Aid Money Well Spent

India is recipient on hundreds of millions of pounds in foreign aid from the UK, despite us being broke. So most UK taxpayers will be thrilled to note that this week India took possession of a new Russian-built nuclear-powered submarine, the Chakra, into its fleet. Its also building a new class of nuclear-powered boats intended to carry nuclear-armed ballistic missiles.
  
Apparently a refurbished Russian aircraft carrier with advanced Mig-29K jets will enter service next year, followed by an Indian-built aircraft carrier in due course.

Of course the irony is that while India is busy spending billions on these weapons, and we feed their poor, our own armed forces are being cut, soldiers and sailors laid off and the Harrier jump jets and HMS Ark Royal and HMS Invincible have been scrapped. This leaves the UK with no functioning aircraft carriers, while India will have two by next year.

UK used to be a major naval power .... now?

If anyone except some PC bonehead can explain why we give £800 million to a self styled 'super power' which is spending billions on rockets, and aircraft carriers, while we make our armed forces redundant, and strip ourselves of the very same capabilities please get in touch.   

Its also ironic to note that India wants a seat on the UN security council, at the UK's expense .... no doubt we will still be giving them 'aid' as they kick our lily white asses out of the doors of influence.  

Indians Unsanitary Development

UN experts have published a nine-point prescription for achieving the world's Millennium Development Goal for sanitation by 2015.

Their report reveals that 600 million Indian people - the equivalent of 54% of the population - defecated in the open air in 2008/9. In contrast to this poor figure, 545 million Indians have admitted to owning mobile phones and being connected to a network.

Following the publication of these conflicting statistics, Zafar Adeel, director of UN think-tank the Institute for Water, Environment and Health, has reinforced the need for a ‘popular education' about the dangers of poor sanitation.

'‘This simple measure could do more to save lives, improve health and help pull India and other countries in a similar circumstance out of poverty than any alternative investment' he said.

The Indian Government has vowed to end open defecation by 2012 ..... no chance, they prefer to beg for alms from the West and then spend their own money on Space Rockets, Nuclear weapons and stealing western jobs.

1930's Economics Revisited?

The US very nearly resorted to old style protectionism last week. They can't go isolationist because they are oil dependent and most of their debts are owned by the Arabs and Asians, however there is ever a strand of feeling in the US that they can just shut the door and let the world go to hell.

At the last minute, they listened to veiled threats from the Canadians, Europeans and Asians that retaliation would be swift, if the US carried on with the "Buy American" clause of a economic recovery bill, and softened it. Speaking before a vote on that amendment, Mr McCain warned that if the provisions were passed it would "only be a matter of time before we face an array of similar protectionism from other countries - from 'Buy European' to 'Buy Japanese' and more".

Whether its enough to stop tit for tat legislation in the EU and Jap/China blocks remains to be seen but the amended bill passed through the Senate as well.

All this talk of the 1930's style economics reminded me that I had blogged about the similarities between now and the 1930's especially financially before. But more interestingly I had just read an economic article suggesting that protectionism wasn't all bad.

The article suggested that distinguished economists have established pretty convincingly that it was the staying on the gold standard that helped turn a mismanaged US stock market crash into a global slump, by causing a prolonged and devastating period of falling prices.

"The gold standard (in effect, a fixed exchange rate system anchored by the price of gold) led the world's leading economies into a deflationary spiral. That was because the only way for deficit countries to stem the resulting flow of gold (money) out of the country was by shrinking domestic demand, which led to a further downward spiral in prices and incomes.

Since everyone was doing the same thing (and surplus countries like the US were not allowing inflows of gold to stimulate demand), this didn't help countries out of their hole - they just collectively dug themselves deeper and deeper. The first countries to dump the gold standard were also the quickest out of deflation and the quickest to recover."

It then went on to point out the collapse of world trade was as a result of this deflation problem, rather than 'protectionism' being the cause of depression. However, as it goes on to say the world is too interdependent to go down the 'self-dependency' route theses days, as the American politicians were quickly made to realise this week.

Dell Hell

Well, where to start. At the beginning seems a good place. I bought a new laptop before Christmas after my old one appeared to die an inglorious death. A Dell seemed to be a good idea (I was relying on their old reputation), and so I ordered one. 15 days later it arrived, but with a couple of faults.

Offshore Call Centres Are Not Great Experiences ....

This was the start of a wonderful adventure via a very polite, but totally inept, help and support sections in Bangalore. I soon discovered that being able to speak 'Inglish' and understand English are two completely separate matters. They listened and thanked me for my custom, which apparently was "valued", but they then proceeded along the line of least discomfort for them. i.e. They resolved nothing.