£ against everyone else

london 10.53am 5.4C cloudy thursday 2016

the £ has dropped…

the market is really silly, to drop the £ just because of uncertainty. but it does not like uncertainty and would think the worst and will always want to cover its backside.all it cares about is … it is afraid of losing money. once we have the result after 23june, they should settle down. 

 exporters are happy the £ has dropped. and in many ways it is a good thing in the short run.

tourists from uk are finding it more expensive to go abroad, but i think that is not a bad thing. too many are spending £s abroad and selling £s.

i would prefer they decide to spend their holidays in uk, and spend their money here. and help the british economy. and if foreign goods are more expensive, it means local services and good will be relatively cheaper and persuade more  people to buy.

economics dont like to say this, but all people should buy their own country’s goods … if u buy foreign goods u are helping the foreign country and sabotaging your own. but no one can say it,everyone pays lip service to free trade. but if u want to help your country, buy only what is produced by your country. 

£1 = 5.87ringgit, 1.96singapore $, 49.66bhat, US$1.39,1.26 euro,95.75rupee,1.94Aus$, 

it is strange that here it is so mild, when i read of a huge blizzard hitting the eastern usa now with 2ft of snow forecast to fall.

london 7.56pm 9.7C dry , but might rain at 9.30pm. saturday 2016

it must be said that it is not unusual to have snow and blizzard in new york. at this time. in fact, i remember it used to start just after new year day. that was why when i  used to go there for christmas, i would make sure i leave soon after new  year day. you could say it  has been  mild for new york that it experience a blizzard now , it is late, for it to come so far into  january.

now they are all panicking and clearing the shelves of bread, milk and eggs.

you know, when u name a blizzard, it becomes more important. it makes it seem more dangerous than usual. it is not named if it was not a big one. so by association, people soon learn to fear such named monsters.

i remember they had a panic some time ago about a storm hitting them, it was a hurricane, in the end, the hurricane veered off or died down when it  hit land, so it all ended in a damp squid. not that they acknowledge it. everyone quietly let it pass and it was not mentioned again. … haha. even now, when we all think we know how to predict the course of bad weather, we can still be stumped. it makes me wonder whether it might not be better not to name the storms. so people dont get frightened so much before it happens. nothing to be gained by frightening people with what might happen. after all, people only have to know a big storm is coming and just batten down and stay indoors and hole up. buildings are strong enough to withstand any thing the storm can throw at them. then when the storm has passed people can come out and just do a repair job on anything that got damaged. and that is it. no fuss no angst. 

someone had asked why people feel compelled to buy those three things . why not canned goods? it is strange, isn’t it?  it may be psychological. 

 

more thoughts of the day

london 5.38pm rainy 14.8C monday 2015

i noticed it is so easy to read of news happening all over the world and also in our own city. all these bad news come into our laptops piling up one way or another …  it makes u think a lot of nasty things are happening all the time, and seeing videos of people doing nasty things to each other must make u think it is dangerous and horrible world out there.

but i look at my life and see it is quite ordinary and safe and nothing happens to me. so how come so much bad things are happening to others? and then i come to realise it is not really happening to the majority of us. most of us lead very ordinary unhappening lives, it is just that the news coming at us all the time makes us think the whole world is full of danger and everyone is going to get robbed, or killed, or whatever.

it might be a good time to pause and get things in perspective.

planes will crash, people will drown, lots of others will get killed, but as far as your own life is concerned, it wont happen to you.

i am seeing a film on tv now, showing people with swords killing each other, it is a old fashioned swashbuckling film called saraband, a ealing studios film made in the 50’s, but so much violence and even though we all know it is make believe but it does give the impression violence is commonplace and is everywhere.

it is about sophie dorothea, wife of king george I and mother of george II. 

it has got really nice well made costumes though… which looked so clean and unwrinkled.

but i guess it is easy to get caught up, so that after being bombarded with all these depiction of violence it is easy to  think violence is everywhere and feel unsafe. but remember it is all make believe and  dont you believe it.

most of our lives are really very ordinary and non violent and hence safe. if anything, it is bad health that is more common with us all, rather than being killed or knifed or shot.

bad health is what we should all be afraid of. but no one is. we just dont notice it, until we get struck down with bad health. and if we are lucky to get well again , we soon forget that bad health and carry on doing all those unhealthy habits. 

Supermarkets are driven by profits, not the urge to keep us healthy | Comment is free | The Observer

Supermarkets are driven by profits, not the urge to keep us healthy | Comment is free | The Observer.

a very funny article poking fun at the govt for trying to dictate what the supermarkets can or cannot put next to the checkout counter.

mitchell was taught by his parents that people who impulse buy sweets at the checkout, are foolish, and if only all parents taught their children this there would not be this kids screaming at the counter because the parents said no.  it is common sense really.

i always wonder why parents always have to answer all the questions asked by kids. if the child asks for sweets, say nothing. such questions are not worthy of a reply. and faced with no response the kid will just forget about it. but say no, and it is like waving a red flag in front of that bull of a kid.

 

i also read this article in the same paper, about a woman journalist who is worried about being cold. she is so used to getting warm from a central heated house, she has forgotten that u can be warm with clothing alone. no need to warm up all the air inside a house to keep warm. and the govt is no better and feeding on this fear by saying the house must be kept at 20C.

As a consequence of her thinking that the only way to keep warm is to central heat the house she become anxious and fearful… a state of affairs that seem to afflict even normal people nowadays. people seem to be anxious about the smallest things these days.