Is it just me... or is there a significant lack of joined up thinking or is there something odd going on?
It is now impossible to buy standard incandescent light bulbs in the UK because they use too much electricity and the government has decided in their wisdom to ban them and force everyone to buy the much more expensive low-energy bulbs.
Now counter this with the news that the UK government is going to offer everyone £5000 to buy an electric car... which of course uses a lot more electricity than a petrol or diesel driven one. Perhaps the electricity saved by the light bulbs will power the cars! Doubt it though...
In 2012 the analogue TV signal will be completely deactivated in the UK meaning that everyone will either need a digital TV or a set-top box. I understand that digital TVs use more electricity than an analogue one and certainly a set-top box will use more than a "no set-top box"...
Counter all this with the news from the current generation of power stations are just about to draw their pensions and unless someone does something quickly and we start building new (nuclear) power stations the UK will very soon run out of generating capacity.
Machiavelli or cock-up?
20 April 2009
24 March 2009
Can someone tell me; what is so important about 0.1%?
Why is the whole world focused on 0.1% of the global problem of the recession? The RBS pension scandal and now the AIG bonus scandal (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7667214.stm and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7960459.stm )
RBS received a total of £33 billion of tax payers money to prop it up and AIG has received a staggering (to use Robert Peston's favourite adjective) $170 billion.
Now Sir Fred Goodwin, who seems to be the devil incarnate if you follow the press, received a pension pot of £16 million, and the senior executives of AIG got a total of $165 million in bonuses.
All the newspapers, TV news, pundits and commentators are literally (in the case of Robert Peston) foaming at the mouth: "Scandalous! That's tax payers money being thrown away - GRRR!"
The problem is that the worlds Million and Billion sound so similar, but are in reality so different.
Lets look at the figures:
RBS got £33,000,000,000 and Sir Fred got £16,000,000. In terms of a percentage Sir Fred's pension is
=
approximately, or 0.05%
AIG got $170,000,000,000 and the executives got $165,000,000. That's
=
approximately or 0.1%
It is like giving a down-and-out a £10 note and then complaining when he gives a his dog a penny chew!
What I am far more interested in is
(a) what is happening to the 99.9%
(b) where all this money came from and how the government is going to pay for it.
RBS received a total of £33 billion of tax payers money to prop it up and AIG has received a staggering (to use Robert Peston's favourite adjective) $170 billion.
Now Sir Fred Goodwin, who seems to be the devil incarnate if you follow the press, received a pension pot of £16 million, and the senior executives of AIG got a total of $165 million in bonuses.
All the newspapers, TV news, pundits and commentators are literally (in the case of Robert Peston) foaming at the mouth: "Scandalous! That's tax payers money being thrown away - GRRR!"
The problem is that the worlds Million and Billion sound so similar, but are in reality so different.
Lets look at the figures:
RBS got £33,000,000,000 and Sir Fred got £16,000,000. In terms of a percentage Sir Fred's pension is
| £16,000,000 |
| £33,000,000,000 |
| 1 |
| 2,000 |
AIG got $170,000,000,000 and the executives got $165,000,000. That's
| $165,000,000 |
| $170,000,000,000 |
| 1 |
| 1,000 |
It is like giving a down-and-out a £10 note and then complaining when he gives a his dog a penny chew!
What I am far more interested in is
(a) what is happening to the 99.9%
(b) where all this money came from and how the government is going to pay for it.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
