Are State subsidies eveyone’s burden?

This week on Facebook: The NHS¹ is no more guilty of holding the country to ransom than any of the ‘other’ subsidy that contribute to the government’s deficit financing policy. However, it does provide a simple answer to my question, “Are State subsidies everyones burden?”. For example I had occasion to attend A&E recently and had to wait until my local one opened its doors (it now closes during the night). My ‘accident and emergency’ was prompted by my dropping a drill on my foot. A&E offer a free service (in the sense no money changes hands), similar to freebies given by the nurse or doctor at the General Practice. My point is that neither is a ‘free’ service. Whatever the freebies provided, or time spent on the consultation — both influence fiscal policy.

The Thunberg Effect

This week on Facebook: The suggestion that Greta Thunberg may not know of The Milankovitch Cycles and their effect on climate change, may be a good introduction to Milankovitch Cycles (given Thunberg’s popularity on the social-media). However, there are many others (including myself and probably Greta Thunberg) who had never heard of Milankovitch Cycles. An introduction to them led me to post on yet another issue related to climate change with the title  ‘The Thunberg Effect’. The subject of climate change is not something that I have paid a great deal of attention to, having always thought that politicians used the notion of climate change to promote political opportunism including their plans for economic growth.  An example of this is the carbon tax accounting, introduced by political public administration in a global scramble for economic growth.

An Affluent Society?

This week on Facebook: I was born on May 21 1939; lived through the WWII, saw my dad come home from it, soon to be sent to Palestine, which he talked about a lot less than WWII. I joined the RAF in 1956 and left as a civilian in 1969, from 1969 to 1995 working mostly in the civil service. I classified myself on social media as belonging to the ‘fortunate generation’, in that I never experienced a real war and did experience what is called the economic growth of the post war years. I also experienced the economic decline that I first began to notice in the 1970’s and which (due to various reasons) has continued ever since.

Anthropocene?

This week on Facebook: The argument, particularly in the USA, appears to revolve around global warming and the cause of it. A long time ago I met someone who had attended the  (original) Rio Conference¹. He remarked that even at the conference the scientist were not in agreement as to the causes of environmental pollution however, those with a political axe to grind clearly there. Well, so much for that!

Dendry’s Bet

I changed the last line from ‘on the high street’ to ‘online’!

Aasof’s Reflections

Dendry Machin won a bet and became a capitalist. It may be more correct to say that he became a rent collector and moneylender, both opportunities made possible with his newly acquired capital. Capital that enabled Dendry to become self employed as a rent collector, which provided him with an income and allowed him to preserve capital. It was the money-lending that provided an opportunity for Dendry to increase his wealth by investing his capital and accruing interest on his investments. Like all financial ventures the opportunity was not risk free – quite the opposite – Dendry set upon a very high risk financial venture. He loaned money to the poor.

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Truth to Power

plus ça change

“Before we discuss the technological future of carbon fibres, Tony, d’you think you could do something about the smell from the dustbins“?

Evening Standard 07 Oct 1969

Jak [Raymond Jackson]

Morituri te Salutant

All Fool’s Day seems an appropriate time to post a short piece about; Morituri te Salutant, Jean-Léon Gérôme, John Donne, Christina Rossetti, Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, Winnie the Pooh, an allusion to H. Rider Haggard (well, more Horace Rumpole really): leading to the ‘Money Advice Service’ on UK funeral costs.

Aasof on Female Art

This week on Facebook: The voting system used by Ranker suggests that female authors are remembered better than female artists (I wonder how many can name famous female authors prior to the 19th century?).

The word painters is used instead of artist to identify (in this case) female artists from those to whom a much wider genre is generally applied to the word ‘artist‘.

If the following seems an homage to the now ‘famous’ feminist art historian Linda Nochlin who changed the art world with her 1971 essay in which she asked, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists”?¹ Perhaps it can be read as such!

Final thoughts on Les Misérables

Today on Facebook: For someone who wrote with an element of disdain about Les Misérables last week, it may be that I should have finished with the book and the latest film offering on that note. However, my research into Les Misérables led me to an old version of Slate’s Culture Brow Beat where I found an article that questioned the length of Hugo’s novel. Not wanting to distract from last weeks post, and wondering how to use the article, I placed it here¹.