Financial disaster predicted?

Talking down the economy is the new ‘Remain’ game.  Not very patriotic of them, perhaps...

Yes, the banks and the financial wheeler and dealers are juggling other peoples’ money, as they do, and doubtless making lots of money as they do that, but let’s get some perspective. 

Rates through the floor? Really? 

The pound taking a pounding... (Couldn't resist that one, sorry) Really?

On June 8, I withdrew 250 euros from my UK bank and it cost me £212.72

On June 27, some days after the dreaded Brexit (which is apparently aligned with the devil), I withdrew 250 euros from my UK bank and it cost me £208.48.

That’s a reduction of £4.24 (£0.02%) – as a result of the financial collapse we’re hearing about?

I don’t think so.  The rate fluctuates all the time. Some you lose, some you win, depending on the position of Mars, the Moon and Venus, no doubt.

I agree, these are small sums and when shifting large volumes of money, the difference can be huge. But that's always been the case. A changed decimal point can make a big difference with big sums of money. If you're moving that amount of money, then maybe you can afford the difference.  For the normal real people, the difference isn't apocalyptic, as we've been hearing. Yes, it would be great if the difference was the other way - as it has been in months gone by - but it will get better. If...

Start talking up the economy and get real.

Leave the Remains

Sounds like the title of a murder mystery, perhaps… 

As the EU Referendum approaches the closing stages (at long last!) and the hyperbole, scaremongering, idiocy, outright lies, dodgy statistics, self-serving expert advice and all the rest is put away (hopefully never to see the light of day again), what’s it all about, Alfie?

What, indeed. What seems to have been lost in the argument is that the once-named Common Market has grown and grown into the European Union, a dictatorial behemoth administered by unelected individuals paid for by the taxes from the member states’ workforce. They’re profligate with the money, unaccountable, and blatantly arrogant about any edict they wish to foist onto the collective membership (the people who pay their high salaries).

What’s it all about, Alfie?

The EU isn’t a democracy, it’s a bureaucracy, wasting tax-payers’ money on vanity projects to justify their well-paid existence.

What's it all about?

The vote isn't about 'leaving Europe' - it's about leaving the European Union. We're part of the European continent and always will be, communing, sharing, trading; we're also part of the wider world, too.

What do the UK papers say?

Leave                                       Remain

The Sun                                   The Guardian

The Daily Telegraph                The Observer

The Sunday Telegraph            The Independent

The Sunday Times                  The Mail on Sunday

The Daily Express                   The Times

                                                The Daily Mirror

                                                The Financial Times

Undeclared, last time I checked:

The Daily Mail

The Daily Star

The Morning Star  

There are powerful, well-considered arguments to be read, indeed, for both sides.

One argument goes that if the UK stays in, we can effect change.

That doesn’t seem to work. Reports suggest that of the seventy (!) changes the UK has voted for, the EU voted against. The arrogant bureaucrats don’t or won’t listen; they know best. If they had listened, if they had really wanted the UK to ‘remain’, maybe they should have tried harder when Mr Cameron went round with his begging bowl.

If the UK remains, expect to be sent to the ‘naughty step’. 

And that old-fashioned title, ‘Great Britain’ will be removed, since the coinage is tarnished. And it will be self-inflicted – much as it was shamefully removed from British Telecom and British Petroleum and British Home Stores (oh, certain rich individuals took more than ‘British’ from BHS, didn’t they? Their workers’ pensions!) Sorry, got sidetracked there...

One thing we can be sure of: exciting times lie ahead, whether we want the ‘excitement’ or not.

'If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea.' 
- Winston Churchill.

Well, the Common Market seemed like a good idea at the time...

'Two distinct races'

Charles Lamb (1775-1834) had a few things to say about borrowing.

‘The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow, and the men who lend.’ – The Two Races of Men

‘I mean you borrowers of books – those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes. – The Two Races of Men.

I believe that there are readers who buy books and readers who borrow. [We’ll ignore those people who borrow books from us but never return them…] There are plenty of reasons why readers borrow – cost and storage space being just two. I may have a collection of about 4,000 books, but in my lifetime I’ve read thousands more. Space precludes storing so many. I’ve borrowed from the public library when I couldn’t afford to buy sufficient books to read; and of course pre-Internet, I delved into the non-fiction shelves for research. Like most generalisations, I’m sure this separation into two types of book readers will fall down under close scrutiny, but I feel that it has a grain of truth in it. Until relatively recent times, authors received no payment for books borrowed from libraries.

It seems only fair that authors should benefit in some small measure from institutional borrowing of their work. Twenty-eight countries have a Public Lending Right programme. The first was implemented in Denmark in 1946; the UK’s PLR was enacted in 1979.

As a resident of the EU (UK citizen living in Spain), I am able to take advantage of the PLR system applied to libraries in the UK and Eire. It is a welcome annual event, receiving notification of the pecuniary reward (taxable) along with the number of borrowers for my registered books.

Registered authors are eligible for payment if their PLR earnings reach a minimum of £1. The rate per loan is currently 6.2 pence [and for foreign readers who may not be aware, there are 100 pence in the £]. There is an upper limit for any author, £6,600. Last month, PLR made payments totalling £6.1 million to 22,327 authors. It is funded by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport through the British Library. Writers can register online. A book has to be registered by 30 June to be eligible for assessment in the following January.

To read the rules about registration, please go to the website www.plr.uk.com

A list of the hundred most borrowed titles included James Patterson fifteen times; needless to say, he was the most borrowed fiction author (for the seventh year running); Nora Roberts dropped from fourth place last year to sixth; M.C. Beaton was seventh and tenth was David Baldacci (previously eighteenth). Lee Child had the two top most borrowed titles; J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy was the tenth most borrowed title, well beaten by Fifty Shades of Grey (third).

 

The top twenty of the 100 most-borrowed books in Scotland are all crime novels.
 
Top non-fiction author was cookery expert Mary Berry.
 
The full list can be found on the website.
 
Last year my books (penname Ross Morton) were borrowed 5,464 times from the UK libraries. That’s a great feeling, to know that that number of people have read my novels.
 
Since its publication in 2007, my first novel Death at Bethesda Falls has been borrowed 8,709 times.
 
My most-borrowed title is The $300 Man.

If you can't borrow it, please purchased post-free world-wide from here

So, I must go against the advice of Shakespeare, in Hamlet: ‘… neither a borrower, nor a lender be…’ (I know, he was talking about money, rather than books!)

Cold comfort

Yesterday, I woke to find my left arm didn’t want to rise above shoulder height without great pain, and typing was painful too. Lends a new meaning to ‘writing is pain’. So my time at the keyboard has been limited.

I must have pulled a muscle while carrying a couple of 12.5kg butane gas cylinders – required to heat our home in this warm climate that Ian Duncan Smith and his minions envision.

 

The e-petition 'Stop the Governments victimisation of pensioners living abroad who have contributed to the welfare state by withdrawing their winter fuel payment' recently reached 14,796 signatures and a response has been made to it.

As this e-petition has received more than 10,000 signatures, the relevant Government department have provided the following response:

“The Government remains committed to protecting key support for older people for the life of this Parliament, in line with Coalition Agreement. Winter Fuel Payments are non-contributory and were originally introduced to give older people in the UK the reassurance they can keep warm during cold weather. However, following a European Court judgment, Winter Fuel Payments are now also made to eligible people living outside the UK in another European Economic Area (EEA) Member State and Switzerland. To help return to the original policy intention, the Government intends to bring in an eligibility criterion, effective from winter 2015/16, based on country of residence with Winter Fuel Payments going only to eligible people living in EEA countries with colder climates.” This e-petition remains open to signatures and will be considered for debate by the Backbench Business Committee should it pass the 100,000 signature threshold.”

In other words, nothing has changed; they're not listening. Am I surprised?

So, in effect, as predicted in my blog here, they’ll play with statistics to exclude expat pensioners who have and indeed in many cases still are paying UK taxes. Their get-out clause is that the winter fuel payment is ‘non-contributory’ which suggests that tax-payers didn’t contribute, which is a load of baloney, since any money that the government hands out is from the taxpayer – past and present.

Cold comfort, indeed.