Confessions of Economic Karma.

With Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy and AIG looking less solvent than it should, you would have thought that banks would have stopped been greedy and start looking to solve there only problem. 

What caused the problem – greed – on a scale that should have never been allowed, bundling ever big bad investments and selling them as good ones, the net result being that the banks can no longer stay solvent, and are dropping like flies. Look at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, between the two companies they secured over $6 trillion of mortgages in the US, and they couldn’t stay solvent.
Continue reading “Confessions of Economic Karma.”

iTunes Movies – An Inconvenient Truth


It was less then 30 minutes after the official word that iTunes was selling films in the UK store, before I was watching Batman Begins. But is the convenience coming at too high a cost?

In the UK we have become used getting ripped off around every corner, it stinks but we are British so we put up with it. My problem is that some of the films now available particularly Al Gores documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” £10.99 At this point the noveltywore off, I can have this shipped to me from amazon £6.22 in less than two days.

I aren’t apposed to paying £6.99 for a film, but £10.99 for a film that you can buy in the shops for less than £7 I think its pushing it. Us Brits whilst being hard done by after getting the long of the stick for so many years we have all become cynics, and easily see where profiteering is taking place. We saw it with the iPhone, which didn’t do anywhere near as well as planned (see here) We also see it with practically every computer or gadget, when you get nearly 2$US to £1GBP and the prices of things are the same in dollars as pounds you know there is something wrong.

Unless iTunes get more content up in the store and stop stupid pricing, they may just take off. Who am I kidding it will take off whatever apple do, its what their good at. I would like to think that Apple at least get some semblance of order in pricing and price match with the High Street.

My New iPhone Tariff

O2 LogoO2 obviously isn’t making enough money or selling enough iPhone’s to make it worth there while and they have completed re-structured there tariff plans, basically more for less. I don’t make enough calls to make it any cheaper for me anyway :-(More Details here

Lets rename the UK – Its a Good Idea Trust Me

Union Jack The United KingdomIt is a constant frustration of mine that there is no established international way of putting the UK. Its simple if you live the the USA, France, Germany, because the country cannot be split it to different parts.

You would think this isn’t a big problem and its all about preserving the cultural identity each of us have in the UK. The problem is that whenever you try to buy or submit a form online, it takes 5mins instead of 2mins, just because you have to search for what system the website is using.

The different ways of putting countries in a list:

  • England
  • Great Britain
  • United Kingdom
  • UK
  • Britain

There aren’t that many, but when there is a list box, a couple of hundred countries long its get really really, tedious. Leading you to only one sane solution, if you ever meet the designer of the website (yes thats specifically aimed at the guys & gals who design the CollegeBoard site) tell them the importance of considering there cousins across the pond, and then proceed to batter them over the head with a world atlas. Until they submit to changing their forms to us UK.

GCSE Results in!

Its sunday now and i havent posted for along time, so i though i would post my GCSE results online so here goes:
4A*s
4As
2Bs
1C

Now that was painless wasnt it?