International
The Credit Crunch
So the banks have played their cards! We can now see exactly how greedy they have become. The Sub-Prime credit fiasco has highlighted what many of us knew a long time ago.

The banks around the world have been gambling, and as their gambles have paid off, they have increased their risk. It was only a matter of time before this blew up in their faces, and boy has it done that! The fat-cat salaries the banks have been paying have been fuelling and rewarding the risk takers.

One of the first rules of financial management (and one that your bank would tell you) is that if you spend more than you earn, you are in trouble.

A famous quote from Charles Dickens' classic work, David Copperfield. In it, Mr. Micawber notes the difference (in his view) between happiness and misery.

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

So we are now in a credit crunch - first time buyers, who have been suffering because of the high (and increasing) house prices, are now unable to get the mortgages to get onto the housing ladder, despite house prices coming down. Existing mortgage customers will face a problem when they remortgage - what if the mortgage provider decides that despite a perfect record, that the person is no longer 'creditworthy' in the modern climate - what happens to their property? Will their house be repossessed? Will they be forced onto an unaffordable high lending rate - to further fuel the fat-cat pay deals at the top of the banking system?

It is an old story - the banks hold our money and charge us for the privilege, they gamble with our money and charge us for the privilege, and they screw up and charge us for the mess. The CEO of Northern Rock screwed up, and got a huge payout - and who pays for this? The shareholders - in the case of Northern Rock - this now means the taxpayer!

And then the Government offer to bail the banks out with our money. Very few of these banks are British only, and have been making the same mistakes overseas, but we are bailing them out. I leave you with one question - have you ever seen a poor banker?
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Finally back infront of a computer after meltdown!
So, sorry for the silence from me! It has been a busy time for me, combined with the heat-wave and the World Cup.

In fact, it is the heat-wave I want to address today. Global warming - maybe - but can we take the chance that it isn't? Whilst hot summer temperatures is a pleasant change - blue skies and that unusual thing called the sun in the midst of the 'blue' - our houses, infrastructure and lives are not geared up to temperatures of 30 degrees plus for weeks on end. As I write, I am watching some 'affordable housing' being built on a Greenfield site (don't get me started on that), and they will probably be OK for the temperate temperatures we have had for the last 10 or so years, but excessive heat or cold, and these places will offer little comfort, unless the owners use heaters and air conditioners - hey, don't they add to the problem?

This week, the Government in the UK mentioned that speed limits should reduce on motorways, and the Chelsea Tractors (urban 4-wheel drives) should be taxed at a rate 1,000% higher than 'normal' cars. This, they reckon, will reduce the UK's carbon emissions. I do not dispute that these measures will have an effect, but how about enforcing existing speed limits, and slapping 1,000% import tax on the Chelsea Tractors to kill off demand for them before they hit the road?

Unfortunately, the UK is unlikely to listen too hard, and the politicians will have little courage to implement such regulations. In Liechtenstein they encourage the population to leave their cars behind, with 'Car-free' Sundays when special cycle lanes are created and buses are put on for free. During the rest of the year, bus transport is very cheap and reliable. A small state can do these things, but surely a cheap, reliable service is not too much to ask for - I for one would make more use of the public network if that was the case.

Europe is aware of the issues of Global Warming - some countries more than others, of course. The biggest polluter, however, is oblivious to all the uproar - the USA continues to ignore the Kyoto agreement, increasing its dependance on fossil-based fuels, and using excessive petrol, electricity, etc. I remember my first visit to the US in 1979, air conditioning units were set so high that you froze in the stores and public areas, and almost passed out as you stepped out onto the street.

The problem with the US is that they are likely to wake up only when it is too late (someone recently told me that this is what almost happened in the last two world wars too!), So do we have to experience a collapse of the Gulf Stream, plunging Northern Europe, and the North-Eastern US seaboard into a mini-Ice Age?, or the melting of the Ice Caps that will flood areas such as the Netherlands, East Anglia in England, and more importantly for the Americans - Most of Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and important centres such as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington DC, as well as the Caribbean and West Coast ports.

Nations such as the Maldives and Bangladesh will disappear, and many of the world's island playgrounds in the Pacific and Caribbean will be swamped. And what of the knock-on effects. Salt water flooding subduction zones could trigger massive earthquakes and volcanic activity, especially around the Pacific rim - California and the Rockies be warned.

So what can we do about it? Not being a scientist or environmentalist, I cannot claim to have the answers, but I would say that everything and anything we can do now should be done. I also believe that it is already too late, and unless we can find some way of removing the greenhouse gases from the atmosphere from the atmosphere, reinvigorating the ocean currents, etc., we will experience a catastrophe - the level of which is the only question for debate. I, for one, would not buy a property on land under about 50m above sea level - just as well that I love the mountains!

Internationally, the polluters - the USA, Russia, China and India to name but few - should be forced to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, and product manufacturers forced to make their products more environmentally friendly in their manufacture, usage and disposal. Taxes can go some way to do this, but consumer power is the main driver here - use this wonderful (and probably not too environmentally friendly) medium of the Internet to inform yourself of the impact buying one product has over another.

Finally, I would like to ask if I am being hypocritical? I love my cars and I love travelling, so I probably am a net contributor, despite planting trees, trying reduce the emissions, etc. I just feel that I want to try to do all I can, even if I am adding to the problem slightly - give me cars that have no carbon footprints, allow me to generate my own free electricity, etc., and I would do it.

How about you?
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