world economics

london 8.50pm 19.7C sunny wednesday 2018

we here in uk all know about the italians  unable to form a govt , when their candidate for finance minister , a known anti Euro economist was rejected by the president of italy who refused to accept his nomination, and so it seems they have to have another election later in july. it is causing some turmoil in italy with the money markets getting into a fright about it. it means italy will find it more expensive to borrow money. 

but i see just now the headline saying the turkey lira is falling, and that will bring about a banking crisis in europe, because so many european banks have lent money to turkey. with the falling turkey lira, they wont be able to pay the interest which is in US $. and if they go into default, than the european banks who have lent them the money will suffer.

i have to admit i cannot understand world economics. but the domino effect is what caused the collapse, and if u can figure out which domino is the important one, you can make money by predicting what will happen. will this cause a banking crisis in the eurozone and will it become the one that cause all of it to collapse? i wonder. perhaps not, because turkey is not a big player. the papers are more inclined to believe that the crisis will come from italy. it is 5.93turkish lira =£1.

added. 2.6.18 £1= 6.21turkish lira. $1= 4.61TL

 

the new £10 note

london 8.17am 16.3C overcast tuesday 2017

Digital StillCamera

Digital StillCamera

first time i am able to get the new £10 plastic note since its issue on 14th sept.  it is smaller than the old paper one. and not easy to fold. one thing about the money, the style changes but the portrait of the queen remains constantly there. that does not change and it is quite a nice thing, one thing that remains fixed in all the changes that move around it. i dont know about u, but i find that comforting… strange isn’t it?

perhaps that is what the institution of monarchy is for. to remain a fixed point that all can relate history and everything else that happens in a fast ever changing world.

hope the new note will put a pause to the forgeries.

i just got some change in old £ coins and i can see how degraded it has become. i bet there are more £1 coin forgeries than they tell us. the shops are still giving us those old coins as change. it will be invalid on 15oct 2017. i must remember not to accept any old coins after that date. no one bothers to check if it i s genuine or not. i guess because it would be chaos to the system if shops start refusing to accept your old £1 coin. i wonder when the shops return the old £1 coin to the bank, will the bank sort out the forgeries and refuse to honor those? maybe not, otherwise the shops will not hand them in but carry on giving it as change as they will lose. i think it is possible that forgers are putting out more of the old coins since the new ones came into circulation, just to get rid of them, and since no one is checking, it can be used. i bet the authorities will be glad when 15 oct comes round, than they can refuse to accept all old coins.

added. 4.33pm 20.8C sunny . here is something i did not know. scotland has issued its own plastic £10 notes, it seems there are 8 banks there which can issue their own notes. all this duplication is not very efficient, really. i dont think i want to accept scottish notes frankly.  we dont get them here in london. at least in all the time i lived here, i can only remember once receiving a scottish note. i quickly spent it just to get rid of it. haha. i know scots will most probably scold me for being such a prejudiced git. haha. 

well, look at it, doesn’t it look fake? there dont seem to be any security features in it.

the new plastic jane austen £10 note.

london virgin lounge 2.54pm 18.5C sunny thursday 2017

oh, i see on the big tv on the wall showing the news that the new £10 jane austen plastic note is being issued today. quite a lot of new features on it. looks like the bank of england is trying to convert most of its currency to plastic. unlike some who dont like the change, i dont mind. 

i think when they change the £20 note, it will be a lot more of a disruption to us.

then there is the hoo ha about the way they charge for the new apple iphone x. it costs the same whether it is in US$ or in £, even though the exchange rate is $1.33 =£1.

in the states there is the strange anomaly of sales taxes , some states dont have that, or lower than others. delaware it seems have no state taxes. is there a lot of smuggling across state borders do you think? how do the americans deal with that? i remember when i used to go to the states for christmas , it is cheaper in new jersey than in manhatten because of the difference in sales tax. but of course being a tourist, not to mention that the exchange rate then was so good, $1.80 to £1,( such happy days! now that i look back on it) that it never occurred to me to go to new jersey . not worth the trouble, really. 

spending money is a simple pleasure in itself.

london 9.04am 15.2C sunny sunday 2017

i am unhappy not spending money

i think this is a very astute observation. i happened to come on it, in my wordpress reader, and other observations mentioned also strike to the heart of the matter of being thrifty and saving money.

yesterday i talked on simple pleasures, but if u think of it, spending money is a simple pleasure and a very powerful one as well. fortunately, the amount spent is not a strong factor … though it could be to some…it is highly possible that the pleasure in spending money is the huge amounts you spend, that might be the big factor in liking that pleasure…  but even then, small amounts can ride up to a huge outlay over time. some might even think if they dont spend money they are not living a good life. that they are missing out on something. that they are depriving themselves of life experience because they are not spending money.

in the end, the best advise to save money is dont buy anything… impossible to follow of course, so the more practical advise is spend less than you earn. and you can play it out over any time span that u like. a month, a year, 10yrs… as long as when u tote it up, u spend less than you earn. but important that u feel happy about it, otherwise it becomes too much like hell.

looking back on my life i realise i have been adjusting this spending as a pleasure by incorporating it to buying bargain foods. so my urge to spend is nicely fulfilled but i get double pleasure knowing i get really good value for what i buy and at much reduced prices, and also get the simple pleasure of enjoying eating what i bought. so win-win-win all round.

another way of saving money is to make it yourself. but i realise it does not work for me. for eg, i used to bake bread, but it still means u got to buy the ingredients, than the effort of making it and the cost of baking it in the oven using electricity/gas. unless you enjoy the making of it for its own sake, i find it is too much bother and does not save much… when the supermarkets reduce their bread to so little , 10p, 5p, for the commercial breads, and 25p for the instore baked ones.

and i find i dont want to eat so much bread anymore. its the same with cakes, i just find i dont want to eat them anymore… and at a stroke i get rid of the conundrum of whether to bake them or buy them. 

 

 

first time i get the new £1 coin in my change

the london 9.41pm 14C dry night friday 2017

Digital StillCamera

Digital StillCamera

the old coin on the left was issued in 1995. quite a close similarity of the queen’s portrait , dont you think? to the new one? i only now notice it , and only because they were given to me together as change and i wanted to show them side by side to compare the size.

quite a young looking portrait of the queen  in the new coin. the new coin came out quite some time ago, but it is only today that i got it in my change. surprised that it is the same size as the old coin, but dont know why i thought it would be larger. maybe it is the design, being two toned makes it appear larger when viewed on its own. 

new stuff for a new year

london 7.49am still dark out there. sunrise is 8.04am. 7.6C rain forecast sunday 2016 new year 2017

a new year dawns, though i  slept through the countdown last night. well, if u have seen 65 new years, you cannot get very excited at another one.

seems to me it is an excuse to get new stuff. and we have actually done our bit, we got a new oven and a new hoover vacuum cleaner. i now can understand why the chinese buy new clothes for chinese new year. and use new minted money in the angpows. it stands to reason a new year means new stuff , get rid of the old stuff as it prepares the mindset for a new year with new stuff. yes, very logical really. gets everyone in the mood as it were. for those who have missed buying new stuff, there is another chance to join in when chinese new year comes on 28th jan. u might like to have a little giggle when u find out it is the year of the cock. haha. it is early this year. and makes another thing to anticipate for those feeling a bit let down by this one. 

and i read this morning about the new money that will come out in 28th march to replace the old round £ coin, the old £2 coin and the old 50p. the old round £1 coins will cease to be legal tender after 15oct.

they look very pretty. and it serves to show india how to do these things, instead of blanket making all those old coins invalid at a stroke at a given date. it must cost the uk quite a lot of money to get these new coins made. but hey, we get new coins for a new year. isn’t that great? and money too… so symbolic too. as all these coins spell wealth.

 added i just realised i am starting a new calendar too. i have been using this old one since 2008, and now after 8 yrs i am replacing that with this new one. it might last another 8yrs. who knows.

Digital StillCamera

Digital StillCamera

its a nice change of scenery as it were.

now that i have changed the calendar it hits home to me, that the years are going by. it will be another 4yrs and we shall be in the 2020s. imagine it, that date is the future , it seems impossibly far away in the future when we were growing up in the later half of the last century. when we were celebrating 2000 , this time seems so far away, and now it is 2017. i have lived here for 25yrs . it does not seem so long because everything around me is still the same as it was 25yrs ago. my immediate surroundings have remained untouched and unaltered so that it is difficult to think of it as 25yrs have gone by. we dont have children, so dont notice the passing of the years, but my neighbours two children did jolt me . recently i saw the eldest boy and really had a look at him, and am struck by how grown he has become. 

india has abolished the 500 and 1000 rupees notes.

london 11.58am, 12.34pm 7.3C

this is so unusual that i thought it was a mistake. i first read it in a blog in wordpress, but googled it and found a news item that confirms it. i have never heard of this happening to any other country before. without any notice. we can see it is to solve the black market hoarding of cash. many of them will be left with trying to change huge amounts of money and will find it hard to account for it. the notes to be abolished are equivalent to £5 and £10 notes. £1=82.62rupees

new £ coin coming out in mar 2017

london 7.12am 10C tuesday 2016

i did not know there will be a new £ coin design coming out in mar 2017 and i live here. this daily mail article warns retailers to be ready for it. funny why i have not heard of it before. i would have thought it important as it will affect everyone. usually they warn everyone of it years in advance, but maybe they dont want the forgers to make lots more while they can, or get rid of their stock of forged coins. there must be a lucrative business in some country somewhere to make forged £ coins. 

still, i think it is long overdue this replacement of the old £ coin. its been in use since 1983 and is prone to forgery.

 even ones that looks dodgy are accepted by businesses. the machines accept them, even if it rejects them initially, but try rubbing them against the machines and put them back in the slot and after a bit of hesitation, the machine will accept it.

i have only once seen a coin i put in repeatedly rejected, and when i call the attendant, she simply went off to a cashier to exchange it for another coin.actually she came back with two 50p coins.  i guess the businesses find it too much of a hassle to tell shoppers they have a fake £ coin and to give it up and get nothing back. i can just imagine the scenes of anger that will be triggered if they do that. haha.

i have a feeling the businesses just give it as change to another customer. they dont bank it i think. if they do, the bank will just confiscate any fakes. i have never seen any cashier looking closely at £ coins to make sure they are genuine. so i guess they just recirculate it as change and no one is the wiser. they will soon find out how many are fakes once all the old £ coins are removed from circulation in autumn 2017.

so now all that will be solved with the new coin. looks quite a nice design too with lots of security features.

£ 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$1.39,1.26 euro,95.75rupee,1.94Aus$, 

why is it the economy is always wanting more growth?

london 7.15am 11.8C, sunny friday 2015

saw this blog article asking growth for the sake of what? and lamenting our throwaway culture where there is planned obsolescence. either through shoddy goods built to break down after a certain period, necessitating its replacement, or via fashion, or style where a new model is so desireable that the old is discarded. or even something new is more efficient and better than the old one.

i think growth is just a measure of how much we spend money and so circulate the money. that is the underlying great reason. whatever is needed to move money around.

in the past, people use wars, as in the roman empire building, or religion, to move money around. then we discovered capitalism. trading had been well known for ages, but it has been a limited scale, trading only in essential goods. capitalism made trading in non essentials a big thing. and not only in goods, but also in services. that brought in a game changer. leisure and luxury goods and services became big items in the trade.

so that brings us to today, where money is circulated in many ways. why, you may ask, is circulating money so important? it creates jobs, and allow many people to make money. i know it is a circular arguement, haha. money needs to be circulated because it allows more people to earn more money and that allows it to be circulated… and so on ad nauseuam. hehe. and why should money be circulated? it is because it creates new jobs. get this, the added factor in these modern times is the increasing population of people coming into work . all those young people need jobs.

unless u can discover a way of getting rid of people when they reach a certain age… in the past, wars and disease do that.

 infant mortality, and wars too , got rid of the young in the olden days; not anymore. or at least not to a big enough extant to make a difference.

slavery used to be a way of marshalling all these extra people coming in. but it is now not possible to use that to control the manpower problem. we have now the influx of refugees coming in from all those countries in conflict. the underlying reason why they leave is because there is no growth in those countries and so no jobs and no means of making money. if u ever were to ask what is so important about growth, u can just look at those countries and see why. huge amounts of people having nothing and no future because the economy is stagnant and there is no means of making money. too busy just finding things to eat never mind making money. and keeping out of the way of those fighting each other. so they leave.

say what u like about capitalism, but it is the only way now to make money circulate and expand… to create jobs for the increasing numbers being born and adding to the workforce.

the downside is the increasing use of the world’s resources. so far the world is coping well, in that oil which all doom sayers say is going to run out, with shale oil we seem to have a lot of it now and no danger of it running out.

pollution is the biggest downside. littering of plastic bags in the oceans, littering in general, dirtying the air , etc. seems that is the price we pay for having so many people living on the earth, and finding jobs for them.

what is the solution? bring back mass birth control by sterilisation? or mass euthanasia? the trees will be saved, but at what cost? all of mankind will be reduced to just existing, no fun in that at all.