Sunday 17 November 2013

Antediluvian technology


Yesterday's announcement by the Governor of the Bank of England that he now views the British economy in terms of 'a glass half full' corresponds nicely with my recent up-turn in self-esteem (not that it was ever that low) which allows me to see myself as less of a dilettante and more of a good all-rounder.

This may have come a bit late in my life, but it had to. You cannot gain a lot of experience without getting a bit older in the process. I used to be a jack-of-all-trades, but now I have promoted myself to a level from which I can look down on others. I had to. You cannot oversee a delegated job without taking the high ground.

Live on BBC radio early this morning, a presenter was in a Cambridge university laboratory with one of the professors, about to test one of only two water-powered computers in the world which still work.

This huge gadget comprises - apparently - of a lot of transparent tubes, cisterns, valves and conduits into which water is introduced. It was made specifically to test models of financial policy before they were put into practice, but other than that, I have no idea how it works.

The professor stood ready by the on-tap as the anchor-man (appropriate) had Britain's leading popular  financial expert - Robert Peston - on standby at the other end of a bad mobile phone line, ready to give expert advice as to how to tweak the economy and thereby save the world.

Robert Peston has made a lot of money out of this financial crash, simply by explaining how it happened to us, and this may have been the only time he has had the opportunity to tell us how to get out of it, rather than how we got into it in the first place. Mr Peston has an extremely irritating mode of delivery, despite - or maybe because of - the fact that his mother is a speech-therapist.

They turned the contraption on, and the sound of gushing water could be heard filling the network of pipes and buckets. The presenter asked what part the nearby vacuum cleaner played in the proceedings, and the professor said that they used it to clean the laboratory.

Once filled and active, they asked Robert Peston for the most effective course of action needed to boost the economy, and he said that this was undoubtedly to get the banks to loan more money to small businesses.

The professor opened the appropriate valve, and water could be heard coursing through different channels as it filled up a series of meters and indicators. The presenter asked him what had just happened.

"The economy has just crashed."

Before hanging up, Robert Peston excused himself by saying that the computer was made in the days when credit was widely available from banks, so could not have been expected to make allowances for modern day conditions. Goodbye.

13 comments:

  1. Making money in the world of 'finance' is very simple. Buy when things are on the up, and sell short when things turn sour. It's worked for billionaires everywhere!

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    1. There have been much more effective ways of late - getting others to buy when things are up at the same time as pushing things up is one. This works best with things that we all cannot do without - housing, food, utilities, oil, etc. 'Short and Curlies' springs to mind.

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  2. All of the above, in your country and ours, is the very reason we are selling the farm and heading underground. The less they know about us and our whereabouts the better. They way we figure it, the less we have the less there is to take. You of course will be one of the few allowed to visit and partake of our willow tree pie.

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    1. Sounds a bit drastic! Are you turning into survivalists?!

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  3. If I read this right, are you telling me that the economy has just crashed into a bucket? How lower class. If it is going to crash, let us have it falling into a gold plated, diamond studded bowl - I am sure there are plenty of bankers who could easily supply one for us.

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    1. No, it - theoretically - went down the toilet.

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  4. Robert Peston does indeed have an annoying delivery -- it's hard to concentrate on what he is saying because I keep wondering about the cadence of his sentences. As for the economy, the old adage is true -- the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

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    1. AAAAHHHH, WELLLL, WHAAAAAT YOU SAY (10 second pause) MAAAAAY HAVE SOME, ERRRRR......

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  5. I listened for the first - and maybe for the last - time to that guy Preston on Youtube. He is stressful. The interviewer - on the theme of Eurogeddon - got irritated, too.
    Your computer analogy is funny - might be more accurate than Mr. Preston. What I think is weird: they press the consumers to buy more and more and more shit, when we all know that e.g. the sea is filled with plastic bags to the brim, etc, etc....

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    1. We in Britain are now being told that you there in Germany are not SPENDING enough, but have all those Euros stuffed beneath your beds, rotting.

      We don't know what to think anymore - one minute we are supposed to save, the next we are supposed to spend. HELP! I AM SPENDING AS MUCH - NO, MORE - THAN I CAN AFFORD!

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    2. Me too, I learned the classic art of husbandry from my late parents.
      Seems to make me guilty in the eyes of those economic muddleheads.
      I like a small berth in a narrowboat as much as a bed in a Grandhotel - and that sort of contentment we taught our son too. Now that makes us like your headline: Antedeluvian.
      But: I couldn't care less.

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    3. My German dentist friend has been spending too much recently, but not on himself. He has been forced to give thousands of euros to solicitors that write letters to the bank for him.

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    4. Good that son studies Law and not Dentistry

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