Cold Burger

OK, so the press don't seem to tire of giving us more stories about the economy, or lack of one.

According to this article, things are so bad that some people in China are trying to live on a little as 100RMB a week, which we are told is equivalent to £10 a week. This is probably slightly misleading, because the RMB to GBP exchange rate tells us nothing about the cost of living in China where on the one hand you could spend 2RMB (20p) on a large bowl of wonton noodles in a local suburban noodle shop, or 35RMB (£3.50) on a cup of Latte from Starbucks.

It's rather telling of spending habits in China that, according to the article, people have downgrade their quality of life from buying Louis Vuitton bags, to switching off the heating and going straight to bed with an electric blanket.

So nothing too extreme then.....

And obviously "luxury food items" such as McDonalds and KFC Chicken are now also off the gourmet menus. I'm surprised people have not decided to look in bins for half-eaten buns or half-finished cups of coffee. If it was from Starbucks it could be exchanged for 4 bowls of Wonton....

Desperate times (History of 2008 part 2)

And so Bank of England interest rates have been reduced yet again, this time to 0.5%. And critics say such a dramatic measure leaves no room for future action. I'm no economics professor but this says to me that the Bank of England thinks we are facing desparate economic times that require desperate measures. To say that this leaves little room for manoevre is like saying that pumping water from the Thames to fight fires during the 1940 London Blitz leaves no more water for future fire-fighting.

And as if that was not enough, it seems that the BOE is now also creating money to the tune of £75 billion (although we are informed, this does not actually mean they will be physically printing the stuff out).

One problem with the cut in interest rates is that it was intended to allow banks to lend more money to the man in the street; so that small businesses can continue to run and keep people employed and first-time buyers can buy houses. However this is not happening because the banks are probably in more trouble than anybody realises.

So let's go back to bare-bone basics: the government needs to get people to spend money and to get people working again. Off the top of my head how about this?

Rather than pumping money into banks, the government spends this cash on employing more people. What could they do? Well, what needs doing? We need to clean up the country, improve policing, improve social care, improve teaching standards. Hey, how about manning the presses and printing out more money?

Also the government could just give money to people, (and I don't mean failed bankers who want to retire at 50). How about vouchers that can only be redeemed by spending it on the high street?

If we truly are in desperate times, as 0.5% interest rates suggest, then maybe we need radical innovative solutions?

The sweet smell of recession

Hey, after hours of painstaking searches I've finally found a story related with the recession. Yippee!!!

The Oriental Aroma Chinese restaurant in Wiltshire is paying customers £1 per head to eat at their establishment. Yes, that's right you get to eat their food and you leave with extra money in your pocket. Only, that's not quite true because you only get your £1 if you spend £5 on drinks (that's probably only 2 drinks then that would have only cost the business about £1.50 from the wholesaler)

I wonder what Wonders of the East are on offer at this fine dining establishment then? Fresh Lobster in Ginger and Spring Onion? Succulently Steamed Abalone? Jasmine-smoked free-range Roast Goose.......? Or maybe fried noodles with a hint of beansprout, dried fried rice and tiny specks of meat deep fried in huge ball of batter served in a sauce that would surely glow in the dark if you turned the lights off (actually, the article does not state if the restaurant has lights on and whether you have to bring your own torches to actually see the food)

To be fair to the restaurant it does appear to have regular customers and so maybe serves decent-enough food. Maybe the owner has a bit of savings in the bank and figured this was a good way to generate positive publicity for his business. Well he's certainly generated great publicity for himself, if the national newspapers are carrying the story. I can see other businesses in trouble trying the same tack. Bank offers to lend money to people buying houses with no job and no deposit, maybe?

(and why exactly do NINJAs need to live in houses if they're supposed to be so tough???)

Somali Pirates

One news item that particularly grabbed my attention in recent days (amongst stories of job cuts, bank failures, growing personal and government debt, and erm, oh yes, the economic downturn) was the story of audacious Somali pirates who had hijacked an oil tanker the size of Wales (OK then, maybe containing oil equal in value to the GDP of Wales).

I don't know why this story grabbed my attention in particular (apart from the fact it was not yet another story about The End of Capitalism). Maybe because it involved pirates that I don't normally hear about. That is, they are not of the kind that make counterfeit CDs, broadcast rock and roll songs from rickety ships in the North Sea, frequent parrot and wooden limb shops on Penzance High Street or even zip around the South China seas in speedboats waving kalashnikovs in the air. Maybe because it was a hijack but not of a vehicle that would be the choice of your average discerning hijacker: a jet passenger airliner. At least with a jet plane you're able to fly to almost anywhere in the world in a matter of hours. But to be honest a fully laden oil tanker is not exactly the fastest and nimblest of vehicles is it? I mean I'm not sure how many knots an oil tanker can do, but instead of scrambling fighter jets to follow its every move I'm sure the Navy could easily casually send out a few canoes and dinghies. Or sit a bloke on the beach with a pair of binoculors.

Then there is the matter of the ransom on demand. $25 million dollars!? How on earth are they going to receive that money and then try to avoid detection afterwards? Do they want it all in used banknotes? Or gold bullion? How about crude oil? Yes, in the current economic climate they would be foolish to ask for the ransom to be paid in Sterling and nobody will be able to obtain that much gold in such short notice. And everbody knows that crude oil is going to get scarser and scarser as the time goes by.

Yes, we demand $25 million in crude oil for the safe return of the crew of the Sirius Star. In fact since it's already carring $100 million of the stuff just tell us where to dump the remaining 75% of its content then we'll be off thank you very much. And no funny tricks or men in canoes following us.

This being my first post in this blog I've forgotten to put a British Chinese spin to this article. Oh well, c'est la vie.