Help a man raise funds for the British Heart Foundation

One of my colleagues is walking for 50 kilometres to raise money for the British Heart Foundation. I don't do stuff like that, its against my religion, but I am happy to look and admire people who do this kind of strenuous activity for charity. So if you can help him out, that would be good.

Click here for the link.

24 years of incompetence and stupidity

The department of Work and Pensions has, for the last 24 years, managed to bollox up the benefits system to such a large degree that last year, it managed to lose £3.2b and underpay £1.3b.

What is this? Is this what the taxpayer is working his nuts off for? that you cannot manage a benefits system? If the problem is complexity, then simplify it but then, these bloody governments cannot resist tinkering with the tax system. So the cost of a massively complex benefits and tax system, besides the usual economic costs, is this.

Unbelievable. This beast must be starved to death. More austerity and less taxes. Only then will this incompetent behemoth start looking at its own internal efficiencies.

Department for Work and Pensions accounts show £3.2bn lost in overpayments and £13bn underpaid

The Whitehall spending auditor has declined to sign off in full the accounts of the Department for Work and Pensions for the 24th year running, because of the extent of fraud and error in the benefits system.

Some £3.2bn is thought to have been lost through overpayments in 2011/12. Underpayments came to an estimated £1.3bn.

Auditor general Amyas Morse said fraud and error was "unacceptably high" and qualified his opinion of the DWP's accounts, the 24th year consecutive year this has been the case for the department and its benefits-handling predecessors.

Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who chairs the public accounts committee, said the DWP had failed to get a grip on fraud and error despite assurances that it would do so. "This department has the biggest budget in Whitehall and its inability, 24 years in a row, to administer its spending properly is just unacceptable," she said.

"With fraud and error of £4.5bn in 2011-12, roughly the same as in previous years, huge sums of money are being lost to the public purse that could have been spent on our schools and hospitals.

"Government spending is at its tightest for over 50 years and it simply can't afford to carry on like this."

She said the government was relying on the forthcoming introduction of the universal credit to "get its house in order" but that the transition to the new benefit was "full of risks" and potentially off-schedule.

"The department has got to get a grip on fraud and error now. Despite its assurances to my committee, it has not done so and it must do better," she said.

Morse said: "The level of fraud and error in the welfare system remains unacceptably high.

"I recognise, however, the difficulty of administering in a cost-effective way a benefits system of such complexity.

"The department should use the development of universal credit as an opportunity to enhance its processes to demonstrate what a modern, effective and joined-up benefits system will look like.

"In refreshing its approach to reducing fraud and error, the department needs to continue to improve its understanding of the root causes of fraud and error."

The auditor general's qualified opinion did not apply to the state pension, which has a much lower level of fraud and error, with £100m of overpayments and £150m of underpayments last year.

But he did also qualify his opinion of the separate social fund account – which includes cold weather payments, winter fuel payments, Sure Start maternity grants, crisis loans and community care grants – because of the extent of errors.

That account has now been qualified for nine years running.

Morse said the DWP had made "improvements" in some areas regarding the social fund but added that it "must build on these improvements if it is fully to resolve the regularity and debt issues".

The frustrated engineer inside me loves this

Deaths in the world

This was an extraordinary graph, not least because of the great way they described the data. You will need to click on it and download and zoom and gape and wonder. If you do want to get upset, there is much blame to go around. Some of them really surprised me, Aurangzeb was responsible for 4.6 million deaths? Or the British Famines in India killed 27 million or that the fall of the Ming Dynasty killed off 25 million. What was horrific was the sheer scale of the deaths due to the slave trade (curious how much we know about the Atlantic trade versus the middle east trade).

So who is to blame for us being 26th out of 34 countries?

So we are good in education, eh? Specially the Maths side? Erm no.

The report found that just 1.7% of England's 15-year-olds reached the highest level, Level 6, in maths, compared with an OECD average of 3.1%.

In Switzerland and Korea, 7.8% of pupils reached this level.

Overall, England ranked 26th out of 34 OECD countries for the proportion of pupils reaching the top level in maths, behind other nations like Slovenia (3.9%), the Slovak Republic (3.6%) France (3.3%) and the Czech Republic (3.2%), which were among those scoring around the OECD average.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

These figures show that few bright non-privileged students reach their academic potential - which is unfair and a tragedy ”

Sir Peter LamplSutton Trust

The report adds that the situation looks worse for England when a wider global comparison is used.

Singapore, which is not part of the OECD table analysed, saw 15.6% of its students score the top level, while in Hong Kong and Shanghai, which were also not part of the OECD table, 10.8% and 26.6% respectively got the top level.

Sutton Trust chairman Sir Peter Lampl said: "This is a deeply troubling picture for any us who care about our brightest pupils from non-privileged backgrounds."

The study also suggests that comparing the maths results of 18-year-olds would be even more stark because 90% of English pupils drop the subject after GCSE.

Whereas in many other countries, maths is compulsory up to the age of 18.

The report argues that England is falling down international tables because of successive failures to help the most able pupils.

So assuming that it takes 5 years to fix something like this, who were the ministers at the head of the education ministry going back to 2002 or so?

Ruth Kelly, she has now left politics and is working as an economist.

Alan Johnson is now an MP

Ed Balls is currently the Shadow Chancellor.

Michael Gove is the current Minister.

sighs. Good heavens. So what have the 2 respective parties saying?

Education Secretary Michael Gove added: "We already knew that under Labour we plummeted down the international league tables in maths. "Now we see further evidence that they betrayed bright children from poor backgrounds and - worst of all - that their policies drove talented children from disadvantaged backgrounds away from the subjects that employers and universities value most."

Shadow Education Secretary Stephen Twigg said: "Results for all pupils, including the brightest, improved under Labour. "While there are always improvements that could be made, gifted and talented pupils were stretched through a National Academy, targeted scholarships and a new A* grade at A-level. "While we want to see bright pupils stretched, this can't be at the expense of leaving some behind. Michael Gove's plans will create a two tier exam system, which will do nothing to help all pupils make the most of their potential."

What the hell? Whose head has rolled because of several years of under performance? Look at what the moronic Stephen Twigg says, listen, you muppet, the point was to stretch the top guys. He totally missed the point, but then the Labour government has screwed it up anyway, so one cannot just trust these buggers with anything. But to be so intellectually stupid? And he is supposed to be the chap who is supposed to look after what the government is doing? God save our kids. So what is our Government’s plans? Oh! good, its to blame the previous government. /facepalm. I like your strategy, Mr. Gove. I don't want you to blame others, I want you to fix the bloody thing. What are you doing about it?

so what are the teachers saying about the diabolical performance?

Commenting on the Sutton Trust’s analysis of the performance of highly able pupils in international league tables, Christine Blower, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, the largest teachers’ union, said:
“No one would wish highly able children to achieve anything less than their best. It is the case that approaches to Maths across OECD countries differ. Jurisdictions which prize critical thinking and problem solving as well as creativity are the areas in which young people – highly able or otherwise – do well in Pisa tests.
“The creation of additional elements in league tables is not the way to improve outcomes for the ‘highly able’ students. A broad curriculum in which critical thinking is prized would be. The NUT hopes that the Department for Education will have regard to this when the secondary curriculum review is published, and will reflect on it as responses come in to the primary curriculum review.”

/facepalm. What a load of pap and stupid utterances. This is the comment from another teaching union head.

Nasuwt teaching union head Chris Keates said the tests used to draw the comparisons, and the way children prepare for them, differed between countries. "Their conclusions raise more questions than they answer. They are not comparing like with like. "The education systems are different. The pupils taking the tests are selected differently. Some countries do nothing but prepare for the tests for months. Some, like Shanghai may not enter a pupil sample generally reflective of the student population and use crammer sessions to prepare."

ooooo, that’s a new one, Chris, so the test itself was bad, our students are all math geniuses and great. /facepalm. Great leadership there.

End result? nobody is talking about actually doing anything, the politicians are blaming each other, one teacher head is blaming the government and the other is blaming the tests themselves.

My poor children of my nation.

How Our Education System Turns Away Thousands Of Brilliant People Every Da

so who invented email?

Son

Another very interesting story here...who really invented email? I first used email when I landed in Manchester in 1992, way way way after all this happened. quite interesting, this debate about electronic history.
Love
baba

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/2012/05/shiva-ayyaduri-email-us-postal-service/?page=all
V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai — the MIT lecturer who invented e-mail — had spent years blasting the struggling United States Postal Service for its failure to embrace the revenue potential of his creation. So when he was recruited to help save the U.S. Mail earlier this year, Ayyadurai made headlines and was suddenly a star. That’s when the trouble started.

The Philosopher's Beard: The art of business and the science of economics

Dear Kannu

Good to hear that your religious education exam went well. 

I was reminded about the forgotten links between religion and economics. Religion is concerned about the behaviour and actions of the believers. Strangely enough, so is economics. And business. Some of the fundamental aspects of economics such as money,  interest rates, assets, free markets, tax deductibility of some expenses, accounting etc have some fascinating religious links. 

Anyway. Here's an interesting article on the difference between business and economics. It's good that you are studying economics first. It will give you a good picture of the overall world, markets etc etc.

it's surprising how many business people forget the basics of economics. But then people who forget the laws of economics are condemned to keep on violating them and pay for it. Spend less than you earn. Mind your cash flow. Invest in the future. Ensure you make your customers successful. Keep open to new ideas, capital and labour. Don't subsidise things. Etc etc. 

Love

Baba

The Philosopher's Beard: The art of business and the science of economics
http://www.philosophersbeard.org/2011/10/art-of-business-and-science-of.html

---

Business and economics are tied up together in lots of people’s minds. After all, they’re both about money, aren’t they? An awful lot of people seem to believe that economics is Big Business and business is small economics. (Even the generally reliable Economist magazine seems to use this definition in deciding what should go in its business or economics sections.) The failure to keep the two apart leads to some bizarre misconceptions in the popular understanding. For example the idea  that countries are businesses in competition with each other, or that business is about self-serving greed and economics is the soulless science of large scale greed.
Business is the art of commerce. Economics is the study of the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. Just from the definitions we can immediately see one clear difference. Economics concerns systems and general principles and is therefore a theoretical subject eminently suitable for academic study in a university, while business is a practical discipline that does not belong there. Sure there are skills that are important for successful business life - like managing people well, knowing how to make a spreadsheet, giving great powerpoint - but there’s nothing academic about them. Business schools also make much of their case-studies, analysing a famous or infamous company or manager, usually with a particular theme in mind. This may properly be called biography (or creative writing), and seems as useless to practical business life as the obligatory single course on moral theory. Of course there are real theoretical economics issues associated with business that can be the subject of rigorous academic research, such as the economics of imperfect competition (industrial organisation), the theory of the firm, and logistics. But these can just as well be studied in economics departments.
So why does business studies exist as an independent academic subject? Two main reasons spring to mind: demand from students, and demand from business professionals. First, teaching business studies at universities allows young people who want to pursue a career in commerce to attain a certificate of academic prestige, which is fashionable these days [previously]. They also seem to have the mistaken idea that university is a good place to learn useful skills (when in fact students of business studies, and other vocational subjects, seem to learn the least from their college experience). In order to meet this lucrative demand, simulacra of academic departments were created, which then, in order to support their legitimacy, had to invent some new field of scientific research or recharacterise an existing area of study as ‘business economics’.

The True Cost of Commuting

Dear son

I think we have talked about this. I detest driving in the city. Driving in the countryside is marginally better. A more useless exercise I cannot imagine. With all the new technology and facilities to hand, to physically make an effort to transport yourself is frankly silly. Not to mention very expensive. 

I would have lived in the city but it's not a fun place for kids and it's not possible to buy a house in there. I cannot live without a garden and the ability to garden. Hence a compromise. 

Still this economic argument in this article is great. Makes perfect sense. Which is why I'm happy with our old car :)

See if you can come up with a better economic argument or a different one. 

Love

Baba

The True Cost of Commuting | Mr. Money Mustache
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-commuting/

---

 

The True Cost of Commuting

It was a beautiful evening in my neighborhood, and I was enjoying one of my giant homebrews on a deck chair I had placed in the middle of the street, as part of a nearby block’s Annual Street Party.

I was talking to a couple I had just met, and the topic turned to the beauty of the neighborhood. “Wow, I didn’t even realize this area was here”, the guy said, “It’s beautiful and old and the trees are giant and all of the families hang out together outside as if it were still 1950!”. “Yeah”, said his wife, “We should really move here!”.

Then the discussion turned to the comparatively affordable housing, and the other benefits of living in my particular town.  By the end of it, these people were verbally working out the details of a potential move within just a few months.

Except their plan was absurd.

Because these two full-time professional workers currently happen to live and work in “Broomfield”, a city that is about 19 miles and 40 minutes of  high-traffic driving away from here. They brushed off the potential commute, saying “Oh, 40 minutes, that’s not too bad.”

Yes, actually it IS too bad! … But this misconception about what is a reasonable commute is probably the biggest thing that is keeping most people in the US and Canada poor.

Let’s take a typical day’s drive for this self-destructive couple. Adding 38 miles of round-trip driving at the IRS’s estimate of total driving cost of $0.51 per mile, there’s $19 per day of direct driving and car ownership costs. It is possible to drive for less, but these people happen to have fairly new cars, bought on credit, so they are wasting the full amount.

Next is the actual human time wasted. At 80 minutes per day, the self-imposed driving would be adding the equivalent of almost an entire work day to each work week – so they would now effectively be working 6 days per week.

After 10 years, multiplied across two cars since they have different work schedules, this decision would cost them about $125,000 in wealth (if they had for example chosen to put the $19/day into extra payments on their mortgage), and 1.3 working years worth of time, EACH, spent risking their lives daily behind the wheel*.

That’s EVERY ten years. And that’s with a commute that most Americans claim is “not too bad”.

HUMAN CAPITAL AND THE S UPPLY OF HOME-GROWN IS LAMIC TERRORIS TS IN THE UK

One of my friends passed this paper across to me. I am constantly surprised at the usual image of terrorists being from poor families. No, I am afraid not. People who want to commit violence for a political or religious reason are NOT poor or illiterate, you need to be fairly smart to get over the usual threshold of violence, be able to rationalise violence and be intelligent enough to understand that you need to do extraordinary stuff to get out of the way of the law.

Here in the UK, a comparison was done between UK Muslims and UK Muslims convicted of terrorist offences (77). To no surprise, they find that the terrorists are significantly higher educated than the usual population. Curiously and strangely, there is also a statistical significance if you are male, unemployed, married and UK citizen. Go figure. A facetious comment was that your wife is going to make your life so difficult at home when you are unemployed that you take up terrorism? Also, curiously, “

Ethnic origin is also a statistically significant predictor of being convicted, with this most likely if
UK Muslims are of African and mixed Southeast Asia-White ethnic origin

Hmmm, not sure what one can say about this. But one should keep a beady eye out on those universities.