Are Pensions Just An Enormous Ponzi Scheme?
The title of this post was suggested by someone who I know well, who works in the City.
He has a point, as once people stop joining and contributing, it all goes belly up.
Think about it! And think too about all the rules brought in to protect the early joiners in the scheme and also to make sure that advisors get their part of your hard-earned pension pot!
Is This Good News?
I went to see a new doctor yeserday as I have a couple of issues after the stroke.
He prescribed two things; an MRI scan and an increased level of exercise. As the MRI scan is to be on my left arm, rather than my brain, I consider that good news. He also thought that I should up my level of fitness training and perhaps see a personal trainer.
Am I right to consider that to be good news?
I’ve certainly felt more upbeat today!
On Line Grocery Shopping
It was reported today on BBC Breakfast that on-line grocery shopping is not being the great success it should be.
As a widower, who lives alone and who is very computer literate, you’d think I would do a lot of on-line grocery shopping. When my wife was alive, we did quite a bit as we both worked full time and I actually worked at home to take in the deliveries.
Now, I’ve had a serious stroke, can’t drive and have moved to Dalston and although I buy lots of goods like books, furniture and electrical items on the web, I haven’t bought any groceries on-line.
Last week though, I saw the future. I went to my local Waitrose in Upper Street, did a large shop and then they delivered it an hour or so later. As I had a job to do at home, it only meant, I had to get the bus home to arrive before the delivery did.
The only problem was the driver had left his pen at the previous delivery. So I gave him one of my many spares.
But it was just so much less hassle than waiting in at home to collect some goods that might be quite not what you want. As after all, I had chosen them in the shop, so if they were wrong, it would have been my fault.
As shopping innovations like this get more common, on-line shopping will continue to lose out. And in some cases it will replace driving to the supermarket.
Why Businesses Have a Cash Flow Problem
When I moved in here, I had a small problem and a local builder came round and fixed it. They did a good job and got me out of a hole.
Yesterday, six months later, I got a bill for the work. The only surprise was that it was probably about twenty pounds less than I had expected.
As I usualy do with bills that aren’t worth disputing, I decided to pay it immediately. I have given up on cheques and always pay bills by direct transfer. But there were no bank account details on the bill or even an e-mail address. So I had to ring them up to get the information I needed. And the phone was engaged.
I do think this is typical of many small businesses and is it any wonder they have a cash-flow problem!
Does A Blank Square Exist On An Ordnance Survey Map?
They are talking about the Ordnance Survey on BBC Breakfast this morning?
At my primary school, de Bohun in Southgate, there was a guy called Peter Laws. His parents were keen walkers and the family always scanned a new map to see if any of the one-kilometre squares on the map were blank. They had never found one!
But that was in 1958 or so!
So does a mythical blank square actually exist?
Every time I’ve bought a map in the last fifty years or so, I’ve always searched and never found one.
Clarke Loses to the Vengeance Tendency
Sadly, it looks like the progressive sentencing policy of Kenneth Clarke will be dropped according to reports this morning. The Mail and Sun are triumphant.
So what are the government to do now to cut the prison population? Regrettably, I don’t think they’ll be able to do it, so are we to see more prisons being built. I hope not! As the current crime academies, with little or no rehabilitation and education, do not too much to stop offenders going back to a life of crime.
But there is hope from the United States. There crime is dropping and no-one seems to know why. Read this article on the BBC web site, which offers a range of reasons, like Obama being elected President, computer games distracting possible criminals, the deterrent effect of camera-phones and abortion meaning that less prospective recruits are being born.
Many of the factors postulated by American researchers would apply in most places in Europe.
It’s All Greek To Me!
I like Greece and the Greek people for that matter, even if they do smoke too much!
I also like the euro and on the whole think it is a good thing and we should have joined, just like we should have joined Schengen.
The trouble with Greece is that they don’t like rules and especially those imposed by others on their economy. One Greek told me that’s why they all smoke in restaurants despite it being against the law.
So perhaps their economy wasn’t strong enough for Greece to join the single currency, but for a few years it gave them a lot of cheap money, just as it did Ireland. So now that the lenders want it back, there’s problems all round. Robert Peston of the BBC analyses it all here.
I’m no economist, so where it will all end, I do not know. But I am a qualified control engineer and I do know that the Greek economy has all the stability of a bicycle with the handles stuck either turning to the left or right.
Just like the bicycle, the Greek economy will have an awful crash.
The villians really are not the Greeks here, but the politicians who wanted a single currency and didn’t really think through about how to make it work properly. If the right rules had been in place from the first day, then there would have been no need for a bailout of Greece, Ireland or Portugal.
I suspect now, that if it was that stable, then we would have joined the euro. Or we would have at least tried to!
I’ve Just Been Spammed By Pitney Bowes
I thought they were a respectable company, but an e-mail from them has just ended up in my spam trap.
So they’re now on my “Never do business with this company” list! It won’t make any difference to them, as far as I’m concerned as I use proper stamps anyway.
But when will these companies ever learn?
Would Anybody Ever Use Western Union?
I had four spam e-mails this morning with a title of “You have $250,000.00 Lodged in our Western Union” and a body of “RESPOND FOR DETAILS”
I like the fact that they call it our Western Union!
Does it mean they own it or there’s another one, we don’t know about? The e-mails came from a supposedly Peruvian .pe e-mail address.
Western Union’s name is now so discredited that I and I suspect any serious person, who uses the Internet, would ever use it. I have never used the company in the past and probably never will in the future.
Although looking at the financial results of the company, they seem to be doing quite well.
A Spammer Gets Screwed, Glued and Tattooed
I don’t like spammers and this story is worth a read.
The hero is actually an American law firm, that took up a ridiculous case against a British anti-spam organisation; Spamhaus, on a pro-bono basis.
The Anonymous Widower 