January 2008 Archives

When I lived in Chicago, I use to watch the British Prime Minister's Question Time via C-SPAN quite regularly. I was enthralled because every Wednesday when the House of Commons is sitting, the Prime Minister is required to spend half an hour answering questions from Members of Parliament. As these sessions require the PM to have a good command of the issues (domestic and international) as well as be a good debater, I always thought that if the US President had to face questions from Members of Congress on a weekly basis that persons like George Walker Bush wouldn't have won re-election never mind be elected in the first place.

In any event, when I moved to London, I continued to watch the weekly sessions via BBC Parliament. And this past December, I decided to contact my MP Bob Neill to see if he could help me secure a few tickets to sit in the Strangers Gallery to watch an upcoming session. After much back and forth with one of his aides, I got two tickets for this past Wednesday, 23rd January.

What perfect timing! Perfect as the Northern Rock situation which I have been following closely was the main subject of debate between PM Gordon Brown and opposition leader David Cameron. For 15 minutes Cameron tried to get Gordon to answer questions related to the latest rescue plan for the bank without much success. Not surprising since Brown’s government has totally mismanaged the situation.

The PM then took questions from other MPs related to the economy and a whole slew of other issues. Some so obscure that when he started quoting statistics from papers in front of him, I knew then that some of the questions had to have been submitted in advance. This didn’t really take away from the excitement of being there. In fact, my only complaint is that it all ended rather too quickly! Half an hour is simply not long enough.

So here’s hoping I get to go again soon. Watching the government at work close up (even if there is a lot of posturing and school boy playground antics) was pretty exciting!

While William Jefferson Clinton was in the White House, he had my complete support. In fact, while I was angry with him for his indiscretions with Monica Lewinsky, I was one of his ardent defenders during the impeachment hearings. Mainly because I strongly believed that political dirty tricks were at play and more importantly, I believed his policies and vision for America were ideal.

Then once he left office, I have watched with great admiration as he worked to become an elder statesman within the Democratic Party, America and the world at large. However, his latest assignment as pit bull for Hillary has brought on Clinton fatigue. I just want them both to go away. Seriously! They are both poison and not good for the Democratic Party or America at this point in time.

Thus, I am hoping that after Bill’s behaviour is South Carolina this past week, Democrats will wake up and realise that a vote for Hillary, is a vote for the past, not the future. Furthermore, America really can’t afford another four or eight years with a Clinton in the White House as their strategy of saying and doing anything to win is bound to divide not unite. Plus does America really want a co-Presidency? Try as he might, Bill will be unable to stay on the sidelines and I am sure this will create a great deal of difficulty.

Thus, I hope that in the upcoming primaries, Democrats will take a serious look at Senator Obama and Senator Edwards. Either one is a better choice for the party and America. Either one could win against the Republican nominee in November. Seriously, Hillary (and Bill) are simple too divisive to send back to the White House. It is time for a change.

The excerpt below from Tim Hardford's new book The Logic of Life is interesting, but the research and analysis is hardly groundbreaking.

The Economics of Marriage
Posted Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008, at 7:46 AM ET

This week Slate is publishing two excerpts from Tim Harford's new book, The Logic of Life, which is premised on the notion that if we want to understand our world—or how to change it—we must first understand the rational choices that shape it.

Ever since John von Neumann's game theory promised to help us understand love and marriage, economists have been interested in how people choose their partners and how relationships work.

It takes two to tango, and it also takes two to get married. Marriage therefore requires you to go out and find someone you want to marry, and persuade them to marry you. It's a matching problem, and it is not unique to marriage. Getting a job is emotionally a different proposition to finding a wife or husband, but in some ways it's similar: you need to consider a range of jobs, work out which ones you prefer, and persuade the employer that he likes the match as much as you do. And just as in the job market, who matches up with whom, and on what terms, will depend on what the competition is offering.

Whom you marry depends on where you live, but also on how old you are and what race you are. Most people marry people of the same race, of a similar age and from the same area. 96 percent of married black women have black husbands, and over 96 percent of married white women have white husbands.

What might cause an imbalance in some of these local marriage markets? Imbalances in cities might be caused by unskilled young men rationally deciding to give up and move to the country, or stay there in the first place. But another major reason for men being absent from local marriage markets is prison. There are two million men in US prisons and just 100,000 women; and the men in prison are spread unevenly across age, race and geography. Huge numbers of young black men are in prison, and that is bound to pose a problem for the young black women they might otherwise have married. (It might also pose a problem for women of other races and in other states—but only if some women were inclined and able to hop from one marriage market to a better one. That does not seem to happen often enough to cancel out the effect of the shortage of marriageable young black men.)

In New Mexico, for example, 30 percent of young black men, aged 20-35, are in prison (or, less commonly, in a secure mental institution). That is an extreme case, but there are 32 states with more than one in ten young black men in prison, and ten states where one in six young black men are behind bars. That is a serious business for young black women.

£55 Billion in loans and guarantees. That's how much the British government has spent to prop up Northern Rock. Outrageous when you consider that the military budget is a mere £33 Billion.

Thus, with no serious private buyers in sight, is there any other option but to nationalise the bank? No one wants it, but the government can’t afford to let this bank fail and the deals put forward by the private buyers simply don't past muster. Not when they will require substantial subsidies for the foreseeable future.

So lucky us -- the taxpayers!

Times Online, January 15, 2008

Northern Rock: the story so far

James Rossiter

Sept 13 News that Northern Rock has sought emergency funding from Bank of England (BoE)

Sept 14 Run on Northern Rock by customers; shares fall 31 per cent

Sept 17 Alistair Darling pledges government guarantee of all deposits; shares tumble

Sept 20 BoE pumps £10bn into long-term money markets

Oct 9 Guarantee to customers extended to cover all new deposits

Oct 19 Matt Ridley, chairman, resigns; Bryan Sanderson, CBE, replaces him

Nov 26 Consortium led by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group named as preferred bidder

Dec 7 The Olivant Group enters race to take control

Dec 13 Adam Applegarth, chief executive, leaves; Andy Kuipers takes over

Jan 7 Goldman Sachs presents Government with proposals for a £12bn-£15bn Northern Rock bond issue to be underwritten by BoE

Jan 11 Northern sells £2.25bn of equity release mortgages to J P Morgan; money goes to BoE to repay part of £26bn of loans

Jan 12 Treasury signs up Ron Sandler to head Northern Rock in event of its nationalisation

Goodness! Where does the time go? January is turning out to be a very busy month. I can't begin to say how much this pleases me. One of the highlights from last week was seeing Chris Rock perform his comedy routine live at the Hammersmith Apollo theatre. He was incredible funny as he told jokes about the weak American dollar against the British pound, wacky celebrities (Britney Spears and OJ Simpson), American politicians (Bush W Bush, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama), when it was ok for white people to use the N word (apparently only on one occasion and extreme suffering is involved) and what women want (everything!).

The other major highlight was spending the weekend in Paris. My company had our kick off meeting toward the latter part of the week, so decided to say for a few extra days. Paris did not disappoint. It's a beautiful city. The climax was going to Moulin Rouge on Saturday night to see the world famous can-can girls. I had tried to see the show the last time I was in Paris but it was completely sold out. This night was no different so thankfully my colleagues and I had booked early. The show is just brilliant so would recommend to anyone visiting Paris.

And so it ends, my three week vacation.

It initially was only going to be two weeks, but then it turned out that I would still have a few days left due to not taking a proper vacation earlier in the year due to the house search/move. So I approached my boss about taking the remaining days during the first week in January and luckily he was agreeable.

The highlight for the time off was definitely going to Vienna. It's a beautiful city and I would definitely love to go back with someone special when the weather is much, much warmer.

Beyond the trip to Vienna, another highlight would be my nephew visiting me for New Years! Even though he has been stationed at a US military base two hours north of London for the last two years, this was the first time we actually managed to connect. Understandable since he was in Iraq for awhile.

Another highlight would be dates with BP Guy (he works for the company) and Tennis Guy (he coaches professionally). Both wanted to go on second dates but I just couldn't bring myself to follow through with either. Mainly because I didn‘t get butterflies in my stomach when I thought about either one. Also, I found myself thinking about someone else (no DEFINITELY NOT Airport Guy). Someone from my past who in recent days has expressed a willingness to re-establish our friendship. Will things work out? Only time will tell.

In the interim, I have others things to keep myself busy. What you ask? Well I have set a few goals for myself on the professional front that I’d like to accomplish in 2008. So I’ll be hard at work on those.

On the personal front, I would like to get back to a healthy weight so I joined a gym. I know, I know, its so cliché to join one at the beginning of the year but it was an absolute necessity. As much as I try to go Nordic Walking, I just don't do it often enough and I need to be more regular in my exercise if I'm going to shift the extra pounds.

I also joined a monthly book club. For January, we are reading: A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. Considering all the controversy surround the accuracy of the facts as laid out by Frey in his memoir, I am actually looking forward to the discussion.

There are some others things in the works and in time, I’m sure I’ll talk about them. For now, let’s just say that I’m really optimistic about 2008!