The first brick removed from the wall

BBC News - Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice

I wonder how long before holders of media rights realise that in the modern, connected world of the internet that such parochial stances such as restricting viewing to a specific jurisdiction is as out of date as telex machines. I am all in favour of people being paid for creative and original content, but it is about time that the system became "smart" enough to be delivery system and jurisdiction agnostic and just deliver universal access with appropriate remuneration to the rights owner.

Start to think differently before it is too late

A message that we all need to take heed of.  The internet is turning everything on its head; not overnight but piece by piece.  Unless you embrace this new thinking, slowly but surely we will all find ourselves in the same boat as the bookshops and travel agents that saw Amazon and Expedia overwhelm their businesses.


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/01/freelancer_uk_launch/

Panic on the Streets of Birmingham

I doubt Egypt will be the last "food revolution", but where will it end? To quote the Smiths, panic on the streets of Birmingham? How much would food prices have to rise?


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8291470/Egypt-and-Tunisia-usher-in-the-new-era-of-global-food-revolutions.html

Why Do Some Regions Seem Destined for Decline?

Different recession- same story. Many of the cities mentioned have been in decline since the end of the First World War. Labour, Conservative or coalition government, the story is the same. It is almost as though decay is in the collective gene pool? Is it because people with talent and drive just move away or is there something in the local culture?


http://http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/recovery-unevenly-spread-across-uk-cities-2192868.html

The End of Mass Delusion in the UK

A generation of people who believed: 1) that house prices always rise faster than inflation; 2) that shopping is a leisure activity for which there will always be a new credit card; and 3) that imported consumer goods from emerging markets would keep getting cheaper and they could therefore always consume more might finally be waking up from a massive act of collective delusion. 

It is time to "wake up and smell the coffee" people.  It is time to start innovating, investing for the future and building our skills and expertise.  This is not going to change whatever government is in power and it is time to stop abrogating our personal responsibilities for our own futures; grow up people.  Less reality TV and shopping, more books and education.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12306336

Anti-Social or Just Anti-Modern World?

A friend of mine posted on her Facebook page a link to a disturbing report about youth gang violence in the area of London where I live.  Such reports usually lead to views dividing along traditional Left-Right lines: either the issue is caused by poverty, lack of opportunity, lack of facilities, discrimination etc. or they lack discipline, should be locked-up, bring back National Service, corporal punishment etc.  I would like to suggest an alternative view: the kids in gangs, just like people who climb mountains and join the army, are merely searching for a way of life more akin to the way that humans have lived for the vast majority of the time they have spent on this Earth?

I'm sure most people who are reading this (if anybody is) will be thinking I've taken a beating from the crazy stick, so let me explain.  Modern humans have been around for some 140,000 years, (and more primitive ancestors for around 4 million years in total) and for over 90% of this time they lived the life of nomadic hunter gatherers.  This was a harsh and dangerous life, but a life for which the human species had evolved.  Then around 12,000 years ago the first settled agriculture began, followed 2,000 years later by the first towns, and around 5,000 ago the first recognisable cities appeared.  Since then, everything has speeded up hugely, with nomadic hunter gatherers now confined to a few unwanted corners of the Earth and the recent revelation that the majority of the planet's population now lives in urban environments.  Humans are adaptable, we have an enormous capacity to learn, and in many ways modern life as far preferable to that of ancient times, but in historical terms, it is a very recent innovation, and certainly too short a period for nature to have made evolutionary advances

But what if you don't want to live a modern life?  What if you wish to live like humans traditionally lived?  It is possible, but it is certainly not easy.  What if you wish to live like humans traditionally lived, but don't realise it, and actually have no idea how they lived; you just know you don't fit in to the way things are?

   There was a comment in the report that my friend posted that I thought was particularly telling; it comes from a school friend of some gang members, "they don’t listen and they won’t learn". I think to blame a lack of either youth facilities or discipline is too easy; people don't join gangs because there isn't a youth club nearby or someone's not making them do their homework. It strikes me as more part of a cycle of self-destruction, alongside such activities as drug/alcohol abuse, smoking, eating junk food etc. These kids know it is bad for them, (I've never seen any evidence to suggest that most of them are educationally sub-normal) they know that it puts them at risk, but they choose to do it. I don't think you can look to solve the problem until you understand why the choice is being made in the first place. 

My hypothesis, for which I have no proof, other than looking back on 4m years of human evolution, is that the modern world lacks risk, it lacks adrenaline-pumping excitement, it lacks camaraderie, it lacks clear, unambiguous direction; it is the reason why so many young people around the word join armed forces, both formal and informal; it is why people climb mountains and trek across the Antarctic. For most of human history, such stimulation was provided by the instinct to survive; now survival is easy, the only option is to create an environment with survival becomes difficult again.

These kids have no interest in the world of offices, schools, shops, churches and hospitals they see around them, and "improving their opportunities" for a job in such an environ is not going to help. Most people can happily exist and prosper in the modern world, but those that can't are viewed as delinquents and failures; maybe we should accept that the modern world does not work for everyone and how we might adjust it so there are alternatives; we might even find that some people return to "normal" society once they have had a sufficient exposure to the alternative.  

It may seem odd to the vast majority of people who live happily in the modern world, but a life where risk has been minimalised by laws and health and safety rules and where the pursuit of a career, nicer house, spouse+2.4 children is not for everybody.  But what is the alternative?  Can us humans cope with multiple society models existing side-by-side?  Our historic record on this has been poor, and the recent trend towards globalisation has pushed more and more people around the world towards the standard modern Western model.  For generations, Romany and other travellers have been demonised for reasons that boil down to society at large being uncomfortable with people who want to live their life in a different way.  Look also at the way that Native Americans and Australian Aborigines have been treated, peoples who wished to live a traditional life. Of course, some "alternative lifestyles" are positively encouraged by the State, (or perhaps that should be the broader "System" or even the "Man") notably the Armed Forces, but most are regarded with deep suspicion.

Maybe the example of the Armed Forces might even provide a model.  They provide a society that is more "parallel but separate" rather than "side-by-side" with mainstream society.  Could such a system exist in a scenario where the State was not paying for it; I doubt it.  Would wider society be prepared to pay for such an alternative society?  It strikes me that it may well be both a superior and more cost effective alternative to the current structures of prisons, social workers.  It may seem an unthinkable option, having similarities to the film, "Escape from New York", but I am not suggesting some kind of giant prison camp, but an alternative structure that people could join and leave, but with different rules and laws inside the structure.

Nick

A Life of Transactions

I attended a lecture by the eminent economic historian, Niall Ferguson, on the life of Sir Sigmund Warburg, probably the foremost British merchant banker of the post-war era.  The focus of the talk was the difference in business approach between Sir Sigmund and those of a typical large, modern investment bank; between relationship banking, focussed on successful long-term relationships and transaction banking, focussed on winning the next mandate.    Mr. Ferguson's assertion was that Warburg's focus on:

• Building strong and lasting client relationships, based on trust, equality and mutual benefit;
• Cultivating connections across the business and political world, as well as broader society;
• Concentrating on the quality of advice and service rather than the short-term bottom line;
• The importance of reputation over profitability;

would have avoided the excesses of the current financial crisis.  This was a position that I could not disagree with, but it got me thinking about these matters in a broader context.  Have our lives in general become too transactional and less about relationships?  It is very easy to pin the blame for the financial crisis on "banks" and "bankers", but "banks" are not independent organisms and "bankers"are not a different species (even though they may seem so).  "Banks" are run by people; those people are "bankers", and they are a reflection of the world in which they operate and the society in which they exist.

Over the last 30 years banks have grown exponentially, services levels have deteriorated and the focus has moved to selling the most number of products/transactions and increasing productivity/profit levels.  Certain bankers have done very well, e.g. the proprietary traders at large investment banks, but others have done badly, e.g. the clerks and branch managers who used to man high street branches and whose jobs have either disappeared to call centres in India or have had their jobs de-skilled to become loan and insurance sales people.  Public opinion bemoans the disappearance of "old fashioned" banking, but any attempt to offer such services have failed to gain traction beyond niche sectors (principally the wealthy utilising private banking services); the mass market wants no fees, the highest savings rate, the lowest loan rates etc..  Banks are after all merely businesses; we may claim we want better service, but we buy on price; we have the banks we deserve.  Maybe the best example of this were Northern Rock and the Icelandic banks that collapsed so spectacularly: Northern Rock gained a huge share of the UK mortgage market by lending a greater proportion relative to the value of a property (its infamous 125% loan to value mortgage being the worst example) and the borrowers income; IceSave, whose savers had to be baled out by the British and Dutch governments pulled in over £2bn of UK savers money by regularly topping the "Best Buy" tables for offering the highest interest rates.

As an aside to this, I think it is also worth commenting on Sir Sigmund's personal financial position.  He was clearly a very wealthy man from a even wealthier family, but he appears to have viewed money as a reflection of satisfied clients rather than an objective in itself, and dedicated a large element of his fortune for philanthropic purposes. 

What about in areas outside the world of banking?  Survey after survey claims we desire a return to the days of when high streets were filled with independent retailers offering good service and who knew their customers by name, but the reality as demonstrated by where we actually spend money is that we want cheap food from Tesco and WalMart and cheap clothes from Primark and TopShop.  We don't give a damn about service, about having a shopkeeper we have a history with; we want yet another £1 t-shirt or a bargain price on a crate of Stella.  We get the shops we deserve.

How often do you hear people bemoan the "lack of community spirit" or how "kids have no respect any more"?  Next time you hear such a comment, ask that person whether they are a Scout leader/football coach/Sunday school teacher/etc.?  I would stake my buy one, get one free bottle of Tesco Cava that the answer will be "no"; they will be "too busy", "have enough responsibilities", etc.; thus we get the kids we deserve.

So to put Mr. Ferguson's suggestions into a broader context:

• Building strong and lasting relationships throughout our lives, based on trust, equality and mutual benefit;
• Cultivating connections across the communities in which we live, work and play;
• Concentrating on the quality of our human interactions and our surroundings rather than the short-term bottom line;
• The importance of reputation over wealth;

would lead to a better society.  So before we all point our fingers at others, blaming them for the problems that surround us, let us look in the mirror first.

Nick