is 14 years of age and started to notice girls and be a teen and be surly and speak in grunts and and and and. Strange damn alien has taken up residence in my house. I wonder what will pull him stronger, girls or investments? Mind you, his dad is still pulled towards girls so…heh.

'Ossis Aren't Indians'

A fascinating comparison caught my eye. This East German lady was is complaining about being discriminated.

The case hinged on a woman identified as Gabriela S., who was born in the Communist former German Democratic Republic but has lived in Stuttgart for more than two decades. In 2009 the 48-year-old bookkeeper failed to get a job at a window manufacturer in the southwestern city and her application was returned to her with "Ossi" and a minus sign written on her resume.

"Ossi," based on the German word Ost, or East, is often used disparagingly, and Gabriela S. and her lawyer sued the window company for three months salary on grounds of discrimination based on ethnic background. The closely watched case ended on Thursday with the Stuttgart labor court rejecting her claim and arguing that East Germans could not be seen as a tribe-like group.

In determining an ethnic background, more must be considered than just a person's regional origin, the judge said, while at the same time conceding that the term "Ossi" could be taken as a negative label.

And then a news paper, trying to comment on it, says that Ossies (Ost Germany, or East Germans) are Indians. I quote:

"The white, er, wise man, has rule: 'Ossis' aren't Indians. ... But plaintiff Gaberiele S. and her attorney have already done a lot by drawing considerable public attention to this issue. She should be praised for taking this to court rather than just accepting it." "Too old, too fat, too costly, too sick, too female, too 'Ossi' -- in the daily fight for jobs many candidates face discriminatory judgments, either directly, or implied. Sometimes these are careless -- but rarely are they justifiable. It is fair enough, and even important, when the victims of such hurtful comments try to defend themselves and recover their self-esteem."

Presuming that the Indians in this case refers to India Indians and not Native Americans, I was laughing because there is a major industry in India which refuses to think of Indians as one group but is divided into zillions of ethnic groups. And here are the Germans, how horrible of them, they force all Indians into one ethnic group. The assorted motley Indian groups of groupist dalits, Muslims, Buddhists, Jains, Hindus, Christians will spontaneously self combust. Except for Bongs, but we are the superior group amongst all Humans anyway, so we dont count.

But found it quite piquant :)

Worshipful Company of Information Technologists gets a royal charter

I am a bit involved with the worshipful company charitable activities and it was nice to hear that we have now got a royal charter. I quote the announcement:

The Royal Charter Celebrations

As you will be aware The Queen has graciously granted our Petition for a Royal Charter. The celebrations are to be held on Thursday 17th June 2010 and by pressing the button on the right you can view a short presentation that tells you about the background to this event and explains how you can join in the celebrations.

Please have your sound on - it only takes a few minutes. You will also be able to access the booking form via the attachments tab in the presentation. Please note that places will be limited so it would be wise to secure your place early.

At this stage we have to limit tickets to The Mansion House Banquet to 2 per member. Space permitting, we may be able to accommodate additional guests - please follow our instructions on the booking form. If you have any questions please call Trisha on 020 7600 1992

Thank You!

I dont think I can make it, but it promises to be pretty good so will try to move things around :), good for them.

TURKEY: 'BRIBES' TO STATE EMPLOYEES LEGALISED

This news item which I read on the day that three British Members of Parliament were granted Legal Aid to fight accusations that they ripped off the public in their expenses. I find this really objectionable. They get paid by the public purse, they ripped off the public purse and now they will be reliant on the public purse to defend their alleged fraud against the public prosecutor who would prosecute them using the public purse? My tax money gets ruined four times over. I mean, this is seriously stupid. What do these political class think?

But to go back to the original point: I quote:

The vice of offering a 'bribe' to state employees in order to accelerate bureaucratic practices is so widespread in Turkey that the government, unable to repress the trend, has instead decided to legalise it. The report comes from daily newspaper Aksham, which said that the government's ethical commission had decided that it would be legal from now on for state employees to accept a backhander of up to 20 Turkish lira (about 10 euros) as a "sign of gratitude". However, a sum in excess of 20 lira or other payments in kind are forbidden. Under the headline "State employees, watch out for this list", the paper publishes a whole series of scenarios outlined in a booklet distributed to those employed by the State. Among them, a nurse cannot accept "a cake" from a patient being treated in hospital, just as other employees cannot accept "melons" or "turkeys before the New Year". The practice of bribing state officials has always been extremely common in the country, not least on account of low wages of around 1,500 lira (750 euros) a month.

Its funny on the face of it, but this is wrong. This is not the right step, this is accepting of bribery and corruption. If the salaries are low, then fix that, not change the entire thing around and legalise bribery. What is this?

Totally unacceptable. I also think that this wont be accepted by the EU in its EU Accession negotiations. Bulgaria had to jump through hoops as well. Mind you, this is the same EU which has not been able to get its accounts signed off. I am seriously sick of these corrupt, incompetent, fraudster wankers subsisting on my taxes and making hay.

Bah!

UK Companies scrambling to cover bribery provisions

What really got me upset with the entire British Aerospace issue was that despite it being found guilty, despite it paying hundreds of millions of dollars in fines, despite tens of investigations in various countries, not even ONE person was found guilty to be chucked in jail. Presumably this was done by invisible men. It is indeed a sad indictment of the company, its shareholders (I am not, I would not dream of investing in a company with such obvious political risks and horribly bad management, have a responsibility towards my kid’s wealth!) and the venal politicians who saved its bacon. Everybody profited from the corruption. Bah!, disgusting.

But as this report suggests, British companies are scrambling to learn more about the new corruption law and fix the problems. I agree with this.

An early sign that UK companies convicted of bribery could expect tough sanctions came last month when Lord Justice Thomas, the second most senior criminal judge, said corruption was “much more serious” than price-fixing, which attracts fines of tens of millions of pounds.

Corruption as a way to screw up poor countries is horrible. So many countries suffer from this scourge. If you ask me, this is not a victimless crime, this is a crime against society and frankly one should consider the punishment at par with criminal law. If one thinks that paying corruption monies is not victimless, then the opportunity cost of diverted monies in terms of non investment in education or health should tell you that it is indeed not victimless.

Also,  the report mentions that:

Defence and energy companies are obvious targets after high-profile corruption investigations, such as at BAE Systems. But utilities, telecoms, pharmaceuticals and consumer goods are also vulnerable sectors, say experts.

Good, the British sectors which are high export oriented or globally oriented should become a force for good, stand up for standards. And for those who say that we will be disadvantaged because others do it, do you remember what we did when slavery was widespread in the world? We went and established law in 1772 when Lord Mansfield declared that slavery was illegal. We even went to war and fought for it. Even regime change was done by our forces. We can become the standard bearers of anti corruption across the world.