Question:
Why is a good European liberal like you such a fan of Pat Buchanan?
Answer:
Because he often, but not always, talks a lot of sense. And I have fewer problems with traditional conservatives than the neo-conservatives and libertarian conservatives who are running the show these days.
So rather than me as a foreigner daring to have the audacity to tell Americans what to do, read the brilliant piece dated July 31st on Romney and Israel: Is Mitt Being Neoconned Into War?
http://www.creators.com/conservative/pat-buchanan/is-mitt-being-neoconned-into-war.html
Read the piece dated July 20th on globalisation: The Chickens of Globalization Come Home to Roost - substitute Europe(an) for America(n) with jobs and companies and it is virtually the same.
http://www.creators.com/conservative/pat-buchanan/the-chickens-of-globalization-come-home-to-roost.html
And the fact that you can substitute European for American in that last piece is indicative of why Europeans should be interested in what is happening in the US. And vice versa!
Tuesday, 31 July 2012
Monday, 30 July 2012
Trickle-down economics revisited - Part 2
In 1945 Germany was in ruins. Hitler's 1,000 year Reich had brought the country into an aggressive war and the massive defeat that followed, and, unlike in 1918, much by way of industrial, commercial and residential property had been destroyed.
By 1965 it was an industrial powerhouse, economically dynamic, prosperous, successful and a model democracy (at least in what was now "West Germany").
20 years. What happened?
In many ways it was fortunate in its friends. The allies could easily have applied another Treaty of Versailles in 1946, and washed their hands of the country when it couldn't pay. In many respects there were more reasons to expect Germany to pay for the war damages after the Second World War than after the First.
There was though the ogre of Communism in the East. The whole of Germany might have followed the Eastern part of country into the Soviet bloc, and then ....
So along came the Marshall Plan (not just in Germany, but strategically important nonetheless in German reconstruction).
Then came democracy, the CDU, Adenauer and Erhard, the economic miracle, and the rest is the proverbial history.
The CDU was a new Conservative party. Its principles were traditional conservative. Its economic thinking founded in traditional conservatism (even if Erhard, with his brilliant mind, gave it some new directions). It was not a government based on neo-conservative principles adopting neo-liberal economics. That point needs clearly stating and the difference clearly emphasising!
The manufacture of quality goods and their circulation, the involvement of all company personnel in their production and circulation, involving the workforce in discussions on adequate compensation and ensuring that they were adequately rewarded. The workforce taking their wages to buy goods produced by other companies which again allowed those companies to produce more and become profitable so there were more profits to share and the cycle could ever increase ..... usw.
Not that there wasn't international trade. The port of Hamburg would not have become prosperous without it. Raw materials had to be imported, and paid for by the export of finished goods. Agricultural products that could not be produced sufficiently at home had to be purchased. Which is really how the Common Market got started (successfully!).
Society was inclusive, people worked hard (work ethic was an important part of the culture), debts were paid off and not accumulated, savings culture was encouraged. Of course some people were better off than others, of course there were some social issues - it was not perfect. But it was mainly successful.
And there was also no regional emphasis placing one part of the country ahead of any other, so that the financial centre round Frankfurt (which also had the burgeoning international airport) was not seen as more important than the manufacturing areas of the Ruhr, or the car plants in Bavaria and Niedersachsen (the UK, in particular, and France to a point, could do to take very clear notice of that!).
What was not around during that era of reconstruction and success?
Trickle-down economics!
Everyone had a part to play, many, if not all benefited. Including the conservative (but not neo-conservative!) government, which was re-elected in several consecutive elections. Why should working people vote against a government that was improving their lifestyle and their standard of living?
That Adenauer and Erhard are still regarded as almost iconic figures in Germany by my contemporaries here is really not surprising. And the fact that that is no longer current Germany also leads to more than a touch of nostalgia.
But the model is worth revisiting. THE POST-1980 MODEL of speculating on debt, removing the means of production from the local environment, emphasising cheap as against quality, idolising currency speculators, and thinking that what happens on international stock markets is more important than the quality and manufacture of goods, HAS FAILED!
It has produced mass unemployment, huge degrees of insecurity, increasing poverty in the developed world without alleviating it elsewhere, a generally declining standard of living of working people, the erosion of work-ethic, and ludicrously high amounts of unsustainable debt!
Failure is failure by any definition. Trickle-down economics is a total failure, and needs replacing with a solution that benefits all - and not just the rich and powerful!
By 1965 it was an industrial powerhouse, economically dynamic, prosperous, successful and a model democracy (at least in what was now "West Germany").
20 years. What happened?
In many ways it was fortunate in its friends. The allies could easily have applied another Treaty of Versailles in 1946, and washed their hands of the country when it couldn't pay. In many respects there were more reasons to expect Germany to pay for the war damages after the Second World War than after the First.
There was though the ogre of Communism in the East. The whole of Germany might have followed the Eastern part of country into the Soviet bloc, and then ....
So along came the Marshall Plan (not just in Germany, but strategically important nonetheless in German reconstruction).
Then came democracy, the CDU, Adenauer and Erhard, the economic miracle, and the rest is the proverbial history.
The CDU was a new Conservative party. Its principles were traditional conservative. Its economic thinking founded in traditional conservatism (even if Erhard, with his brilliant mind, gave it some new directions). It was not a government based on neo-conservative principles adopting neo-liberal economics. That point needs clearly stating and the difference clearly emphasising!
The manufacture of quality goods and their circulation, the involvement of all company personnel in their production and circulation, involving the workforce in discussions on adequate compensation and ensuring that they were adequately rewarded. The workforce taking their wages to buy goods produced by other companies which again allowed those companies to produce more and become profitable so there were more profits to share and the cycle could ever increase ..... usw.
Not that there wasn't international trade. The port of Hamburg would not have become prosperous without it. Raw materials had to be imported, and paid for by the export of finished goods. Agricultural products that could not be produced sufficiently at home had to be purchased. Which is really how the Common Market got started (successfully!).
Society was inclusive, people worked hard (work ethic was an important part of the culture), debts were paid off and not accumulated, savings culture was encouraged. Of course some people were better off than others, of course there were some social issues - it was not perfect. But it was mainly successful.
And there was also no regional emphasis placing one part of the country ahead of any other, so that the financial centre round Frankfurt (which also had the burgeoning international airport) was not seen as more important than the manufacturing areas of the Ruhr, or the car plants in Bavaria and Niedersachsen (the UK, in particular, and France to a point, could do to take very clear notice of that!).
What was not around during that era of reconstruction and success?
Trickle-down economics!
Everyone had a part to play, many, if not all benefited. Including the conservative (but not neo-conservative!) government, which was re-elected in several consecutive elections. Why should working people vote against a government that was improving their lifestyle and their standard of living?
That Adenauer and Erhard are still regarded as almost iconic figures in Germany by my contemporaries here is really not surprising. And the fact that that is no longer current Germany also leads to more than a touch of nostalgia.
But the model is worth revisiting. THE POST-1980 MODEL of speculating on debt, removing the means of production from the local environment, emphasising cheap as against quality, idolising currency speculators, and thinking that what happens on international stock markets is more important than the quality and manufacture of goods, HAS FAILED!
It has produced mass unemployment, huge degrees of insecurity, increasing poverty in the developed world without alleviating it elsewhere, a generally declining standard of living of working people, the erosion of work-ethic, and ludicrously high amounts of unsustainable debt!
Failure is failure by any definition. Trickle-down economics is a total failure, and needs replacing with a solution that benefits all - and not just the rich and powerful!
Sunday, 29 July 2012
Trickle-down economics revisited - Part 1
To start with some random stats.
Percentage of the UK economy based in the City of London (figure quoted by David Cameron, so I must be absolutely sure that this is correct!) - 13%. The 13 sounds an ominous number. For readers outside the UK, the City of London is the UK equivalent of Wall Street in New York, home of the financial elite, international scam merchants (ever wonder that Nick Leeson's only mistake was getting found out, while dozens of others did exactly the same things and got away with it?), irresponsible gamblers and bailed-out bankers by the dozen.
Percentage of the UK population living below the (official) poverty line - 22%. That figure took a lot of finding, scouting round google. The two major political parties share the same dislike of that figure becoming public knowledge. In certain parts of the country (Tyneside, Humberside, Merseyside, parts of the West Midlands, and certain corners of London) that figure I suspect is far higher.
Economic system in place (and invariably offered as the (IMHO totally phoney) solution since the phrase first appeared around 1980) - trickle-down economics.
Meaning the 13% of created wealth creates jobs which trickles down into other jobs, meaning there is work for the people at the bottom. Given the increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, you begin to wonder whether maidservants and butlers, as in the Victorian days, are going to be needed in great numbers (with the appropriate degree of condescending attitudes towards them) in the not-too-distant future. But I digress.
Definition of "trickle" (quoted from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/trickle without permission):
Percentage of the UK economy based in the City of London (figure quoted by David Cameron, so I must be absolutely sure that this is correct!) - 13%. The 13 sounds an ominous number. For readers outside the UK, the City of London is the UK equivalent of Wall Street in New York, home of the financial elite, international scam merchants (ever wonder that Nick Leeson's only mistake was getting found out, while dozens of others did exactly the same things and got away with it?), irresponsible gamblers and bailed-out bankers by the dozen.
Percentage of the UK population living below the (official) poverty line - 22%. That figure took a lot of finding, scouting round google. The two major political parties share the same dislike of that figure becoming public knowledge. In certain parts of the country (Tyneside, Humberside, Merseyside, parts of the West Midlands, and certain corners of London) that figure I suspect is far higher.
Economic system in place (and invariably offered as the (IMHO totally phoney) solution since the phrase first appeared around 1980) - trickle-down economics.
Meaning the 13% of created wealth creates jobs which trickles down into other jobs, meaning there is work for the people at the bottom. Given the increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, you begin to wonder whether maidservants and butlers, as in the Victorian days, are going to be needed in great numbers (with the appropriate degree of condescending attitudes towards them) in the not-too-distant future. But I digress.
Definition of "trickle" (quoted from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/trickle without permission):
v.intr.
1. To flow or fall in drops or in a thin stream.
2. To move or proceed slowly or bit by bit:
v.tr.
To cause to trickle.
n.
1. The act or condition of trickling.
2. A slow, small, or irregular quantity that moves,
proceeds, or occurs intermittently
In a thin stream? Slowly?? A small or irregular quantity??? That occurs intermittently????
You want to sell me this as a working economic solution for the mass of the population?????
Only 22% of the UK population living with this appalling nonsense are living below the poverty line? How many more soon will be? It sounds (and is!) the road to poverty for the masses - frankly! Back to the Victorian era again!
Trickle-down we definitely do not need. Any other water-related images?
Flood-down economics maybe? Sounds uncomfortable (excess can be as bad as penury in its way).
Selected (Non-Biblical, I am not wasting my time with religious nonsense) definition of "flood" (quoted from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/flood without permission)
n.
1. An overflowing of water onto land that is normally
dry.
2. A flood tide.
3. An abundant flow or outpouring.
v.intr.
1. To become inundated or submerged.
2. To pour forth; overflow.
The third noun definition sounds like it. The first verb definition absolutely not!
What else. OK walk down to the Main (not now - unless getting soaking wet is your preference, the thunder will follow shortly).
Well it flows, forever and a day. No full quotes from the above dictionary for "flow", there are 21 definitions! Number 4 (v.intr) sounds good though:
To proceed steadily and easily.
Which sounds the sort of life that would suit me personally, and many others (I believe), at least economically.
A couple of final comments on this section (part 2 will follow). I am not here advocating failed systems like Communism (though frankly I think that the current version of capitalism imprisons large numbers of people in a cycle of debt, poverty and either unemployment or its twin brother, underemployment, and is scarcely much better). What we are discussing is making capitalism work for the masses, for the good of society as a whole - which is palpably not happening!
As regular readers will also know, I am a pragmatist, not an idealist. And what pragmatically does not work needs replacing by something that does!
Saturday, 28 July 2012
Understanding Anglo-Saxons and the special relationship
For any future American politician who wants to put his foot in it regarding British (and European) history, a few points.
1. The Angles were a tribe originally from Germany - up close to the Danish border. Their existence is disputed (though the name "East Anglia" questions that dispute). However, they are mentioned by the Venerable Bede in early works of British history.
2. The Saxons are less disputed. There are three states in current Germany - Sachsen, Niedersachsen and Sachsen-Anhalt - all still with their name in the title. The "Sax" part of it got corrupted in England to "Sex" (no nowt to do with that!), as in certain counties or former counties or regions - so Essex, Sussex, Middlesex, Wessex.
3. Not all inhabitants of England are descended from the Saxons. Many of us are, particularly in the North of England, from Viking stock (before all the interbreeding took place usw). The Vikings were for years the sworn enemy of the Angles and Saxons (OK, it is over 1,000 years ago - but I still don't trust everyone from dahn Sarth!).
4. Most of the inhabitants of the rest of the United Kingdom were Celts, not Angles and Saxons, and they will still often be proud enough to tell you that. Yes, of course, see also interbreeding above.
5. Then there were the Normans, from the French region of Normandy (with more than a bit of Viking blood mixed in), who made up the nobility and were the people who ran the country for generations and treated the Angles, Saxons, Celts, Vikings usw with, shall we say, more than a degree of contempt.
6. Then there are the immigrants from the former colonies, and not a few from the European continent in recent years (see Poland in particular - whom I believe you will find are Slavic).
7. The "special relationship" sounds interesting in its way, but it dates back principally to Churchill and Roosevelt (a Democrat, for any GOP readers) and WW2. A lot of people in the UK, as a result of Blair's perceived subservience to Bush on the Iraq War, are dubious about how the phrase should be used these days. Often it sounds like a one-sided relationship of master and servant and not a partnership of equals.
8. And anyway what is so wrong with having seriously good relationships with France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Russia, the Czech Republic usw? The UK sometimes gets it wrong (the current government definitely has!). Try keeping all your options open. If you had listened to Joschka Fischer in 2003 for example ....
1. The Angles were a tribe originally from Germany - up close to the Danish border. Their existence is disputed (though the name "East Anglia" questions that dispute). However, they are mentioned by the Venerable Bede in early works of British history.
2. The Saxons are less disputed. There are three states in current Germany - Sachsen, Niedersachsen and Sachsen-Anhalt - all still with their name in the title. The "Sax" part of it got corrupted in England to "Sex" (no nowt to do with that!), as in certain counties or former counties or regions - so Essex, Sussex, Middlesex, Wessex.
3. Not all inhabitants of England are descended from the Saxons. Many of us are, particularly in the North of England, from Viking stock (before all the interbreeding took place usw). The Vikings were for years the sworn enemy of the Angles and Saxons (OK, it is over 1,000 years ago - but I still don't trust everyone from dahn Sarth!).
4. Most of the inhabitants of the rest of the United Kingdom were Celts, not Angles and Saxons, and they will still often be proud enough to tell you that. Yes, of course, see also interbreeding above.
5. Then there were the Normans, from the French region of Normandy (with more than a bit of Viking blood mixed in), who made up the nobility and were the people who ran the country for generations and treated the Angles, Saxons, Celts, Vikings usw with, shall we say, more than a degree of contempt.
6. Then there are the immigrants from the former colonies, and not a few from the European continent in recent years (see Poland in particular - whom I believe you will find are Slavic).
7. The "special relationship" sounds interesting in its way, but it dates back principally to Churchill and Roosevelt (a Democrat, for any GOP readers) and WW2. A lot of people in the UK, as a result of Blair's perceived subservience to Bush on the Iraq War, are dubious about how the phrase should be used these days. Often it sounds like a one-sided relationship of master and servant and not a partnership of equals.
8. And anyway what is so wrong with having seriously good relationships with France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Russia, the Czech Republic usw? The UK sometimes gets it wrong (the current government definitely has!). Try keeping all your options open. If you had listened to Joschka Fischer in 2003 for example ....
My challenge to those who think unemployment offers an easy life
1. Resign your position immediately.
2. Give away all your valuable possessions (keep your clothes, frying pans usw).
You are now in the situation that most unemployed people find themselves in.
3. Get your benefits sorted out.
4. See how long (and how well) you can live on the money you can get!
Nothing like as easy as you thought, is it??????
And will a job flipping burgers improve things at all?????
2. Give away all your valuable possessions (keep your clothes, frying pans usw).
You are now in the situation that most unemployed people find themselves in.
3. Get your benefits sorted out.
4. See how long (and how well) you can live on the money you can get!
Nothing like as easy as you thought, is it??????
And will a job flipping burgers improve things at all?????
Friday, 27 July 2012
A better world tomorrow?
In my student days 40-odd years ago I got involved with movements and ideas that would have created a better world.
Most of the movements have collapsed or disappeared, the ideas when practical (not always the case) have made little if any progress. Apart from the removal of apartheid in South Africa, I cannot name one thing that I regarded as important 40-odd years ago that needed to happen and did.
Things are different now. The Internet has brought communication possibilities to a level unheard of in the 1960s and 70s. Notably though this can be used for bad as well as good.
Meanwhile across the Western world, the political class has failed us. One side can't, the other side won't - that sort of thinking. Negative voting and advertising is the order of the day. Having something to support which will make a positive difference? Well the ideas are out there, but there seems to be no way of getting them past the self-serving way the system works.
In other words the choice is between bad and atrocious.
Economically things are getting worse for most everybody except the rich and powerful. Overpopulation is an issue that we will not face. And what ought to be important seems to be of increasingly little relevance (full meaningful employment, an end to poverty, debt and war, religious tolerance, and understanding that human population over-growth endangers other species).
In 40 years time, the world will be in an even worse mess than it is now. I will not be around to see it, thankfully, and thankfully as I had no children, neither will any descendant of mine. But that is no reason to rejoice!
Most of the movements have collapsed or disappeared, the ideas when practical (not always the case) have made little if any progress. Apart from the removal of apartheid in South Africa, I cannot name one thing that I regarded as important 40-odd years ago that needed to happen and did.
Things are different now. The Internet has brought communication possibilities to a level unheard of in the 1960s and 70s. Notably though this can be used for bad as well as good.
Meanwhile across the Western world, the political class has failed us. One side can't, the other side won't - that sort of thinking. Negative voting and advertising is the order of the day. Having something to support which will make a positive difference? Well the ideas are out there, but there seems to be no way of getting them past the self-serving way the system works.
In other words the choice is between bad and atrocious.
Economically things are getting worse for most everybody except the rich and powerful. Overpopulation is an issue that we will not face. And what ought to be important seems to be of increasingly little relevance (full meaningful employment, an end to poverty, debt and war, religious tolerance, and understanding that human population over-growth endangers other species).
In 40 years time, the world will be in an even worse mess than it is now. I will not be around to see it, thankfully, and thankfully as I had no children, neither will any descendant of mine. But that is no reason to rejoice!
Thursday, 26 July 2012
Romney's European tour
1. The UK - to visit his future vassals.
2. Israel (not actually in Europe, even if they play in the European football championship) - to get his orders on where to start the next war when elected.
3. Poland - perhaps the only country in Europe, apart from the UK, that will help with troops to serve in the war as ordered in 2 above.
Nowhere else? France obviously not since his mate, Sarkozy, got booted out. All the other (conservative!) administrations from Berlin to Madrid, who can offer advice on how austerity really works and is actually working (cough, splutter)? Not worth 5 minutes worth of his time?
Ah well, he won't be missed!
2. Israel (not actually in Europe, even if they play in the European football championship) - to get his orders on where to start the next war when elected.
3. Poland - perhaps the only country in Europe, apart from the UK, that will help with troops to serve in the war as ordered in 2 above.
Nowhere else? France obviously not since his mate, Sarkozy, got booted out. All the other (conservative!) administrations from Berlin to Madrid, who can offer advice on how austerity really works and is actually working (cough, splutter)? Not worth 5 minutes worth of his time?
Ah well, he won't be missed!
Wednesday, 25 July 2012
How to reason with the unreasonable
The problem with leaving comments on various websites is dealing with the occasional idiot who replies.
Today there were two very old comments that I left hanging out in odd places that got belated replies, which interestingly contradicted each other.
The first reply came from the sort of genius who supports the ultranationalist British National Party. Having read that I was an atheist, he then jumps to his own logical (????) thinking that as a non-Christian (true - atheists are not Christians), I must then be a Muslim, or at the very least a Muslim sympathiser.
As he should know (but is incapable of understanding - well anyone who supports the BNP will not be capable of much by way of brainpower!), atheism involves denial of all beliefs. Which includes Christianity, Islam (in case my BNP correspondent is reading this, that equals Muslims), Judaism, Hinduism, Greek and Norse mythology usw.
No God, no after life, no need to believe anything.
I did have a great relationship with my parents when they were alive, and they were committed Methodists, so I suppose that makes me a Christian sympathiser? Separate the people from the belief system, I will get on with anyone, ask my Buddhist wife (who had me praying on my birthday - not quite sure what to, and I do not expect anything to result from it, but the things we do for love!).
Second reply meanwhile came from a Muslim! Sympathetic? Not exactly. My tongue-in-cheek comment about Australian Muslim women being down the beach sunning themselves in their bikinis and passing round the ham sandwiches while there husbands were taking time off work to protest summat or other .... Let's say that they did not get the joke and leave it at that! Oh, and Allah will apparently be taking revenge on me (most likely as he doesn't exist, some human will come in his place, suitably armed and I do not mean with the Koran!).
Meanwhile I noted that 64% of Americans do not want a Muslim President under any circumstances.
Not surprising.
That was followed by the fact that 67% of Americans would not want an atheist as President. Huh?
Atheists reason, they think, they draw conclusions, they are logical. Dangerous they are not!
Not my place to tell you this, but you do not want a logical, reasonable person running your country? Ah, well.
I also noted that American ultraconservative commentator, Ann Coulter, seems to have seen the propaganda value in this. Obama is not, after all, a Muslim - he is an atheist.
Well he definitely is not a Muslim, and both his parents were actually atheists! This could be the mushrooming very important non-story of the Presidential election campaign.
As for Germany, not sure what Merkel is, incidentally, or the SDP leader who might replace her next year. Somehow things like that do not matter here! Which is pretty much what it should be!
Today there were two very old comments that I left hanging out in odd places that got belated replies, which interestingly contradicted each other.
The first reply came from the sort of genius who supports the ultranationalist British National Party. Having read that I was an atheist, he then jumps to his own logical (????) thinking that as a non-Christian (true - atheists are not Christians), I must then be a Muslim, or at the very least a Muslim sympathiser.
As he should know (but is incapable of understanding - well anyone who supports the BNP will not be capable of much by way of brainpower!), atheism involves denial of all beliefs. Which includes Christianity, Islam (in case my BNP correspondent is reading this, that equals Muslims), Judaism, Hinduism, Greek and Norse mythology usw.
No God, no after life, no need to believe anything.
I did have a great relationship with my parents when they were alive, and they were committed Methodists, so I suppose that makes me a Christian sympathiser? Separate the people from the belief system, I will get on with anyone, ask my Buddhist wife (who had me praying on my birthday - not quite sure what to, and I do not expect anything to result from it, but the things we do for love!).
Second reply meanwhile came from a Muslim! Sympathetic? Not exactly. My tongue-in-cheek comment about Australian Muslim women being down the beach sunning themselves in their bikinis and passing round the ham sandwiches while there husbands were taking time off work to protest summat or other .... Let's say that they did not get the joke and leave it at that! Oh, and Allah will apparently be taking revenge on me (most likely as he doesn't exist, some human will come in his place, suitably armed and I do not mean with the Koran!).
Meanwhile I noted that 64% of Americans do not want a Muslim President under any circumstances.
Not surprising.
That was followed by the fact that 67% of Americans would not want an atheist as President. Huh?
Atheists reason, they think, they draw conclusions, they are logical. Dangerous they are not!
Not my place to tell you this, but you do not want a logical, reasonable person running your country? Ah, well.
I also noted that American ultraconservative commentator, Ann Coulter, seems to have seen the propaganda value in this. Obama is not, after all, a Muslim - he is an atheist.
Well he definitely is not a Muslim, and both his parents were actually atheists! This could be the mushrooming very important non-story of the Presidential election campaign.
As for Germany, not sure what Merkel is, incidentally, or the SDP leader who might replace her next year. Somehow things like that do not matter here! Which is pretty much what it should be!
Postscript. Angela Merkel is the daughter of a Protestant pastor, and during the Syrian refugee crisis described taking in refugees as a "good Christian thing to do!".
Tuesday, 24 July 2012
So why don't companies tell you that they do not want you?
A friend of my wife (well more accurately the husband of one of my wife's friends) told her yesterday that the company for whom he works might well be interested in hiring me for my wealth of IT knowledge.
Sounds good.
Of course you would have to cut your hair to make yourself look younger (this does not sound like like my wife's friend - it sounds like her. It is her perpetual whinge, and anyway I look years older with my hair cut short - end of nonsense!).
Will it happen? We will see. Like Samson of Jewish legend (but not of fact from anywhere) cutting my hair could have drastic consequences, but if it did get me he job .....
This brought me back to the thought of my last IT interview. Back in February it was. I have my details listed in all sorts of places - LinkedIn, XING usw. A company based in Frankfurt found my details of one of these and invited me directly to an interview. No forms to fill out, no send a CV/resume in advance. Bring wharrever you have with you, we will take it from there usw.
All well and good. I do not like interviews. Doing it well and getting right is never easy. You can be too positive, too negative. You can say too much or too little. As a basically very shy person, I tend to prepare for a couple of hours in advance to cover all the bases. If anything I then tend to be a bit too positive, but on this occasion I think that I got it about right. No complaints about my German accent or anything.
"We will let you know", I was told. 3 weeks later and no reply, I emailed them and got the same comment. Good that they want to consider you for so long.
In fact 5 months later they have never sent me any information telling me that they are not interested .... And if not, why not. If they do not have the budget eventually and have to withdraw the vacancy (often the case these days), they should tell you that. Leaving the situation unanswered?
Yes, well. People who know this blog will remember the piece that I wrote (still out there) about my experiences with the Inttra Corporation in the US. After taking the trouble to interview me nine times by telephone, you would imagine that they would have been very interested, and as to why they did not send me a "sorry but" email or telephone call if they finally lost interest, I do not know to this day.
It strikes me as being unprofessional. Writing a polite email does not take 5 minutes. I would still be interested in a position with the firm in Frankfurt that interviewed me last February, or the Inttra Corporation even now. Quite why they could not show the common courtesy to explain what was going on though, I will never understand.
Sounds good.
Of course you would have to cut your hair to make yourself look younger (this does not sound like like my wife's friend - it sounds like her. It is her perpetual whinge, and anyway I look years older with my hair cut short - end of nonsense!).
Will it happen? We will see. Like Samson of Jewish legend (but not of fact from anywhere) cutting my hair could have drastic consequences, but if it did get me he job .....
This brought me back to the thought of my last IT interview. Back in February it was. I have my details listed in all sorts of places - LinkedIn, XING usw. A company based in Frankfurt found my details of one of these and invited me directly to an interview. No forms to fill out, no send a CV/resume in advance. Bring wharrever you have with you, we will take it from there usw.
All well and good. I do not like interviews. Doing it well and getting right is never easy. You can be too positive, too negative. You can say too much or too little. As a basically very shy person, I tend to prepare for a couple of hours in advance to cover all the bases. If anything I then tend to be a bit too positive, but on this occasion I think that I got it about right. No complaints about my German accent or anything.
"We will let you know", I was told. 3 weeks later and no reply, I emailed them and got the same comment. Good that they want to consider you for so long.
In fact 5 months later they have never sent me any information telling me that they are not interested .... And if not, why not. If they do not have the budget eventually and have to withdraw the vacancy (often the case these days), they should tell you that. Leaving the situation unanswered?
Yes, well. People who know this blog will remember the piece that I wrote (still out there) about my experiences with the Inttra Corporation in the US. After taking the trouble to interview me nine times by telephone, you would imagine that they would have been very interested, and as to why they did not send me a "sorry but" email or telephone call if they finally lost interest, I do not know to this day.
It strikes me as being unprofessional. Writing a polite email does not take 5 minutes. I would still be interested in a position with the firm in Frankfurt that interviewed me last February, or the Inttra Corporation even now. Quite why they could not show the common courtesy to explain what was going on though, I will never understand.
Sunday, 22 July 2012
Given the choice which would you keep?
Internet, television or telephone?
Just one. A really stingy choice, but let us play Kruschev for a day and limit your choices.
Not real, but like all intellectual exercises what is real?
Move on.
The easy one to get rid of is television. Or should be. I recall a time not many years ago, though, that according to the ratings a full 50% of people in the UK used to plug in two or three times a week to watch one of two soap operas on different channels (Coronation Street and Eastenders).
Not sure that this still applies, but I couldn't see these people dispensing with television that easily.
Telephone? Great to have, if like my wife, you like the sound of a human voice and find email extremely impersonal. The big plus for me in getting rid of it is that there would be no more telephone Spam (= telemarketing, wharrever the case that one of my commenting correspondents tried to make in its favour this week, it is Spam! And I did publish the comment - nothing offensive, just a difference of opinion). Email Spam is easily recognised and quickly thrown away.
The Internet meanwhile can provide you with entertainment and communication. Curious that it wasn't round 20 years ago - how did people my age live without it? Maybe we went out more, or maybe we watched more television and talked more on the 'phone! Difficult to live without it now though and think of all the people around the world who read my works of genius on this blog (modest, huh?). Would all the Americans, Swedes, Germans, Saudis (yes, Saudis!), Sudanese, South Koreans, Japanese, Egyptians and people from so many other countries (don't be insulted if I missed your country - we love all of you for just visiting! And tell your friends, all are welcome!) who have all been among its readership have missed summat, and maybe they have learned from or appreciated its contents?
Or maybe someone who never previously knew of my existence is determined to put an end to me for what I have written on here ....
Yikes!!!!
Now where did I put the handset to the TV?????
Just one. A really stingy choice, but let us play Kruschev for a day and limit your choices.
Not real, but like all intellectual exercises what is real?
Move on.
The easy one to get rid of is television. Or should be. I recall a time not many years ago, though, that according to the ratings a full 50% of people in the UK used to plug in two or three times a week to watch one of two soap operas on different channels (Coronation Street and Eastenders).
Not sure that this still applies, but I couldn't see these people dispensing with television that easily.
Telephone? Great to have, if like my wife, you like the sound of a human voice and find email extremely impersonal. The big plus for me in getting rid of it is that there would be no more telephone Spam (= telemarketing, wharrever the case that one of my commenting correspondents tried to make in its favour this week, it is Spam! And I did publish the comment - nothing offensive, just a difference of opinion). Email Spam is easily recognised and quickly thrown away.
The Internet meanwhile can provide you with entertainment and communication. Curious that it wasn't round 20 years ago - how did people my age live without it? Maybe we went out more, or maybe we watched more television and talked more on the 'phone! Difficult to live without it now though and think of all the people around the world who read my works of genius on this blog (modest, huh?). Would all the Americans, Swedes, Germans, Saudis (yes, Saudis!), Sudanese, South Koreans, Japanese, Egyptians and people from so many other countries (don't be insulted if I missed your country - we love all of you for just visiting! And tell your friends, all are welcome!) who have all been among its readership have missed summat, and maybe they have learned from or appreciated its contents?
Or maybe someone who never previously knew of my existence is determined to put an end to me for what I have written on here ....
Yikes!!!!
Now where did I put the handset to the TV?????
Saturday, 21 July 2012
Happy birthday to me
Well in a period of 0 to 7 days it is my birthday. Given my aversion to astrologers I will keep the exact date to myself, but if you want a clue I am more likely to growl at you than clasp a claw round you. Gazelle or wildebeest for my birthday supper will be taking the joke a bit too far though.
When you get to my age, you tend to think that a wake more than a party is called for.
But if you are going to celebrate summat, this is as good a choice as any. Part of me thinks that celebrations should be an everyday thing. Even at my age ....
Meanwhile what presents would I like?
1. A job (in IT) in line with my talents.
2. Enough money to live off without getting into debt (and that would mean remaining within the 99%, I have no fascination with the prospect of being rich - maybe I was never taught to be greedy enough).
3. My (natural) sex drive working like I was still 25 and the chance to use it regularly.
And for me that is it. For such a complicated mind, such simple a batch of offerings!
The world could do to offer me a lot of things which would be of general benefit to the planet as a whole (an abolition of stupid politicians (particularly the Fascists, neo-Fascists and ultraconservatives), accountants, lawyers, media owners (I remain opposed to the death penalty, but I have no objection to the thought of Rupert Murdoch being boiled in oil), half the world's CEOs, all the world's religious fanatics usw), and making sure that there are (natural, not man-made) places where tigers, elephants, oh and lions (seem to recall summat about them earlier in this piece ...) can wander freely and do their thing. And birds can fly and feed to their heart's content.
That is it really.
And for anyone who is happily looking forward to their birthdays in the next couple of weeks, including one of my Internet friends in Scotland, hope you have a great year!
When you get to my age, you tend to think that a wake more than a party is called for.
But if you are going to celebrate summat, this is as good a choice as any. Part of me thinks that celebrations should be an everyday thing. Even at my age ....
Meanwhile what presents would I like?
1. A job (in IT) in line with my talents.
2. Enough money to live off without getting into debt (and that would mean remaining within the 99%, I have no fascination with the prospect of being rich - maybe I was never taught to be greedy enough).
3. My (natural) sex drive working like I was still 25 and the chance to use it regularly.
And for me that is it. For such a complicated mind, such simple a batch of offerings!
The world could do to offer me a lot of things which would be of general benefit to the planet as a whole (an abolition of stupid politicians (particularly the Fascists, neo-Fascists and ultraconservatives), accountants, lawyers, media owners (I remain opposed to the death penalty, but I have no objection to the thought of Rupert Murdoch being boiled in oil), half the world's CEOs, all the world's religious fanatics usw), and making sure that there are (natural, not man-made) places where tigers, elephants, oh and lions (seem to recall summat about them earlier in this piece ...) can wander freely and do their thing. And birds can fly and feed to their heart's content.
That is it really.
And for anyone who is happily looking forward to their birthdays in the next couple of weeks, including one of my Internet friends in Scotland, hope you have a great year!
Friday, 20 July 2012
Minding your language
A bit tired this morning. This is down to the fact that at one o'clock this morning a group of people decided that the supermarket car park across the road would make a great place for a party. My wife had to get up at half past three to go to her job and the last thing that she needed was waking up at that time. We both felt like walking across the road and unleashing a few expletives at the people concerned. Eventually we settled upon ringing for the police, to be told that we were the seventh set of people to complain about it, and a car was already en route.
0110 this morning - perfect peace! I didn't get much sleep though - insomnia usually wins when I have been woken up once.
Meanwhile on the subject of expletives, I was reminded the other week that I never (or hardly ever) use such on this blog, and was I the prissy type usw usw ....
It is a curiosity actually. As regular readers will know I grew up in a working-class family in the North of England, but my parents (and aunts and uncles) all came from that line of thinking that the use of such language was uncouth. My father in particular must have heard a lot of that sort of language during the working day, but it never emanated from his mouth. We may have been working-class, but we were "better than that".
So it was with me till I got to the age of 19 and went to university! Amazing what you get from a high-class education. After my year as a student in France I could do it in French as well!
Over the years I have had to train myself out of the habit (well if you can train yourself into it!), though once in a while it has caused some embarrassing moments. When I was teaching kids for example!
Often, given my propensity to intellectualise anything and everything, I would turn the dubious words and phrases into Shakespearean type language ("prithee fornicate elsewhere, oh thou of doubtful antiquity" usw).
Internationalising myself has required internationalising my knowledge of this area. That they are "4-letter words" according to UK English, doesn't work in French (more often 6 for some reason), while the two widely used ones in German are 7 and 9 letters long respectively. Dutch meanwhile seems remarkably short of them.
Since the advent of the Internet and my increased communications with Americans, I have noted that this is an area where UK and US English differ sharply. What might go down unpleasantly in Manchester, England, would be missed entirely in Manchester N.H. for example. And as for some of the US English curses - "that was supposed to be offensive?" is the usual response here.
The reason why you will not find any cursing and swearing on this blog though is mainly out of respect for my readership. Everyone is welcome (even those whose views I completely oppose) and I do not want to give offence to those individuals who might be upset by such language. Anyway, it is a good outlet for an intellectual conversation here, so why descend to the gutter? It is the best way to lose your argument. And as, of course, I am never wrong!!!! Exit gurgling.
This also applies to reader comments. I monitor all incoming comments. I will publish anything that is not abusive, even if I radically disagree with the content. So feel free to comment, but please keep your language clean!
Meanwhile I could do to fall asleep again (curse, curse ***** aimed at the people partying last night!), but I have a ton of work to do for my customer in Austria. Which leaves me wondering whether Austrian German has any peculiarly nasty local phrases that have not permeated the South-Eastern border ....
0110 this morning - perfect peace! I didn't get much sleep though - insomnia usually wins when I have been woken up once.
Meanwhile on the subject of expletives, I was reminded the other week that I never (or hardly ever) use such on this blog, and was I the prissy type usw usw ....
It is a curiosity actually. As regular readers will know I grew up in a working-class family in the North of England, but my parents (and aunts and uncles) all came from that line of thinking that the use of such language was uncouth. My father in particular must have heard a lot of that sort of language during the working day, but it never emanated from his mouth. We may have been working-class, but we were "better than that".
So it was with me till I got to the age of 19 and went to university! Amazing what you get from a high-class education. After my year as a student in France I could do it in French as well!
Over the years I have had to train myself out of the habit (well if you can train yourself into it!), though once in a while it has caused some embarrassing moments. When I was teaching kids for example!
Often, given my propensity to intellectualise anything and everything, I would turn the dubious words and phrases into Shakespearean type language ("prithee fornicate elsewhere, oh thou of doubtful antiquity" usw).
Internationalising myself has required internationalising my knowledge of this area. That they are "4-letter words" according to UK English, doesn't work in French (more often 6 for some reason), while the two widely used ones in German are 7 and 9 letters long respectively. Dutch meanwhile seems remarkably short of them.
Since the advent of the Internet and my increased communications with Americans, I have noted that this is an area where UK and US English differ sharply. What might go down unpleasantly in Manchester, England, would be missed entirely in Manchester N.H. for example. And as for some of the US English curses - "that was supposed to be offensive?" is the usual response here.
The reason why you will not find any cursing and swearing on this blog though is mainly out of respect for my readership. Everyone is welcome (even those whose views I completely oppose) and I do not want to give offence to those individuals who might be upset by such language. Anyway, it is a good outlet for an intellectual conversation here, so why descend to the gutter? It is the best way to lose your argument. And as, of course, I am never wrong!!!! Exit gurgling.
This also applies to reader comments. I monitor all incoming comments. I will publish anything that is not abusive, even if I radically disagree with the content. So feel free to comment, but please keep your language clean!
Meanwhile I could do to fall asleep again (curse, curse ***** aimed at the people partying last night!), but I have a ton of work to do for my customer in Austria. Which leaves me wondering whether Austrian German has any peculiarly nasty local phrases that have not permeated the South-Eastern border ....
Thursday, 19 July 2012
Would you blow yourself up for a cause?
The number of suicide bombers in the news this week seems to have risen sharply (see Bulgaria yesterday for the latest of these).
All well and ... not so good.
Well, I know the economy round the world is not in good shape, poverty is round the corner for many people even in the Western world, and reason to hope disappears by the minute, so maybe at the absolute limit the "suicide" part of this is understandable (just about).
But fastening an explosive to yourself and blowing yourself to smithereens?
It takes guts?
It takes CHRONIC STUPIDITY!!!!
They're nearly all Muslim fanatics. I see - in the Koran it says that this is a guaranteed way of getting to wherever you go when you die? Does it? Quote me chapter and verse, and even then I will dismiss it as a load of superstitious, unprovable nonsense anyway - like the rest of that (and all other religious) text (s)!
WHERE IS THE GUARANTEE?????
I will personally guarantee that it will take you one place and one place only - to the morgue! (In about 219 parts). Even if it were painful getting there, you will know nowt about it either. You will be the past tense. A dead criminal, end of story! Like Al Capone, Timothy McVeigh, Reginald Christie, Peter Kürten usw!
And this will help your cause? Your life was worth next to nothing, but at least people will benefit? OK, consider Palestine. These fanatical actions have been going on for seemingly ever - blowing up Israelis for "the cause". How much further has it got the Palestinian people? In many respects their lives have become worse not better as a result of these actions. Look at the embargo forced upon the people of Gaza as a result of the mixture of suicide bombings and rockets launched into Israel.
No chance of any settlement while that is going on, just more misery and suffering.
Imagine for a second that instead of suicide bombs and the like you adopted (as a movement) the sort of peaceful non-cooperation that the likes of Gandhi or Aung San Suu Kyi adopted.
International sympathy usually is reserved for the underdog. Rightly or wrongly the British were seen as being on the wrong side of history in India. The regime under the junta in Burma was seen as a pariah state.
So maybe, just maybe, the world at large might start to appreciate the plight of the Palestinian people.
But you won't get that by blowing yourself and several others up by violent means. And I hate to disappoint you, but as there is no after-life either, there will be no reward in "Heaven" or wharrever you choose to call it!
All well and ... not so good.
Well, I know the economy round the world is not in good shape, poverty is round the corner for many people even in the Western world, and reason to hope disappears by the minute, so maybe at the absolute limit the "suicide" part of this is understandable (just about).
But fastening an explosive to yourself and blowing yourself to smithereens?
It takes guts?
It takes CHRONIC STUPIDITY!!!!
They're nearly all Muslim fanatics. I see - in the Koran it says that this is a guaranteed way of getting to wherever you go when you die? Does it? Quote me chapter and verse, and even then I will dismiss it as a load of superstitious, unprovable nonsense anyway - like the rest of that (and all other religious) text (s)!
WHERE IS THE GUARANTEE?????
I will personally guarantee that it will take you one place and one place only - to the morgue! (In about 219 parts). Even if it were painful getting there, you will know nowt about it either. You will be the past tense. A dead criminal, end of story! Like Al Capone, Timothy McVeigh, Reginald Christie, Peter Kürten usw!
And this will help your cause? Your life was worth next to nothing, but at least people will benefit? OK, consider Palestine. These fanatical actions have been going on for seemingly ever - blowing up Israelis for "the cause". How much further has it got the Palestinian people? In many respects their lives have become worse not better as a result of these actions. Look at the embargo forced upon the people of Gaza as a result of the mixture of suicide bombings and rockets launched into Israel.
No chance of any settlement while that is going on, just more misery and suffering.
Imagine for a second that instead of suicide bombs and the like you adopted (as a movement) the sort of peaceful non-cooperation that the likes of Gandhi or Aung San Suu Kyi adopted.
International sympathy usually is reserved for the underdog. Rightly or wrongly the British were seen as being on the wrong side of history in India. The regime under the junta in Burma was seen as a pariah state.
So maybe, just maybe, the world at large might start to appreciate the plight of the Palestinian people.
But you won't get that by blowing yourself and several others up by violent means. And I hate to disappoint you, but as there is no after-life either, there will be no reward in "Heaven" or wharrever you choose to call it!
Wednesday, 18 July 2012
Nelson Mandela
While in Frankfurt this morning I saw on one of the public video screens that they have here on the U-Bahn and S-Bahn stations that it was Nelson Mandela's birthday.
94th birthday! That is truly remarkable!
A man who has survived apartheid, 28 years in jail, tuberculosis, and has gone on to be an international icon.
There are few people in this current cynical world who inspire much (I did mention Aung San Suu Kyi the other week - how many others can you name?). Mandela is though definitely one of them.
South Africa has still a very long way to go to overcome its many difficulties - widespread poverty, mass unemployment and the AIDS epidemic. We can only wish them well and hope that in the remainder of this century they make true progress in overcoming their problems.
And as a near-nobody amidst the 7 billion plus people on this massively overpopulated planet, I will still join many others in wishing Mr Mandela a happy birthday, with thanks again for setting such an excellent example to us all.
94th birthday! That is truly remarkable!
A man who has survived apartheid, 28 years in jail, tuberculosis, and has gone on to be an international icon.
There are few people in this current cynical world who inspire much (I did mention Aung San Suu Kyi the other week - how many others can you name?). Mandela is though definitely one of them.
South Africa has still a very long way to go to overcome its many difficulties - widespread poverty, mass unemployment and the AIDS epidemic. We can only wish them well and hope that in the remainder of this century they make true progress in overcoming their problems.
And as a near-nobody amidst the 7 billion plus people on this massively overpopulated planet, I will still join many others in wishing Mr Mandela a happy birthday, with thanks again for setting such an excellent example to us all.
National anthems
In the next few weeks we will be having the Olympic Games in London. I shall not be watching any of it for a variety of reasons - the principle one being lack of interest.
This also means missing the various national TV companies wherever I may be getting unduly excited about one of their country's competitors winning summat. And this nonsense where they present the medals. Followed by the flag raising and the national anthems.
As an internationalist I am perfectly prepared to see anyone honoured for their significant prowess, the (what strikes me as) petty nationalism involved with the rest I do not need.
Of course during the recent European football (North American = soccer) championships, you used to get the national anthems before the games. Anyone watching should know the Spanish one by now, there has been plenty of it played at the last three international football championships. Classy team, great players. I hope that the people in Spain being crushed by the bank bailouts at the moment soon have more to celebrate in their daily lives!
Move on. From my days watching sport over the years I have got to know the tunes of many national anthems (back in the 1980s when I did watch a lot of track and field events, and maybe the odd race in the Olympics I got to know the old East German one extremely well. Not sure whether the word "steroids" was somewhere in the lyrics. Without the presence of steroids, that anthem would have been played far less often!).
There are some tales, often sad sometimes very amusing, where national anthems are concerned. When I lived in the Netherlands back in the 1990s, I can recall some leading athletes being asked if they knew the words to their anthem for example. Some seemed none too certain.
Then there are the mixture of videos on YouTube of various Americans forgetting the words in mid-stream - some personalities who should know better, and some quite young people who are overcome by the stress of the occasion.
Then there are the ones with history. Germany may still have the same tune that it has had for a long time, but the first (very nationalistic) verse has been dropped since 1945 - advisably! Russia meanwhile tried dropping that of the former Soviet Union and replacing it. This having gone down like a hot brick, back came the old Soviet anthem, while Putin & Co try at the same time to emphasis that Communism is indeed dead (correct - check out the current replacement built very firmly on the 1%, 99% principle applying elsewhere! Some day someone will work out a system where more than just the mega-rich can have a decent debt-free lifestyle!).
Then there is the UK. Ask the interesting question. Assume that you a staunch patriot (ah well, some people sadly are!). Assume at the same time that you are (like the wiser 15-20% of the population of the UK, if I still lived there that would include me) an atheist, and also (like the wiser 15-20% of the population of the UK, if I still lived there that would include me!) believe that the monarchy should be abolished and replaced by a democratic republic (see the USA, Germany, France) - what do you make of an anthem with the opening words "God save the Queen"? May the non-existent deity save the soon to be departed monarch? But I am pleased that we won something!
Interesting thought.
Final word. Anyone who is going to get intoxicated with the Olympic spirit in the next few weeks should have the opportunity to learn the tune to the Chinese national anthem. You will get plenty of chances to hear it! Another area where they are taking over, though this at least will be down to something more resembling fair competition!
This also means missing the various national TV companies wherever I may be getting unduly excited about one of their country's competitors winning summat. And this nonsense where they present the medals. Followed by the flag raising and the national anthems.
As an internationalist I am perfectly prepared to see anyone honoured for their significant prowess, the (what strikes me as) petty nationalism involved with the rest I do not need.
Of course during the recent European football (North American = soccer) championships, you used to get the national anthems before the games. Anyone watching should know the Spanish one by now, there has been plenty of it played at the last three international football championships. Classy team, great players. I hope that the people in Spain being crushed by the bank bailouts at the moment soon have more to celebrate in their daily lives!
Move on. From my days watching sport over the years I have got to know the tunes of many national anthems (back in the 1980s when I did watch a lot of track and field events, and maybe the odd race in the Olympics I got to know the old East German one extremely well. Not sure whether the word "steroids" was somewhere in the lyrics. Without the presence of steroids, that anthem would have been played far less often!).
There are some tales, often sad sometimes very amusing, where national anthems are concerned. When I lived in the Netherlands back in the 1990s, I can recall some leading athletes being asked if they knew the words to their anthem for example. Some seemed none too certain.
Then there are the mixture of videos on YouTube of various Americans forgetting the words in mid-stream - some personalities who should know better, and some quite young people who are overcome by the stress of the occasion.
Then there are the ones with history. Germany may still have the same tune that it has had for a long time, but the first (very nationalistic) verse has been dropped since 1945 - advisably! Russia meanwhile tried dropping that of the former Soviet Union and replacing it. This having gone down like a hot brick, back came the old Soviet anthem, while Putin & Co try at the same time to emphasis that Communism is indeed dead (correct - check out the current replacement built very firmly on the 1%, 99% principle applying elsewhere! Some day someone will work out a system where more than just the mega-rich can have a decent debt-free lifestyle!).
Then there is the UK. Ask the interesting question. Assume that you a staunch patriot (ah well, some people sadly are!). Assume at the same time that you are (like the wiser 15-20% of the population of the UK, if I still lived there that would include me) an atheist, and also (like the wiser 15-20% of the population of the UK, if I still lived there that would include me!) believe that the monarchy should be abolished and replaced by a democratic republic (see the USA, Germany, France) - what do you make of an anthem with the opening words "God save the Queen"? May the non-existent deity save the soon to be departed monarch? But I am pleased that we won something!
Interesting thought.
Final word. Anyone who is going to get intoxicated with the Olympic spirit in the next few weeks should have the opportunity to learn the tune to the Chinese national anthem. You will get plenty of chances to hear it! Another area where they are taking over, though this at least will be down to something more resembling fair competition!
Tuesday, 17 July 2012
Going from mass unemployment to no unemployment in 6 years
A lesson in history. And realise that I am a virulent anti-Fascist ("antifa und sehr stolz darauf!").
I run into several people in the UK who proudly tell me that Hitler got rid of unemployment and made Germany prosperous usw. But for his slight mistake in invading Poland ....
OK where did the unemployment go? And can we use a similar solution now (without the nasty racial overtones, invading other countries without being asked, and starting another world war)?
1. Some 4 million people emigrated (including many non-Jews incidentally). A number of these people were business owners, not unemployed people. So the old claims of the French FN, for example (3 million unemployed, 3 million immigrants - i.e. kick the immigrants out = no unemployed), don't work, because you are actually kicking out a number of people who employ people!
2. Into the armed forces. According to the Treaty of Versailles the German armed forces had not to exceed 100,000 serving personnel. Hitler ignored this, and boosted the armed forces to 1.4 million. All well and good, but why would you want so many people in the armed forces if you don't want to start a war?
3. Into what was essentially a mobile forced labour organisation, building roads and bridges usw. Forced labour? Well what if you refused to comply? Try telling that to the Gestapo! In principle I have no problem with this on a voluntary basis if the people are paid a living wage. See also later.
4. Women were expected to stay home and have children and not work unless there were jobs available for them - i.e. no female "unemployed". Unrealistic to say the least (and unmarried women over 40 usw?).
5. Building the war machine. The weapons and aircraft builders of the Ruhr (all private companies note - like Krupp usw) got massive orders from the government to build all this stuff. This required labour in massive numbers and boosted company profits. Of course the government was paying for the goods it purchased. Again if you weren't starting a war, why would you do this?
6. Increased internal personnel - to round up the "antisocial elements", build the places these elements would be kept, guard them, and worse .... Our prison systems could do to be enhanced, but not like this!
7. Crucial to all of this? Any conservatives out there adding up the sums? This is all government expenditure! The budget deficit quadrupled over a 6-year period. In other words to get unemployment down from 6 million to zero, you needed simply to quadruple the budget deficit! There are non-warlike ways of doing this usw. For how long you would get away with it, though?
Without a war starting how long would Hitler have been able to run up deficits like that even before the IMF and World Bank came into existence? Interesting question!
I run into several people in the UK who proudly tell me that Hitler got rid of unemployment and made Germany prosperous usw. But for his slight mistake in invading Poland ....
OK where did the unemployment go? And can we use a similar solution now (without the nasty racial overtones, invading other countries without being asked, and starting another world war)?
1. Some 4 million people emigrated (including many non-Jews incidentally). A number of these people were business owners, not unemployed people. So the old claims of the French FN, for example (3 million unemployed, 3 million immigrants - i.e. kick the immigrants out = no unemployed), don't work, because you are actually kicking out a number of people who employ people!
2. Into the armed forces. According to the Treaty of Versailles the German armed forces had not to exceed 100,000 serving personnel. Hitler ignored this, and boosted the armed forces to 1.4 million. All well and good, but why would you want so many people in the armed forces if you don't want to start a war?
3. Into what was essentially a mobile forced labour organisation, building roads and bridges usw. Forced labour? Well what if you refused to comply? Try telling that to the Gestapo! In principle I have no problem with this on a voluntary basis if the people are paid a living wage. See also later.
4. Women were expected to stay home and have children and not work unless there were jobs available for them - i.e. no female "unemployed". Unrealistic to say the least (and unmarried women over 40 usw?).
5. Building the war machine. The weapons and aircraft builders of the Ruhr (all private companies note - like Krupp usw) got massive orders from the government to build all this stuff. This required labour in massive numbers and boosted company profits. Of course the government was paying for the goods it purchased. Again if you weren't starting a war, why would you do this?
6. Increased internal personnel - to round up the "antisocial elements", build the places these elements would be kept, guard them, and worse .... Our prison systems could do to be enhanced, but not like this!
7. Crucial to all of this? Any conservatives out there adding up the sums? This is all government expenditure! The budget deficit quadrupled over a 6-year period. In other words to get unemployment down from 6 million to zero, you needed simply to quadruple the budget deficit! There are non-warlike ways of doing this usw. For how long you would get away with it, though?
Without a war starting how long would Hitler have been able to run up deficits like that even before the IMF and World Bank came into existence? Interesting question!
Monday, 16 July 2012
We can't afford it
Interesting how American news stories hit the front pages (and media equivalent) in Europe.
Like the American Olympic team outfits that were made in China.
Interesting as I have no idea what the German team uniform looks like, or where it is made. If Adidas have anything to do with it, though, I will lay all the odds you like that it will not be made in Germany. Back in the 1990s when I was still interested in buying sports shoes, they were made mainly in South Korea. I anticipate that in this "corporations need to make large profits and the rest of us can live on huge amounts of debt and fresh air" economy that we now have, that even South Korea will be too expensive (Hell, they have, shock, horror!, Unions in South Korea - quick, move out!) and they will have been to that worker's paradise (satire!), the people's chronic dictatorship of China.
From Highgate cemetery the rumblings of Karl Marx's remains can be heard. This is Communism? If textbook Communism is supposed to remove poverty and raise the living standards of the workers who own the means of production ....
The Australian Olympic Committee were pretty blunt on the uniforms that there team will wear.
"We can't afford to make them in Australia!" apparently!
I used to live in Lancashire. In its heyday Lancashire was a textile manufacturing centre, par excellence. Large numbers of people used to get paid insultingly low wages, live in insanitary slums, and struggled to survive. Even then the industry was prone to fluctuations - see the mill closures in the 1930s.
Come the postwar period and people's lifestyles started to improve (and remember that it was the MacMillan government that did more to remove the slums than anyone - in those days the UK Conservative Party was interested in the good of the country as a whole, not in merely looking after their wealthy friends in the City of London) and their expectations also increased, the textile industry managed to survive quite well. More people had money to spend, so they bought more clothes, so the companies made money selling more products.
An interesting philosophy. Then came the 80s, the era of quick and easy money for the City gamblers and high unemployment for the rest of us. The vast majority of the textile mills were moved to cheap labour outlets elsewhere in the world and that is where they have stayed. This happened not just to people in Lancashire, the rest of industrial Europe (and probably the US) went the same way.
I read some nonsense yesterday from a person at the ultraconservative Cato Institute in the US yesterday along the lines that this is no big deal.
All the designers, planners, distributors, sales personnel usw were still based in the West, all the Asians (principally Chinese) do is "sew"!
So we are all supposed to become designers at Ralph Lauren for a living?
The 40% of kids who leave school in the UK without anything but minimum qualifications can get jobs as easily as that in high fashion? Who is trying to kid whom?
And don't tell me that distribution (driving vans taking the products to stores usw) will fill all the requirements.
There are nowhere near enough jobs for qualified people, let alone the unqualified. Despite record low birth rates (meaning the lowest numbers of people in the 18-25 age range in some 200 years), youth unemployment is disgustingly high across Europe and getting worse by the month.
These people are the future, and if they do not get careers started in this period of their life, will they ever?
There is also the fact that every one of the countries that became among the richest nations in the world did so as they had an industrial base. China, India, Brazil and Russia, four of the world's fastest growing countries are not getting there by putting industry to one side and just getting people to drive vans for a living. They are manufacturing things!
Germany has serious problems, but the UK is in much worse shape still. Germany has abandoned too much of its industrial base (see the Rhine Ruhr), but has at least kept substantial parts of it. The UK under Thatcher decided to become a banker's paradise and who needs industry anyway. 30 years later - government debt at record levels, personal debt at record levels, unemployment at a 14 year high, 22% of the population living below the poverty line, and all you want are van drivers for cheap imported Chinese goods and McDonalds lackeys who earn no more than you would earn in a textile plant????
It is time for industry to return to the West as a whole. It is time to drop the nonsense (and speculation) that we have been living with for the past 30 years. It is time for a return to investment and long-term planning, and local production!
We can't afford it? We cannot NOT afford it!
Like the American Olympic team outfits that were made in China.
Interesting as I have no idea what the German team uniform looks like, or where it is made. If Adidas have anything to do with it, though, I will lay all the odds you like that it will not be made in Germany. Back in the 1990s when I was still interested in buying sports shoes, they were made mainly in South Korea. I anticipate that in this "corporations need to make large profits and the rest of us can live on huge amounts of debt and fresh air" economy that we now have, that even South Korea will be too expensive (Hell, they have, shock, horror!, Unions in South Korea - quick, move out!) and they will have been to that worker's paradise (satire!), the people's chronic dictatorship of China.
From Highgate cemetery the rumblings of Karl Marx's remains can be heard. This is Communism? If textbook Communism is supposed to remove poverty and raise the living standards of the workers who own the means of production ....
The Australian Olympic Committee were pretty blunt on the uniforms that there team will wear.
"We can't afford to make them in Australia!" apparently!
I used to live in Lancashire. In its heyday Lancashire was a textile manufacturing centre, par excellence. Large numbers of people used to get paid insultingly low wages, live in insanitary slums, and struggled to survive. Even then the industry was prone to fluctuations - see the mill closures in the 1930s.
Come the postwar period and people's lifestyles started to improve (and remember that it was the MacMillan government that did more to remove the slums than anyone - in those days the UK Conservative Party was interested in the good of the country as a whole, not in merely looking after their wealthy friends in the City of London) and their expectations also increased, the textile industry managed to survive quite well. More people had money to spend, so they bought more clothes, so the companies made money selling more products.
An interesting philosophy. Then came the 80s, the era of quick and easy money for the City gamblers and high unemployment for the rest of us. The vast majority of the textile mills were moved to cheap labour outlets elsewhere in the world and that is where they have stayed. This happened not just to people in Lancashire, the rest of industrial Europe (and probably the US) went the same way.
I read some nonsense yesterday from a person at the ultraconservative Cato Institute in the US yesterday along the lines that this is no big deal.
All the designers, planners, distributors, sales personnel usw were still based in the West, all the Asians (principally Chinese) do is "sew"!
So we are all supposed to become designers at Ralph Lauren for a living?
The 40% of kids who leave school in the UK without anything but minimum qualifications can get jobs as easily as that in high fashion? Who is trying to kid whom?
And don't tell me that distribution (driving vans taking the products to stores usw) will fill all the requirements.
There are nowhere near enough jobs for qualified people, let alone the unqualified. Despite record low birth rates (meaning the lowest numbers of people in the 18-25 age range in some 200 years), youth unemployment is disgustingly high across Europe and getting worse by the month.
These people are the future, and if they do not get careers started in this period of their life, will they ever?
There is also the fact that every one of the countries that became among the richest nations in the world did so as they had an industrial base. China, India, Brazil and Russia, four of the world's fastest growing countries are not getting there by putting industry to one side and just getting people to drive vans for a living. They are manufacturing things!
Germany has serious problems, but the UK is in much worse shape still. Germany has abandoned too much of its industrial base (see the Rhine Ruhr), but has at least kept substantial parts of it. The UK under Thatcher decided to become a banker's paradise and who needs industry anyway. 30 years later - government debt at record levels, personal debt at record levels, unemployment at a 14 year high, 22% of the population living below the poverty line, and all you want are van drivers for cheap imported Chinese goods and McDonalds lackeys who earn no more than you would earn in a textile plant????
It is time for industry to return to the West as a whole. It is time to drop the nonsense (and speculation) that we have been living with for the past 30 years. It is time for a return to investment and long-term planning, and local production!
We can't afford it? We cannot NOT afford it!
Sunday, 15 July 2012
Shaking Hands
I was watching the late evening news bulletin "Tagesthemen" on the German TV channel ARD last night.
First three minutes on the US Presidential elections then on to Egypt (you may guess that there's a lot happening in Germany at the moment!).
Anyone who read my previous piece on Egypt (something that the media belatedly have latched on to) will realise that I was cautious (polite word) about the rise of "democracy" in Egypt given that the two leading parties there are more or less strongly Islamic.
Despite getting a President from the Muslim Brotherhood, and a parliament dominated by the same party and the even more dogmatic Salafists (the parliament is currently subject to legal challenge incidentally), there are one or two promising signs.
The new President, in the name of national unity, stated a couple of weeks ago that he wanted two Vice-Presidents, a woman and a Christian. Obviously to show to the world that Islamic dogmatism would not be the order of the day.
So, who knows? I remain rather sceptical - religion and politics do not mix well, and Islam is not known for making compromises, but anyway ....
The major reason that Egypt was on the news was that they were having their first visit by a leading American dignitary since "democracy" took over. Yes, Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was in town.
Well when the USA is donating so much money to keep your fragile economy afloat (and most of the aid should now start working its way into the Egyptian economy and not into Hosni Mubarak's personal bank account), you do not want to upset them too much. So there we have Ms Clinton, a non-Muslim, not even wearing a headscarf - I suspect with a Salafist government that a burkha would have been expected (if they would even have deigned to have dealings with a woman), but I digress.
All in fact seemed in order except for the fact there would be no handshake at the end as a Muslim man cannot shake hands with a woman!
How do you spell "Nonsense"?
Ms Clinton was not there as a woman. She was there as a representative of the US government, which represents the American people. Regardless of their political allegiance (the same would have applied to Condoleeza Rice if she still held the role), regardless of their gender. It is not a question of personalities, it is a question of protocol. Of course the US government was already expecting this in advance, but a polite criticism should have been made about any such arrangement and such knowledge should be in the public domain.
Or if you want to get really nasty - shake hands, or we won't trust you, and we won't send you any money!
It also leads to the question of dealing with other world leaders. If Egypt wants to talk trade deals with Thailand, for example. Such a discussion could well benefit both countries. So if Thailand's Prime Minister, Ms Yingluck Shinawatra, arrives in Cairo to agree a trade deal, do you refuse to shake hands on it? Maybe show that you know a lot about common courtesies in Thailand and give her a wai instead? (Actually people in the Arab world should know a lot about the Shinawatra family. As Yingluck's brother, Thaksin, a former PM of Thailand, is wanted on corruption charges in Bangkok, he spends a lot of time in Dubai!).
I am not sure how the refusal to shake hands on a trade deal would go down in Thailand though.
And then there is the question of Germany. I am not sure how happy Angela Merkel would be with a foreign dignitary who refused to shake hands with her. To avoid any embarrassment she could send her Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, instead.
This one could be interesting. Herr Westerwelle is an ultraconservative on economic issues, but is also openly Gay (what the US Republican Party would make of that combination ....). Would the Muslim President of a country shake hands with an openly Gay man? Given the Islamic principles on homosexuality? And if the President of that country refused to do so would that not cause embarrassment, at least, in terms of relationships with Germany.
Better try some diplomatic handling of the situation - i.e. wait till 2013 before getting into any serious attempts at relationships with Germany, when Herr Westerwelle's party will almost certainly not make up part of any German government coalition?
First three minutes on the US Presidential elections then on to Egypt (you may guess that there's a lot happening in Germany at the moment!).
Anyone who read my previous piece on Egypt (something that the media belatedly have latched on to) will realise that I was cautious (polite word) about the rise of "democracy" in Egypt given that the two leading parties there are more or less strongly Islamic.
Despite getting a President from the Muslim Brotherhood, and a parliament dominated by the same party and the even more dogmatic Salafists (the parliament is currently subject to legal challenge incidentally), there are one or two promising signs.
The new President, in the name of national unity, stated a couple of weeks ago that he wanted two Vice-Presidents, a woman and a Christian. Obviously to show to the world that Islamic dogmatism would not be the order of the day.
So, who knows? I remain rather sceptical - religion and politics do not mix well, and Islam is not known for making compromises, but anyway ....
The major reason that Egypt was on the news was that they were having their first visit by a leading American dignitary since "democracy" took over. Yes, Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was in town.
Well when the USA is donating so much money to keep your fragile economy afloat (and most of the aid should now start working its way into the Egyptian economy and not into Hosni Mubarak's personal bank account), you do not want to upset them too much. So there we have Ms Clinton, a non-Muslim, not even wearing a headscarf - I suspect with a Salafist government that a burkha would have been expected (if they would even have deigned to have dealings with a woman), but I digress.
All in fact seemed in order except for the fact there would be no handshake at the end as a Muslim man cannot shake hands with a woman!
How do you spell "Nonsense"?
Ms Clinton was not there as a woman. She was there as a representative of the US government, which represents the American people. Regardless of their political allegiance (the same would have applied to Condoleeza Rice if she still held the role), regardless of their gender. It is not a question of personalities, it is a question of protocol. Of course the US government was already expecting this in advance, but a polite criticism should have been made about any such arrangement and such knowledge should be in the public domain.
Or if you want to get really nasty - shake hands, or we won't trust you, and we won't send you any money!
It also leads to the question of dealing with other world leaders. If Egypt wants to talk trade deals with Thailand, for example. Such a discussion could well benefit both countries. So if Thailand's Prime Minister, Ms Yingluck Shinawatra, arrives in Cairo to agree a trade deal, do you refuse to shake hands on it? Maybe show that you know a lot about common courtesies in Thailand and give her a wai instead? (Actually people in the Arab world should know a lot about the Shinawatra family. As Yingluck's brother, Thaksin, a former PM of Thailand, is wanted on corruption charges in Bangkok, he spends a lot of time in Dubai!).
I am not sure how the refusal to shake hands on a trade deal would go down in Thailand though.
And then there is the question of Germany. I am not sure how happy Angela Merkel would be with a foreign dignitary who refused to shake hands with her. To avoid any embarrassment she could send her Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, instead.
This one could be interesting. Herr Westerwelle is an ultraconservative on economic issues, but is also openly Gay (what the US Republican Party would make of that combination ....). Would the Muslim President of a country shake hands with an openly Gay man? Given the Islamic principles on homosexuality? And if the President of that country refused to do so would that not cause embarrassment, at least, in terms of relationships with Germany.
Better try some diplomatic handling of the situation - i.e. wait till 2013 before getting into any serious attempts at relationships with Germany, when Herr Westerwelle's party will almost certainly not make up part of any German government coalition?
Saturday, 14 July 2012
You too can have a body like mine
When I was growing up in England in the 1960s I first encountered the powers of American marketing techniques.
Charles Atlas, the American bodybuilder, also had a UK outlet, and the ads for it used to appear in all sorts of magazines.
It led to all sorts of jokes on the lines "You too can have a body like mine - if you're not careful" ("but would you really want one?" being the major alternative).
A standard prank at the school that I attended was to fill in the names and addresses of your classmates on adverts for various potentially embarrassing subject matters. Sure enough one of my friends (?) sent off my name and address for a Charles Atlas course.
My father burst into hysterical laughter when the first mailing came through the post. He had some difficulty believing that I knew nothing about it, and that a hoaxer was at work.
Intriguingly though, we got a total of four of these mails, the price dropping quite sharply each time. By the time the "last final offer" (Yea!) arrived, it cost some 300% less to purchase than if you had wanted it and sent off for it when you received the first mail.
It pays to know these things if you are interested though. If word gets around, the company would never achieve the expected profit on the goods, or would have to price it so the final offer was the expected price. Quite tricky and quite clever at one and the same time.
For the record, I never did send off for a Charles Atlas course. Having a reasonable muscular development seemed more sensible than having so much of the stuff you would wonder what to do with it all - and anyway, think how difficult it would have been finding shirts to fit.
Charles Atlas, the American bodybuilder, also had a UK outlet, and the ads for it used to appear in all sorts of magazines.
It led to all sorts of jokes on the lines "You too can have a body like mine - if you're not careful" ("but would you really want one?" being the major alternative).
A standard prank at the school that I attended was to fill in the names and addresses of your classmates on adverts for various potentially embarrassing subject matters. Sure enough one of my friends (?) sent off my name and address for a Charles Atlas course.
My father burst into hysterical laughter when the first mailing came through the post. He had some difficulty believing that I knew nothing about it, and that a hoaxer was at work.
Intriguingly though, we got a total of four of these mails, the price dropping quite sharply each time. By the time the "last final offer" (Yea!) arrived, it cost some 300% less to purchase than if you had wanted it and sent off for it when you received the first mail.
It pays to know these things if you are interested though. If word gets around, the company would never achieve the expected profit on the goods, or would have to price it so the final offer was the expected price. Quite tricky and quite clever at one and the same time.
For the record, I never did send off for a Charles Atlas course. Having a reasonable muscular development seemed more sensible than having so much of the stuff you would wonder what to do with it all - and anyway, think how difficult it would have been finding shirts to fit.
Friday, 13 July 2012
The often forgotten side of the Holocaust
INTRODUCTION
This is my third attempt to write this piece. Hopefully this time I will complete it.
I have researched the details as widely as possible on the Internet, but some conclusions are impressions which I will consider amending in the light of evidence to the contrary. Facts are what always matter to me, not half-truths or deceptions - or blatant lies (which include total recreations of history for political or religious purposes).
REFERENCE WORKS
Actually "influences" would be a better word. These are the things that I read that got me started in this area - many years ago!
1. A Pictorial History of Nazi Germany by Erwin Leiser - English edition published in 1962 by Pelican Books. Leiser was born to a Jewish family in Berlin in 1923. His family fled to Sweden in 1938, where he obtained a university degree, became a journalist, worked in television, and later became a documentary film maker. He produced the award-winning film Mein Kampf in 1960 - most of the pictures in the book came from that film. Split into 14 parts, I found 12 parts of this film available on YouTube last year (not sure where the other two went). In German, the sound was not all that amazing and being black and white archive film, it has the occasional glitch. Not sure that if it is still there, but for students of 20th century history it is interesting.
Most of the facts reflect the historical details that you will find elsewhere written by accredited historians (Hugh Trevor-Roper, Alan Bullock usw), though having started from a German perspective Leiser's take on events is occasionally different from that of his Anglo-American counterparts. But latter-day Nazi sympathisers will not like the content (all well and good IMHO, perhaps having the facts stuffed down their throats is a recommended cure for their illness!).
I still have this book available to me. It was a starting point. As part of my modern Renaissance Man leanings (linguist, computer scientist, mathematician and with considerable knowledge of international and national politics, economics, geography, and an overview of geology and natural sciences and as much as I will ever need to know about all the world's significant religions, which the geological and natural science knowledge automatically blows out of the water), I have researched 20th century history in some detail with a particular emphasis on the (often unfairly maligned IMHO) Weimar Republic, and the resistance movements within Germany during the Third Reich. So my views are not limited to what I have seen from Leiser's works.
2. My Life with the Gypsies (original German title - "Mein Schicksal waren die Zigeuner") by Marta Adler. First published in German in 1960 (I believe), English version dated, I think, from 1963. Please do not take the dates as completely accurate. Written by a non-Romany who went to live in, and married into the Romany communities. The book covers the period from the 1930s to 1950s and sees the events affecting their communities from an insider's perspective. It is many years since I picked this book up from my local library in England and read it, so I will not quote from it chapter and verse. What purpose it served though was to reveal to me facts of which I was totally unaware previously.
RACIAL PURIFICATION AND SOCIAL MISFITS
The role of the Jewish people in Germany prior to the rise of the Nazis is often misunderstood. Many of them did not live in isolated ghettos, mixing only in their own communities and being outsiders looking in. Many lived in the mainstream community, had lifestyles not dissimilar to the "ethnic Germans" and generally contributed to the everyday business and social life of the areas where they lived.
As an example one can quote Otto Frank, father of Anne Frank, who was a businessman in Frankfurt, and had served as an officer in the German Army during the First World War. There had been inter-marriage, and it is well nigh possible that people defined as "Jewish" by the Nazis (having one grandparent who was Jewish in the case of "Mischling Second Degree" - see the Nuremburg Laws of 1935) may actually have been unaware of the fact. Anyone who had renounced their commitment to Judaism and lived as, say, a Christian was also still subject to the racial laws.
If there were many Jewish people living among the mainstream social population of Germany at the time, this was not so much the case for the Romany people. Some had settled into the community, taken on "normal" jobs and lived "normal" lives, but they were mainly perceived as a nomadic people living in caravans. Ethnically not Germanic, and subject to the Gypsy Laws of 1899 in Bavaria and in 1922 in Baden, in 1928 they became subject to permanent police surveillance throughout the entire country.
Their (stereotypical) reputation as thieves, vagabonds, con artists, beggars and individuals prone to general anti-social tendencies was already well established before the rise of the Nazis to power. Works had already appeared from the likes of Binding and Hoche in 1920 and Günther in 1928 also locating them among the "racially impure" and as worthless individuals who had no place within German society.
Similar laws and a similar reputation were also widespread in other European countries and the impact of this, with the Nazi invasions of much of the rest of Europe, was to be noted elsewhere.
GYPSY, ROMANY, ROMA AND SINTI
Before continuing, a quick run through of terminology. The term "Gypsy" is often now seen as pejorative, and is not widely used. "Roma" has become the standard terminology for the people although "Romany" and "Romani" are still used as alternatives in the English speaking world.
The Sinti are seen as a sub-group principally based in German-speaking countries (though also to be found in Italy and Spain) with some different cultural features.
PERSECUTION UNDER NATIONAL SOCIALISM
Already in 1933 a policy of sterilisation was introduced where a number of Roma were concerned. In 1935 the Nuremburg Laws were also applied to them as was the case with the Jewish people. Following that the path downwards was to follow that of the Jews. Essentially they were "Untermenschen" with few rights, and the path towards their intended extermination opened by the Nazis.
The opening of the Racial Hygiene Research Centre in Berlin in 1936 was seen as particularly aimed at the Romany population, and throughout the next 8 to 9 years some medical experimentation, which should be seen as beyond barbaric, was carried out on them - notably on children. One of the major villains in this respect was the notorious Doctor Josef Mengele.
Many Sinti and Roma from throughout Europe were based in what was known as the "Gypsy Camp" at the concentration camp at Auschwitz. On the 2nd and 3rd of August, 1944, this area was closed and some 2,900 individuals were sent to die in the gas chambers. To the nay-sayers my comment is that there is far too much evidence that this did occur, and it should well be noted that the Nazis made quite clear that the extermination of the Roma was one of their objectives.
Because of their nomadic nature it is difficult to tie down the exact number of Romany people who died at the hands of the Nazi regime, but estimates that I have seen vary between 270,000 and 1,500,000. Whatever their shortcomings or antisocial behaviour, extermination in this manner and on this scale is far worse than "unacceptable", way beyond "barbaric" - in fact finding a word to describe it is extremely difficult.
As an atheist, I do not pray to any God - obviously. As a non-Roma (rather a descendant of Viking stock), I have no attachment directly to these people. But as a humanitarian who can understand (if not appreciate) the horror inflicted upon these people, I shall hold my own minute of silence on the anniversary of both those days, and I would ask my readers to do the same.
SETTELA STEINBACH
In over 250 postings on this blog, I have never before added a picture to any item that I have written. I live in hope that I am not infringing any copyright in this respect. I will with extremely great reluctance remove the image if informed that I must.
I first saw this image in Leiser's book nearly 50 years ago. It is in many ways an iconic picture of the Holocaust. A young, frightened girl staring out of a cattle truck before being transported to her death in Auschwitz.
For many years people thought that she was Jewish (not that, I would hasten to add, the tragedy of the Jewish people in this respect was any less!). In 1994 the Dutch journalist, Aad Wagenaar (who had been searching for the information about her), discovered her name - Anna Maria (known as "Settela") Steinbach. She was a Sinti girl, originally from Buchten in the Netherlands, who was picked up in Eindhoven with most of the rest of her family.
At the time that this happened, she was nine years old. The headscarf is not a religious symbol. She had had her head shaved to remove any head lice that she might have had (remember the times when children lived in such disgusting conditions that they had to be deloused?).
The cattle truck, a demeaning, disgusting way to transport any human beings, was the regular means of transporting people to the camps. Sanitation, comfort, dignity? Forget it!
That anyone could think that a girl like this could pose anything resembling any danger in any way to anybody?
As I said in yesterday's piece - words fail me!
POSTSCRIPT - AND WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
First what seems like a digression:
Anyone who saw the recent European football (North American = soccer) championships, EURO 2012, cannot fail to have admired the wonderful skill of the Italian midfield player, Andrea Pirlo. He is a Sinti. As is his father who runs a metal trading company that has a turnover of 2 billion Euro a year. Not exactly penniless nomads begging in the street, either of them.
I have spent a lot of time on this blog taking digs at stereotypes. At times it is very easy to get angry at people who depend upon stereotyping to make a point.
It is nonetheless the case that it is quite a commonplace occurrence. And that commonplace occurrence has at times a capacity to raise its ugly head in politics. There are political parties in Eastern Europe, most notoriously in Hungary, in particular where racism against the Roma is one of their platforms. Even in Western Europe there are instances of convenient showboating where these people are concerned (see Sarkozy in France in 2010).
The Roma culture is not easy to like for many of us. Some of their people we would well choose to avoid. But we should be capable of accommodating them within a true democratic culture. There are laws by which they too must learn to abide.
But the lessons of the 1940s should not be forgotten. We have learned to accept the rights of the Jewish people. We should learn to accept the rights of the Sinti and Roma as well and never allow a repeat of the atrocities described above to occur.
This is my third attempt to write this piece. Hopefully this time I will complete it.
I have researched the details as widely as possible on the Internet, but some conclusions are impressions which I will consider amending in the light of evidence to the contrary. Facts are what always matter to me, not half-truths or deceptions - or blatant lies (which include total recreations of history for political or religious purposes).
REFERENCE WORKS
Actually "influences" would be a better word. These are the things that I read that got me started in this area - many years ago!
1. A Pictorial History of Nazi Germany by Erwin Leiser - English edition published in 1962 by Pelican Books. Leiser was born to a Jewish family in Berlin in 1923. His family fled to Sweden in 1938, where he obtained a university degree, became a journalist, worked in television, and later became a documentary film maker. He produced the award-winning film Mein Kampf in 1960 - most of the pictures in the book came from that film. Split into 14 parts, I found 12 parts of this film available on YouTube last year (not sure where the other two went). In German, the sound was not all that amazing and being black and white archive film, it has the occasional glitch. Not sure that if it is still there, but for students of 20th century history it is interesting.
Most of the facts reflect the historical details that you will find elsewhere written by accredited historians (Hugh Trevor-Roper, Alan Bullock usw), though having started from a German perspective Leiser's take on events is occasionally different from that of his Anglo-American counterparts. But latter-day Nazi sympathisers will not like the content (all well and good IMHO, perhaps having the facts stuffed down their throats is a recommended cure for their illness!).
I still have this book available to me. It was a starting point. As part of my modern Renaissance Man leanings (linguist, computer scientist, mathematician and with considerable knowledge of international and national politics, economics, geography, and an overview of geology and natural sciences and as much as I will ever need to know about all the world's significant religions, which the geological and natural science knowledge automatically blows out of the water), I have researched 20th century history in some detail with a particular emphasis on the (often unfairly maligned IMHO) Weimar Republic, and the resistance movements within Germany during the Third Reich. So my views are not limited to what I have seen from Leiser's works.
2. My Life with the Gypsies (original German title - "Mein Schicksal waren die Zigeuner") by Marta Adler. First published in German in 1960 (I believe), English version dated, I think, from 1963. Please do not take the dates as completely accurate. Written by a non-Romany who went to live in, and married into the Romany communities. The book covers the period from the 1930s to 1950s and sees the events affecting their communities from an insider's perspective. It is many years since I picked this book up from my local library in England and read it, so I will not quote from it chapter and verse. What purpose it served though was to reveal to me facts of which I was totally unaware previously.
RACIAL PURIFICATION AND SOCIAL MISFITS
The role of the Jewish people in Germany prior to the rise of the Nazis is often misunderstood. Many of them did not live in isolated ghettos, mixing only in their own communities and being outsiders looking in. Many lived in the mainstream community, had lifestyles not dissimilar to the "ethnic Germans" and generally contributed to the everyday business and social life of the areas where they lived.
As an example one can quote Otto Frank, father of Anne Frank, who was a businessman in Frankfurt, and had served as an officer in the German Army during the First World War. There had been inter-marriage, and it is well nigh possible that people defined as "Jewish" by the Nazis (having one grandparent who was Jewish in the case of "Mischling Second Degree" - see the Nuremburg Laws of 1935) may actually have been unaware of the fact. Anyone who had renounced their commitment to Judaism and lived as, say, a Christian was also still subject to the racial laws.
If there were many Jewish people living among the mainstream social population of Germany at the time, this was not so much the case for the Romany people. Some had settled into the community, taken on "normal" jobs and lived "normal" lives, but they were mainly perceived as a nomadic people living in caravans. Ethnically not Germanic, and subject to the Gypsy Laws of 1899 in Bavaria and in 1922 in Baden, in 1928 they became subject to permanent police surveillance throughout the entire country.
Their (stereotypical) reputation as thieves, vagabonds, con artists, beggars and individuals prone to general anti-social tendencies was already well established before the rise of the Nazis to power. Works had already appeared from the likes of Binding and Hoche in 1920 and Günther in 1928 also locating them among the "racially impure" and as worthless individuals who had no place within German society.
Similar laws and a similar reputation were also widespread in other European countries and the impact of this, with the Nazi invasions of much of the rest of Europe, was to be noted elsewhere.
GYPSY, ROMANY, ROMA AND SINTI
Before continuing, a quick run through of terminology. The term "Gypsy" is often now seen as pejorative, and is not widely used. "Roma" has become the standard terminology for the people although "Romany" and "Romani" are still used as alternatives in the English speaking world.
The Sinti are seen as a sub-group principally based in German-speaking countries (though also to be found in Italy and Spain) with some different cultural features.
PERSECUTION UNDER NATIONAL SOCIALISM
Already in 1933 a policy of sterilisation was introduced where a number of Roma were concerned. In 1935 the Nuremburg Laws were also applied to them as was the case with the Jewish people. Following that the path downwards was to follow that of the Jews. Essentially they were "Untermenschen" with few rights, and the path towards their intended extermination opened by the Nazis.
The opening of the Racial Hygiene Research Centre in Berlin in 1936 was seen as particularly aimed at the Romany population, and throughout the next 8 to 9 years some medical experimentation, which should be seen as beyond barbaric, was carried out on them - notably on children. One of the major villains in this respect was the notorious Doctor Josef Mengele.
Many Sinti and Roma from throughout Europe were based in what was known as the "Gypsy Camp" at the concentration camp at Auschwitz. On the 2nd and 3rd of August, 1944, this area was closed and some 2,900 individuals were sent to die in the gas chambers. To the nay-sayers my comment is that there is far too much evidence that this did occur, and it should well be noted that the Nazis made quite clear that the extermination of the Roma was one of their objectives.
Because of their nomadic nature it is difficult to tie down the exact number of Romany people who died at the hands of the Nazi regime, but estimates that I have seen vary between 270,000 and 1,500,000. Whatever their shortcomings or antisocial behaviour, extermination in this manner and on this scale is far worse than "unacceptable", way beyond "barbaric" - in fact finding a word to describe it is extremely difficult.
As an atheist, I do not pray to any God - obviously. As a non-Roma (rather a descendant of Viking stock), I have no attachment directly to these people. But as a humanitarian who can understand (if not appreciate) the horror inflicted upon these people, I shall hold my own minute of silence on the anniversary of both those days, and I would ask my readers to do the same.
SETTELA STEINBACH
In over 250 postings on this blog, I have never before added a picture to any item that I have written. I live in hope that I am not infringing any copyright in this respect. I will with extremely great reluctance remove the image if informed that I must.
I first saw this image in Leiser's book nearly 50 years ago. It is in many ways an iconic picture of the Holocaust. A young, frightened girl staring out of a cattle truck before being transported to her death in Auschwitz.
For many years people thought that she was Jewish (not that, I would hasten to add, the tragedy of the Jewish people in this respect was any less!). In 1994 the Dutch journalist, Aad Wagenaar (who had been searching for the information about her), discovered her name - Anna Maria (known as "Settela") Steinbach. She was a Sinti girl, originally from Buchten in the Netherlands, who was picked up in Eindhoven with most of the rest of her family.
At the time that this happened, she was nine years old. The headscarf is not a religious symbol. She had had her head shaved to remove any head lice that she might have had (remember the times when children lived in such disgusting conditions that they had to be deloused?).
The cattle truck, a demeaning, disgusting way to transport any human beings, was the regular means of transporting people to the camps. Sanitation, comfort, dignity? Forget it!
That anyone could think that a girl like this could pose anything resembling any danger in any way to anybody?
As I said in yesterday's piece - words fail me!
POSTSCRIPT - AND WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
First what seems like a digression:
Anyone who saw the recent European football (North American = soccer) championships, EURO 2012, cannot fail to have admired the wonderful skill of the Italian midfield player, Andrea Pirlo. He is a Sinti. As is his father who runs a metal trading company that has a turnover of 2 billion Euro a year. Not exactly penniless nomads begging in the street, either of them.
I have spent a lot of time on this blog taking digs at stereotypes. At times it is very easy to get angry at people who depend upon stereotyping to make a point.
It is nonetheless the case that it is quite a commonplace occurrence. And that commonplace occurrence has at times a capacity to raise its ugly head in politics. There are political parties in Eastern Europe, most notoriously in Hungary, in particular where racism against the Roma is one of their platforms. Even in Western Europe there are instances of convenient showboating where these people are concerned (see Sarkozy in France in 2010).
The Roma culture is not easy to like for many of us. Some of their people we would well choose to avoid. But we should be capable of accommodating them within a true democratic culture. There are laws by which they too must learn to abide.
But the lessons of the 1940s should not be forgotten. We have learned to accept the rights of the Jewish people. We should learn to accept the rights of the Sinti and Roma as well and never allow a repeat of the atrocities described above to occur.
Thursday, 12 July 2012
Writer's intellectual cramp
It starts with an imaginary email.
From a "regular reader" wondering where you have got to.
Are you still there? Health problems? They haven't silenced your dissident voice (and do we need dissident voices now more than ever?)?
Still here. Exhaustion set in last week, we had a couple of days away visiting friends, came back, the exhaustion has still not gone away, neither has the insomnia, neither have the financial difficulties (€800 that should have been received have not been, but enquiries from the tax authorities have) usw. Ton of work to do. My client in Austria has sent me enough work to keep me busy for 10 days.
Writing? The ideas are as fertile as ever. The expressive powers have gone dormant though. Did Hardy have this problem? Did Dickens, Balzac, Cervantes, Thomas Mann? When Zola was working on the twelfth book of the Rougon-Macquart cycle, did he suddenly find that the words he needed were simply not there at that point?
There was a piece to translate last week that touched a chord. There was an article that I have wanted to write forever, it would have been the "pièce de résistance"! On aspects of the Holocaust that are rarely discussed, but need to be raised again. Given the rise of creeping Fascism in Europe again, it is a subject that absolutely needs to raised!
If you are going to write a piece on the Holocaust you have to do so in a way that it states that the Holocaust did happen, was real, did occur, absolutely and without question. Those rewriting history to say it didn't are typical of people who rewrite history - it doesn't suit their agenda, therefore it did not happen.
IT DID!
But to write on the subject you need to convince even the sceptics, or at least write in a convincing enough fashion to sound like you have the facts at your grasp. If those people in the Muslim world who now deny the existence of the Holocaust as a Jewish myth - if I told them that if some elements of the extreme nationalist movements in Europe ever get to power, history will repeat itself, but this time round the European Jews will not be the target - but rather the European Muslims? Now will they start looking at the facts and not let their prejudices get in the way?
But when I read the quality of English that I was producing for one of the translations that I was working on yesterday? Would I convince anyone?
Where have my expressive powers gone? Why am I producing tack? Does Günter Grass ever have this problem, or did Schiller or Goethe?
Words fail me.
From a "regular reader" wondering where you have got to.
Are you still there? Health problems? They haven't silenced your dissident voice (and do we need dissident voices now more than ever?)?
Still here. Exhaustion set in last week, we had a couple of days away visiting friends, came back, the exhaustion has still not gone away, neither has the insomnia, neither have the financial difficulties (€800 that should have been received have not been, but enquiries from the tax authorities have) usw. Ton of work to do. My client in Austria has sent me enough work to keep me busy for 10 days.
Writing? The ideas are as fertile as ever. The expressive powers have gone dormant though. Did Hardy have this problem? Did Dickens, Balzac, Cervantes, Thomas Mann? When Zola was working on the twelfth book of the Rougon-Macquart cycle, did he suddenly find that the words he needed were simply not there at that point?
There was a piece to translate last week that touched a chord. There was an article that I have wanted to write forever, it would have been the "pièce de résistance"! On aspects of the Holocaust that are rarely discussed, but need to be raised again. Given the rise of creeping Fascism in Europe again, it is a subject that absolutely needs to raised!
If you are going to write a piece on the Holocaust you have to do so in a way that it states that the Holocaust did happen, was real, did occur, absolutely and without question. Those rewriting history to say it didn't are typical of people who rewrite history - it doesn't suit their agenda, therefore it did not happen.
IT DID!
But to write on the subject you need to convince even the sceptics, or at least write in a convincing enough fashion to sound like you have the facts at your grasp. If those people in the Muslim world who now deny the existence of the Holocaust as a Jewish myth - if I told them that if some elements of the extreme nationalist movements in Europe ever get to power, history will repeat itself, but this time round the European Jews will not be the target - but rather the European Muslims? Now will they start looking at the facts and not let their prejudices get in the way?
But when I read the quality of English that I was producing for one of the translations that I was working on yesterday? Would I convince anyone?
Where have my expressive powers gone? Why am I producing tack? Does Günter Grass ever have this problem, or did Schiller or Goethe?
Words fail me.
Thursday, 5 July 2012
Paying to find a job or earn money
As desperate as many of us get to find work, it is always advisable never to sign up for a site that requires you to pay a fee in advance for membership which will allow you access to jobs.
Unless of course there is a money-back guarantee.
Being without work usually means being without income. It is often simply a waste of money in this job market - who can be certain that you will get a return on your investment? In fact it could well just exacerbate your situation. Pay a percentage after you have got a job - fine, but not in advance. Notably these organisations will never agree to that!
As for these sites where they tell you that you could be earning €600 or $600 a day usw, please send €49 or $97 or .... caveat emptor. Chances are your money will go to help them hit the target of 600 wharrever per day at your expense and you will never hear any more from them.
Of course you could try setting up a site that invites people to send you money on the same principle. I would happily see you locked up for fraud if you tried!
Unless of course there is a money-back guarantee.
Being without work usually means being without income. It is often simply a waste of money in this job market - who can be certain that you will get a return on your investment? In fact it could well just exacerbate your situation. Pay a percentage after you have got a job - fine, but not in advance. Notably these organisations will never agree to that!
As for these sites where they tell you that you could be earning €600 or $600 a day usw, please send €49 or $97 or .... caveat emptor. Chances are your money will go to help them hit the target of 600 wharrever per day at your expense and you will never hear any more from them.
Of course you could try setting up a site that invites people to send you money on the same principle. I would happily see you locked up for fraud if you tried!
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
Is it finally getting through to the Catholic Church?
I have mentioned often enough on here that my longest-standing friend is a Roman Catholic. A number of other important people in my life have also been Catholics, including a girl I was once considering marrying. Mother Teresa was a person whom you could not fail to admire, and except for his stance on birth control (the world is overpopulated and expecting self-restraint is unreal!), the last Pope was undoubtedly a worthy man.
So as an atheist, I am prepared to live and let live with Catholicism a lot of the time. Far more so than with some of their Protestant cousins, who seem to think that "Blessed be the hypocrites" should be part of the Sermon on the Mount.
And one should in all fairness point out that most Catholic bishops and priests are well-meaning, if occasionally philosophically conservative individuals.
So the black sheep in their midst who have sullied the reputation of the Church internationally are a very small, if very iniquitous minority. Unfortunately given who they are, people at large are not going to forgive and forget. If the scandal of their behaviour cannot and should not be ignored, so the scandalous way in whch the hierarchy of the Catholic Church handled it can also not be ignored.
A paedophile is a paedophile. End of story. Someone who is in a position of trust where children are concerned and abuses them is about as low as they get. There is and can be no forgiveness! If a teacher were involved you would never hear the last of it. And any organisation that has such a person in their midst should not offer them cover, the person in question should be handed over to the appropriate authorities to face the full power of the law.
I cannot see why so many priests who were guilty of such terrible actions were dealt with so leniently by the church - it runs counter to the very teachings that the organisation is trying to propagate.
Today I had to teach myself what exactly a sacristan does. Is he a priest usw? The answer is a bit complex, but apparently the answer is "yes".
And why would I want to know this all of a sudden? This morning just before going out I noticed on Yahoo Deutschland that a sacristan was on trial in Würzburg charged with 20 (yes, twenty!) cases of sexual molestation. I cannot recall with one altar boy or several, but you get the message.
Bite your lip at this point, accept that there is no verdict, the guy is entitled to a fair trial, it may prove unfounded ..... GRRRRR! If he is guilty (20 charges, not one or two - sounds more than possible), nothing that can be described as good can possibly come out of this. A young life or lives will have been ruined forever, possibly, I am told that the sense of guilt never leaves the child even as an adult.
The one slight positive though is that he is actually on trial in a civil court for what for all of us is a criminal act! How many priests who actually did commit such crimes did not face civil justice and were protected by the Catholic Church? That at least is a step in the right direction!
Let there be no discussions about abstruse nonsense about morality or sin. The act may be sinful, it may be immoral - IT DEFINITELY IS CRIMINAL! And rather than having discussions about such people eventually rotting in Hell (wherever that may be if it exists????) LET THEM ROT IN THIS LIFE IN A NASTY UNPLEASANT JAIL INSTEAD - AND FOR A VERY LONG TIME!!!!
So as an atheist, I am prepared to live and let live with Catholicism a lot of the time. Far more so than with some of their Protestant cousins, who seem to think that "Blessed be the hypocrites" should be part of the Sermon on the Mount.
And one should in all fairness point out that most Catholic bishops and priests are well-meaning, if occasionally philosophically conservative individuals.
So the black sheep in their midst who have sullied the reputation of the Church internationally are a very small, if very iniquitous minority. Unfortunately given who they are, people at large are not going to forgive and forget. If the scandal of their behaviour cannot and should not be ignored, so the scandalous way in whch the hierarchy of the Catholic Church handled it can also not be ignored.
A paedophile is a paedophile. End of story. Someone who is in a position of trust where children are concerned and abuses them is about as low as they get. There is and can be no forgiveness! If a teacher were involved you would never hear the last of it. And any organisation that has such a person in their midst should not offer them cover, the person in question should be handed over to the appropriate authorities to face the full power of the law.
I cannot see why so many priests who were guilty of such terrible actions were dealt with so leniently by the church - it runs counter to the very teachings that the organisation is trying to propagate.
Today I had to teach myself what exactly a sacristan does. Is he a priest usw? The answer is a bit complex, but apparently the answer is "yes".
And why would I want to know this all of a sudden? This morning just before going out I noticed on Yahoo Deutschland that a sacristan was on trial in Würzburg charged with 20 (yes, twenty!) cases of sexual molestation. I cannot recall with one altar boy or several, but you get the message.
Bite your lip at this point, accept that there is no verdict, the guy is entitled to a fair trial, it may prove unfounded ..... GRRRRR! If he is guilty (20 charges, not one or two - sounds more than possible), nothing that can be described as good can possibly come out of this. A young life or lives will have been ruined forever, possibly, I am told that the sense of guilt never leaves the child even as an adult.
The one slight positive though is that he is actually on trial in a civil court for what for all of us is a criminal act! How many priests who actually did commit such crimes did not face civil justice and were protected by the Catholic Church? That at least is a step in the right direction!
Let there be no discussions about abstruse nonsense about morality or sin. The act may be sinful, it may be immoral - IT DEFINITELY IS CRIMINAL! And rather than having discussions about such people eventually rotting in Hell (wherever that may be if it exists????) LET THEM ROT IN THIS LIFE IN A NASTY UNPLEASANT JAIL INSTEAD - AND FOR A VERY LONG TIME!!!!
Monday, 2 July 2012
The non-joys of being self-employed and the advantages of the Euro
On July 17th I shall be "celebrating" (hardly!) the anniversary of sending out my first invoice as a self-employed translator.
The translation work is often very interesting. The financial reward is the complete reverse of interesting and the hassle involved with just about everything else is the proverbial pain in the rear quarters!
The British entrepreneur, Alan Sugar, once took on-board the British scientist, Clive Sinclair, who had been running his own business rather unsuccessfully. Sugar's comment ran along the lines that Sinclair was the sort of person who should be working in his (Sugar's) research department, not trying to run a business.
So will someone find me an Alan Sugar? The work is not a problem (though being back in IT would take preference to translating - that is really interesting!) ....
In that time I have sent out invoices to the value of approximately €10,850 (divide by 12 - €900 and a bit per month, this is not exactly Microsoft!). I have received payment to the tune of €7,480, €603 can be almost certainly written off as bad debt (getting involved with scam merchants when I first started), the rest is due, overdue, or ridiculously overdue. There is also some €600 of new work currently being completed for a German customer who loves what I send them.
Regular customers usually expect you to wait 30 or 45 or 60 days to be paid, even though the work that you send has to be of the best possible quality (I think that I achieve that 90% of the time - sometimes I drive myself too hard, work too long hours and my concentration disappears behind a dark screen of exhaustion) and delivered punctually (I rarely miss a deadline by more than an hour).
Recently even regular and previously reliable customers have started paying late to very late. Chasing them up is downright unpleasant and hardly conducive to building successful long-term relationships, but what else can you do? And I cannot afford to pay lawyers (though given my view of lawyers, who get paid tons of money basically for old rope ....).
My personal bank account is nearly permanently empty (minimum overheads monthly equal €920 - see above), approximately €2,900 of the €7,480 above has gone in medical insurance, I am working all the hours there are nearly, and but for the work being interesting ..... Generating more income, getting customers to pay up what is due when it is due? HOW????
And the fact should not be ignored that there are tax and pension rights to be sorted out. No concerns here dealing with the tax authorities incidentally - anyone from the German tax authorities reading this, you are welcome to the facts, please realise that there is no money spare at the moment though. Accountants, though, are another matter - if there is one batch of people whom I hold in even less respects than lawyers! Legalised (and very expensive) thieves. Period!
And how does the Euro come into this? My major customer is in Germany. The second most active batch of customers are in France and Belgium. After that come the occasional customers in Hungary, the Baltic States, Spain and Portugal. All get billed in Euro.
Imagine having to bill them and get paid in a separate currency and get the bank to convert what is sent. There goes 12-17% of what you have worked hard to earn in bank conversion charges before you even start. MONEY FOR DOING NOTHING? WHY SHOULD THE BANKS BE ENTITLED TO THE EFFORTS OF MY HARD WORK FOR DOING NOTHING?
And think how many people that applies to across the Euro zone - whether big business or small? It doesn't affect income and profitability? Who is kidding whom? The Euro helps cuts business costs with cross-border business transactions. Period! When the idiot in the British press who was yesterday screaming about how foul the whole European concept is, actually thinks about that for the moment.... That said it is probably beyond his limited intellectual capacity to do so!
I am already close to giving up doing this as I cannot, despite all my efforts and love of the work, make a living from it. If I lost 17% of my income like that there is no way that I would continue (and if you want an example - I did one piece of work for a company in the US. Of the $44 I earned, $17 equivalent made it to my account by the time the bank had finished - the American translation agency sent me a cheque in US$, which explains a lot of the overheads!). All people in this situation are trying their best to keep alive as best they can, they are not providing a charitable service for banking organisations!
The translation work is often very interesting. The financial reward is the complete reverse of interesting and the hassle involved with just about everything else is the proverbial pain in the rear quarters!
The British entrepreneur, Alan Sugar, once took on-board the British scientist, Clive Sinclair, who had been running his own business rather unsuccessfully. Sugar's comment ran along the lines that Sinclair was the sort of person who should be working in his (Sugar's) research department, not trying to run a business.
So will someone find me an Alan Sugar? The work is not a problem (though being back in IT would take preference to translating - that is really interesting!) ....
In that time I have sent out invoices to the value of approximately €10,850 (divide by 12 - €900 and a bit per month, this is not exactly Microsoft!). I have received payment to the tune of €7,480, €603 can be almost certainly written off as bad debt (getting involved with scam merchants when I first started), the rest is due, overdue, or ridiculously overdue. There is also some €600 of new work currently being completed for a German customer who loves what I send them.
Regular customers usually expect you to wait 30 or 45 or 60 days to be paid, even though the work that you send has to be of the best possible quality (I think that I achieve that 90% of the time - sometimes I drive myself too hard, work too long hours and my concentration disappears behind a dark screen of exhaustion) and delivered punctually (I rarely miss a deadline by more than an hour).
Recently even regular and previously reliable customers have started paying late to very late. Chasing them up is downright unpleasant and hardly conducive to building successful long-term relationships, but what else can you do? And I cannot afford to pay lawyers (though given my view of lawyers, who get paid tons of money basically for old rope ....).
My personal bank account is nearly permanently empty (minimum overheads monthly equal €920 - see above), approximately €2,900 of the €7,480 above has gone in medical insurance, I am working all the hours there are nearly, and but for the work being interesting ..... Generating more income, getting customers to pay up what is due when it is due? HOW????
And the fact should not be ignored that there are tax and pension rights to be sorted out. No concerns here dealing with the tax authorities incidentally - anyone from the German tax authorities reading this, you are welcome to the facts, please realise that there is no money spare at the moment though. Accountants, though, are another matter - if there is one batch of people whom I hold in even less respects than lawyers! Legalised (and very expensive) thieves. Period!
And how does the Euro come into this? My major customer is in Germany. The second most active batch of customers are in France and Belgium. After that come the occasional customers in Hungary, the Baltic States, Spain and Portugal. All get billed in Euro.
Imagine having to bill them and get paid in a separate currency and get the bank to convert what is sent. There goes 12-17% of what you have worked hard to earn in bank conversion charges before you even start. MONEY FOR DOING NOTHING? WHY SHOULD THE BANKS BE ENTITLED TO THE EFFORTS OF MY HARD WORK FOR DOING NOTHING?
And think how many people that applies to across the Euro zone - whether big business or small? It doesn't affect income and profitability? Who is kidding whom? The Euro helps cuts business costs with cross-border business transactions. Period! When the idiot in the British press who was yesterday screaming about how foul the whole European concept is, actually thinks about that for the moment.... That said it is probably beyond his limited intellectual capacity to do so!
I am already close to giving up doing this as I cannot, despite all my efforts and love of the work, make a living from it. If I lost 17% of my income like that there is no way that I would continue (and if you want an example - I did one piece of work for a company in the US. Of the $44 I earned, $17 equivalent made it to my account by the time the bank had finished - the American translation agency sent me a cheque in US$, which explains a lot of the overheads!). All people in this situation are trying their best to keep alive as best they can, they are not providing a charitable service for banking organisations!
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