For Every Green Job, Four Other are Lost (UK)

This report is quite interesting. I know quite a lot of politicians are very interested in riding the green stuff gravy train, but what’s the cost? As it so happens, and I quote:

A new study called “Worth The Candle?” by the consulting firm Verso Economics confirms the experience of Spain and other countries: The creation of “green” jobs destroys other jobs through the diversion of resources and the denial of abundant sources of fossil fuel energy. The Verso study finds that after the annual diversion of some 330 million British pounds from the rest of the U.K. economy, the result has been the destruction of 3.7 jobs for every “green” job created. The study concludes that the “policy to promote renewable energy in the U.K. has an opportunity cost of 10,000 direct jobs in 2009-10 and 1,200 jobs in Scotland.” “The Scottish renewable sector is very reliant on subsidies from the rest of the U.K.,” co-author Tom Miers adds. “Without the U.K.-wide framework, it would be very difficult to sustain the main policy tolls to promote this industry.”

Now this is a big question mark and has political implications as well. What is the cost? And my thoughts about subsidies are clear, we need to avoid subsidies as much as possible because subsidies are regressive by their very nature. Since they come out of general taxation, they end up penalising the poor much more. Anyway, besides this issue, what about the time when the Scots will have more economic independence? Then will the Scots subsidise this level of job creation which actually destroys more jobs than it creates? Much to think about.

My religion is Jedi

A big thick white envelope with purple lettering dropped into the mailbox today. Its the 2011 UK Census form. Man, these people ask some ugly ass questions, but one question I am happy to answer. I am a Jedi. So there.

Then again, read this plea for people not to mark them as Jedi. I was seriously confused. Sorry, mate, I am a Jedi. I quote:

At the last Census, over 390,000 otherwise sane people listed their religion as ‘Jedi’, which completely screwed up the national religious statistics. There were [allegedly more] Jedi’s in the UK than identifying Sikhs, Jews and Buddhists combined.

By choosing to be officially registered as a Jedi, the true number of non-religious Britain’s was fudged, and this allowed the continued justification of religious influence on policy making. We can’t afford this same mistake again.
The reason we in Britain still do not have full equality for same-sex couples falls at the feet of the 26 Protestant bishops in the House of Lords. They came out in force last year to vote against the Equality Bill, which made the discrimination of gay people to public services a criminal offense.

This is only due to get worse, (as Johann Hari reported in the Independent last week) – rather than remove the bishops from the House of Lords, Nick Clegg intends to renege on his election promise for a 100% elected House of Lords and instead welcome unelected figures from Jewish and Muslim faiths into the upper house to join the bishops.

The 2001 census data has been used to justify amongst other things, an increase in the number of state maintained faith schools and the increasing level of government money spent on faith organisations.

By ticking anything other than ‘no religion’ if you do not practice a religion is grossly over-inflating the true refection of religious belief in the UK. This number of non-religious is further split, as a percentage of the British public may wish to register their religion as ‘humanist’, but there is no box for this choice.

By option to select ‘other’, and writing in ‘humanist’ in the box, you are splitting the non-religious numbers still further.

So, in summary, if you are thinking of saying you’re a Jedi, please consider ticking “No Religion” instead. Obviously please feel free to ignore this plea if you are genuinely a Jedi.

So only insane people mark themselves as a Jedi according to the top line while the last line says that being a Jedi is fine. If this is the level of logical argument, then god (or should I say the force or Yoda?), I am happy I am a Jedi

British Corruption punished in USA Courts

Now this is shameful for the United Kingdom. Its a British man, who was corrupt to hell and beyond. And he had to be extradited to the USA to face corruption charges? Why couldnt he be prosecuted in the UK? When was the last time you heard of anybody big convicted of corruption here in the UK? Of course not, we are all very nice and comfy here, all whiter than white. I quote:

Jeffrey Tesler pleaded guilty to two counts related to the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in a court in Houston, Texas

A London lawyer pleaded guilty on Friday to taking part in a huge international bribery conspiracy that lasted a decade.

Jeffrey Tesler, 62, who operated from shabby offices in Tottenham, north London, admitted helping to steer bribes worth more than $130m (£80m) to Nigerian officials and politicians to land big energy contracts.

He pleaded guilty to two counts related to the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act when he appeared in a courtroom in Houston, Texas, on Friday.

Tesler will be released on a $50,000 cash bond and required to live in the Houston area until he is sentenced on 22 June. He faces up to five years in prison on each count.

Tesler had been sent to the US from his north London home after losing a long legal battle against his extradition. The high court rejected his argument that the alleged crimes did not have a substantial link to the US.

He is the second Briton to be extradited from the UK to the US and plead guilty over the same corruption scandal.

It marks another success for American prosecutors, who have been delving into the corruption allegations for many years. The US prosecutors have compelled three companies implicated in the scandal to pay fines and penalties totalling more than $1bn to settle the cases against them. The US prosecutors make vigorous efforts to crack down on the payment of bribes by executives to win contracts.

In this case, the corrupt payments were made between 1994 and 2004 to secure contracts worth $6bn to build a gas plant on Bonny Island off the coast of Nigeria.

Tesler acted as the middleman for a consortium of four construction firms and funnelled the payments via bank accounts in Monaco and Switzerland.

At one point, Tesler arranged for $1m in $100 notes to be stacked into a pilot's briefcase and delivered to a politician's hotel room to fund a Nigerian political party.

The second Briton, Wojciech Chodan, a 72-year-old retired sales executive for one of the firms, MW Kellogg, pleaded guilty in December after losing his extradition battle and is due to be sentenced on 27 April. Chodan, who lived in the Somerset village of Nunney, faces five years in prison and has agreed to forfeit $720,000 to the US authorities.

The Americans can prosecute corrupt people, but we, supposedly the birthplace of modern law making, are crap at doing this. Our entire political system stands condemned of being a completely useless bunch of wankers. Disgusting.

Criminalise lack of Kindness and Helpfulness

This news story bewildered me. I quote:

The report on a so-called civil courage (duty to rescue) law contains the recommendation that those who passively stand by in a situation of acute danger could land themselves in prison for up to two years or incur fines.
Olle Abrahamsson, who led the inquiry at the justice ministry and will hand over the report to the minister Beatrice Ask on Friday, however advised against following the report's recommendations to introduce the law.
"It would be even harder then to get people to stand witness," he said to the Dagens Nyheter daily.
A "Good Samaritan" law exists in several other countries, including Sweden's Nordic neighbours. The report is the result of an inquiry into whether Sweden should follow suit and adopt a similar legal praxis.
Abrahamsson argued that the law had little effect in many of the countries, arguing that those disinclined to assist would not change their behaviour just because they could be held to account in the courts.
He furthermore more pointed out that US studies indicate that more die while helping out those in need, than are actually saved.
France's good Samaritan law is perhaps one of the most well-known in a European context.
While the law requires bystanders to assist those falling victim to crime or accident, the law generally excludes assistance that would endanger the person who is offering it.
Good Samaritan laws take their name from a parable told by Jesus commonly referred to as the Parable of the Good Samaritan contained in Luke 10:25-37. The parable tells the tale of aid given by one traveller to another traveler of a different religious and ethnic background who had been robbed and beaten by bandits.

So now I am going to be prosecuted for minding my own business? oh! goody, this just follows this news story. I quote:

MORE than a dozen emergency workers refused to pull a man from a waist-deep boating lake because of ‘health and safety’ fears.

For half-an-hour charity shop worker Simon Burgess, 41, was left face down in the shallow water as they waited for a specialist rescue crew.

Mr Burgess, who had gone to the lake to feed the swans, was pronounced dead at the scene but friends claim that if rescuers had waded straight into the water he could have been saved.

The crews of two fire engines, two police cars, two ambulances and an air ambulance were told not to enter the lake, which is no more than three feet (one metre) at its deepest point, in case they ‘compromised their safety’.

Europe is becoming moronic and stupid, the state is seriously become stupid. What the hell is this? where is the reliance on individual rights, liberalism and self responsibility? Somebody has to legislate to tell you to be nice and kind and helpful? This is shameful indeed.

Interesting Interview questions by a trader

From here.

1) To assess energy, drive, initiative

1.Why are you here?

2. How did you prepare for this interview?

3. What was on the front page of the FT today?

2) To assess personal growth and performance over time

4. Tell me about your job?

5. What could make you fail here?

3) To assess past accomplishments

6. What was the biggest success you had over the last 12 months?

7. What is the most pressure you have ever been under?

4) To assess problem solving skills

8 Is your intelligence above average? What percentage of people have above average intelligence?

9. Does the quality of your decision making improve under pressure?

10. How many buses are there in London?

11. What is 32*32? How confident are you about that answer?

12. How many degrees between the hands on the clock at 3.15?

5) To assess overall talent, technical competency and potential

13. What makes you a good trader?

14. What is the most money you have ever lost?

6) To assess management and organizational ability

15. If I gave you £100,000 what would you do with it?

16. What is the most difficult decision you ever had to make?

7) To assess team leadership and the ability to motivate others

17. Do you react better to compliments or criticism?

18. How do you deal with authority when you perceive them to be wrong?

8) To assess character - values, commitment, goals

19. What would you wear to the office?

20. How are you with money? Are you a big spender? Are you in debt?

21. Would you screw someone over to get ahead?

9) To assess personality and cultural fit

22. How do you measure success in your life?

23. Why should we hire you and not someone else?

24. If things go wrong do you tend to blame other people or take responsibility yourself?

25. How do you think the interview went? If you were me would you hire you?

Some people having fun with books

Dalai Lama is the Taliban Political Guide

Thanks for this, John, lol. I think the Italians need to invest in some english translation skills, lol.

from here.

TIBET: DALAI LAMA WILL GIVE UP HIS POLITICAL ROLE

07:16 10 MAR 2011
(AGI) Dharamshala - The Dalai Lama announced his intention to resign from his role as the Taliban's political guide. The 75-year-old Peace Nobel Laureate explained that the time has come to make room for his successor, to be freely elected, and is considering an amendment that might allow him to resign from his political appointment, to be discussed in next week's meeting of Tibet's exiled Parliament. . .

The river of knowledge in books

This painting is just brilliant. Shows the river of knowledge encapsulated in books and then a lovely reading chair.

And you sit in the lovely chair, with a cuppa tea, a foot stool, surrounded with lovely green foliage and read and read and read.

Male Circumcision is as heinous as female genital mutilation

When a male baby gets its foreskin snipped off by a rabbi or a mullah, just how and why is it different from a woman whose clitoris or labia are removed? There is no choice, there is religious or tradition sanction and at end of the day, the child loses some of its bits. Just how is this freedom of religion? Would you allow a parent to keep their child in filth or not give them medicine just because some medieval obscurantist religion demands it? It is just bizarre. And for people saying that it does not actually change the sexual feeling, that’s not the point, the point is that you are actually removing a bit from your child just because a culture or religion says so. That’s conceptually the same as that of FGM, they offer up the same excuse, its part of religion or its part of culture. Go figure. Bah!

Internships, what do you look for?

Dear Son

I know you will be going for an internship soon. This is the 2 week work experience that your school has requested for all 15 year olds. The idea being that you get some idea of what work is before completing your basic schooling. This will allow you to choose if you want to keep on going for higher studies or decide to move into vocational training. You did look around to see if you can find a local internship but for a variety of reasons (including too many people, not enough firms locally, etc. etc.) it fell on me to see what we can do.

One of my friends offered you a 1 day session at his computer lab in Brighton last year which hopefully you found of some use but it wasn't enough, you really cannot pick up much, but what it did help was to get you to understand that you do not want to be a programmer. Which is good, many times, its good to know what not to do or what you don't want to do rather than what you want to do. So that was time well spent.

I never took up an internship, the concept simply did not exist. First job was stuffing envelopes for a bank’s marketing campaign. And then the next proper job was to be an assistant professor. Anyway, what I am trying to say is that I did not do my career in a systematic basis. Basically drifted from a job to job, depending upon what opportunities are available or when I get bored. So bumbled through and at this moment, have a collection of experiences and careers. Well, it sort of turned out right, fairly ok with future career prospects, finances and and and, but that’s not really something that one can do. One should learn from one’s mistake and hence this letter to you son.

So I met with my friend who is offering you an internship at a human resource services firm in London. We had a long chat about what makes sense. In 2 weeks, you aren't going to learn how to be the CEO, but that led me to think about what would I expect from an intern who is 15 years of age, very good in Mathematics, Science, Logic, Languages, Economics and Finance, ICT, but not so good in the fluffier subjects like religion? You are good with people but I think you need to develop the bit of arrogance and brutality which is required. And yes, I use these words purposefully because a bit of bolshiness and aggressiveness is required in the business world.

Well, I would like the following things for you to learn

• Learn about basic office operations. How to dress up, how to speak to people, how to attend meetings, how does a desk work, how do you check out stationery cupboards, how to make a cup of coffee.
• Learn how office teams work, listen to people, how do groups form, how does work get done in teams, what kind of people are there in terms of personality types, what is a team leader and what is a team follower. The dynamics
• Learn how work is allocated to various people. How does a manager learn how to give what to do to whom?
• Learn how you are going to deal with office relationships, romantic, friendly, angry, tedious, patient, etc. etc.
• Learn how to ask for help from others when you are faced with a task that you haven't done before, you do not know where to get the information, how to process that information and how to present the information. Nobody expects you to know everything but people WILL expect you to take the initiative, ask around for help and then get things done.
• You need to learn about determination and dedication. Sometimes I feel that you give up too easily (perhaps all Dad’s think so..) but that is not what an office worker can afford to do, the expectation is that you will really try your best to sort things out
• Perhaps most important is to know how to have fun. Son, you will be spending the best part of your waking time at work. If it isn't fun, you will be a miserable old git. Waking up in the morning and walking out of the door, you have to learn to have a spring in your step, learn to overcome the other miserable old git bad vibes and walk into the office with a smile and say, I am a happy character, I want to be with other happy people and I am going to conquer the world today. Have fun, son, have a smile on your face all the time. Its good exercise as well.
• Learn how to help others, you need to pick up non verbal tips on how people might be struggling. So go over and offer some help. If nothing, offer to go make a cup of tea for them. People like that, they like helpful people.
• Thanks to Namrata Kotwani who suggested that I do mention that you need to learn that work can be boring once in a while or quite frequently, just do it, buckle down and keep on it and gently try to move to the exciting bits. Dont moan, groan, whine and cry. Suck it up and do something about it. Nobody likes a whiner.

Not sure how much technical skills you will pick up and I don't have much expectations from you on that, but if you can learn how to identify opportunities, how the recruitment process works, how various jobs are pitched for fulfilment, how a business makes money, basic stuff. But if you do not or cannot, not a problem, in 2 weeks, you cannot do everything. In the immortal words of Surma Bhopali in Sholay, “do rupia me pura jangal kharidna hai?” You cannot buy the entire jungle with 2 rupees.

So if you can get this done, then the question is, what does your employer get out of it? Now that is crucial, never look at things only from your perspective, son. You are in a business relationship, both the parties need to get something out of it. If the firm is offering you an internship, what will they get out of you? This is where you need to be very smart. If you can get a reputation or expertise or experience of being in a win-win situation, then you are brilliantly placed. So think about what you will provide to them. Will you provide them with your technical skills? Or some good piece of analysis? Have you seen their website? Have you understood their industry? Do you know what questions you can answer for them? Will you be able to leave their firm in 2 weeks and leave behind a reputation saying, “bloody hell, that little pint sized pip squeak came in, and within 2 weeks, did this piece of analysis, learnt all this and left us wishing that he was older and we should grab him as an equity partner / valued employee as soon as he finishes school”. That’s the ideal, so be constantly on the lookout for how to make a difference to them.

I think I have banged on enough, son, and sorry for writing this in blog post. I found that other kind friends also write in with their suggestions and that gets reflected in our conversations with you. Anyway, right now you are a teenager and conversations with adults are usually one way. I think this is one way of communicating. Hope this helps, and best of luck with your internship. I might write some more later on. And anyway, blame your mum, she started writing letters to her baby! and you are also my baby even if you have started shaving.

See these links,

1. What a 15 year old told a venerable investment bank?

2. Some good advice on internships.