I Shall Call Ye Cassandra.

A spookily prescient blog from Crashomatic that pretty much covers why printing more money is a bad thing, and that it only benefits the people who actually print the money.

I heartily recommend you read the whole thing - even though it is with a US slant - as it does explain a lot of things very clearly and very quickly.

Hat-tip to The Devil for pointing this one my way.

ID Cards, Every Little Helps

Rather interesting - if you happen to be a geek, like wot I am - news today on the introduction of ID Cards.

First up, the Government seem to have backed down a bit from their initial proposal to force all airside workers to have ID Cards. Well, Government issued ID Cards that is; they currently all do have ID Cards - issued to them by the airport after they've undergone a far stricter vetting process than the one the Government is proposing for the new shiny Government issued ID Cards. But I digress.

The Register is saying that the plans for ID cards for airport workers are in deep trouble, with the news that next year's rollout has been downscaled to an 18 month trial at only two airports, Manchester and City of London. According to a report in the Financial Times, the Home Secretary is due to announce the trial on Thursday but that no agreement has yet been reached on whether or not the trial would cover existing workers, or only new employees.

According to the FT, Manchester and London City only signed up to the scheme "in principle" after the government agreed to provide a further £500,000 for pre-employment checks for airport staff. Nor, says the paper, is there any guarantee that the scheme will be extended to the rest of the airline industry after the trial concludes. Opposition within the airline industry has been virtually unanimous, however, and the sudden appearance of a lengthy trial at two smaller airports - as opposed to a general rollout across the industry - suggests strongly that the Home Office is losing this fight.

The Home Office, however, denied the 18-month trial was a retreat on plans to issue all 200,000 airside workers with cards: "We made it clear when we published the Delivery Plan in March 2008 that ID cards for critical workers would be 'starting in the second half of 2009' and we are on track to meet this commitment," a Home Office spokesman said. No2ID have said it was a "transparent attempt to save ministerial face" after anger from airport unions and airline bosses.

The Unite union, which represents airport workers, has said staff are already extensively vetted before being given airside passes. Airport unions have been resisting the scheme, saying workers would have to pay £30 for a card to do their jobs. Airlines including British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and EasyJet, also spoke out against the plan, saying it was "unjustified" and would not improve security.

So the Government think it's a good idea, and everybody in the affected industry says it's a stupid and unnecessary idea which will do nothing to improve security.

You can see how this is going to end, can't you?

The Government will claim (but without giving any information as it would "undermine efforts by the security services") that a plot to smuggle a bomb/suicide bomber aboard a plane has been stopped and that they simply MUST improve security by introducing these passes. The airlines, unions and airports won't be able to complain - as there's no actual evidence - and the plans will be forced through.

Thinking about it, doesn't the timing of this story seem just a little suspicious? An MP walks through security at an airport carrying a large knife in her bag and no-one notices. So she reports it to the papers. Yet she's not arrested for carrying a knife? Or attempting to carry a knife onto a plane? Wouldn't things have been oh so different if a Muslim teenager had done exactly the same thing? I digress again, but my point is, that it seems kinda odd to me that this story comes out THE DAY BEFORE this announcement by Smith.

Smith has been busy though, sadly, as her stupid mind has also let her think that we would be far happier giving all our fingerprint details for ID Cards (the ones EVERYBODY will have to carry, not the Airside ones) to the supermarkets, rather than have to go to a special Government unit.

On plans to involve retailers and the Post Office in the ID cards scheme, a spokesman said it would be "more convenient" for people than the government's original plan to set up enrolment centres in large population centres.

The Identity and Passport Service (IPS) would continue to carry out enrolment at its offices but a spokesman said it also wanted to

"drive down costs using market forces and competition" and was talking to a "range of high street retailers and other organisations". He stressed that security of data would remain the "utmost priority". "Any third party involved in enrolment would be accredited and audited to ensure they meet and continue to meet robust and strictly administered security standards.

"System design standards will ensure that no data is stored locally and that all data is transmitted directly to IPS using a secure communications link. In addition all locations and personnel will be subject to strict security standards set by IPS."

Let's hope that their standards are a bit higher than everyone else in Government, and all the details won't be left on a USB key in a pub car park or on a train.

I - along with a few others - are wondering just which retailers would sign up to this scheme. There doesn't seem to be much incentive for doing so. Both the Tories and the LibDems have said that they would scrap the ID Card scheme, so any company making the necessary investment in the equipment are likely to discover it redundant after an election. Similarly, any retailer involved would surely be the subject of a campaign to stop people shopping there. In the current financial climate, that would surely put a damper on even the most enthusiastic company chairman (no doubt eyeing themselves a peerage).

Unless. Unless there's a HUGE incentive for a retailer to take part in this scheme. Like being the only official supplier of alcohol in the UK? Like being the only supermarket allowed to open 24 hours a day all week? Surely the lure of a peerage can't be enough to entice a major retailer into the moneypit with the Government.

UPDATE:

Just seen this on Guido and it made me howl. While giving a speech elsewhere today (hasn't she been busy, eh?) a No2ID sympathiser nicked the glass she'd been drinking from. Her fingerprints will be copied from it, and if there's any DNA on it, that too will be taken.

Not too secure with your data, are you love?

(deep breath)

A-hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

You're Next!

A colleague of mine has just rung up to tell us he'd found a USB drive lying around in an airport in Ireland. Nothing terribly unusual in that, mine falls off my lanyard about once a month. What was unusual though was the contents on the one he found.

A completely non-encrypted drive, with nice easy to read Word documents etc, showing Next's entire catalogue for next season and who was going to be sacked across the company.

Oopsie.

If anyone from Next - who his wife called to tell them about this, but they have so far failed to ring her back - would like this dongle returned, please contact me via the comments.

Ta

This Is Newcastle, Man!

Okay, so not as glamorous as shouting "This is Africa", but with a similar disregard for laws as the former colonies.

Newcastle's drinking culture has come under the spotlight today, with the Spy Bar in Jesmond selling bottles of strong lager for just 10p each. And yes, 10p is still a lot of money in Newcastle, thanks for asking.

Anyway, note the slight change in outlook between the BBC's interview:

Spy's owner, Mr Handa, said: "The bottles were being sold at full price months ago, but they were no longer on sale. Two or three cases, or 36 bottles, were later found behind the bar and were sold off at the cheap price, but they were limited to one per person and only offered to regular customers. There was certainly no promotion, no adverts or anything like that."

and that from the Metro.

Spy Bar spokesman said: "I don't think we have been irresponsible at all. We were given two crates of beer by the brewery and just wanted to get rid of it. If people are drinking too much alcohol that is their choice."

It most certainly is. Although for some reason (surely not bandwagon jumping?) the local police and council now want to get involved.

Police Supt Dave Wormald said: "Northumbria Police is committed to tackling alcohol-related disorder. My neighbourhood officers will be speaking to the management at this establishment to take the appropriate course of action to discourage them from offering such promotions." And if I were the management I'd be telling you to get out of my premises.

Councillor Anita Lower, executive member for community safety and regulation (which is surely the most pointless job title you've heard in quite some time) at Newcastle City Council, said the bar's management would be "invited to meet the council's licensing committee". Again, if I was invited to the City council, I would be telling them to fuck off out of my business.

What the bar did - regardless of how they did it - is not illegal. The big supermarkets do this sort of thing all the time (have you seen any wine advertised as £7.99 a bottle, £10 for 3?) and keep getting away with it. Bars are having huge problems getting anyone into them; the smoking ban and the public perception of a credit crunch are not ideal conditions for welcoming people to a night out.

This twunt - another Doctor, who can presumably afford £30 bottles of Claret - has a different idea though. (From the Metro article):

Dr Christopher Record, who works at Newcastle's Freeman and Royal Victoria Infirmary hospitals, said: 'The offer is absolutely monstrous. It's totally irresponsible, one bottle of that beer contains 2.8 units of alcohol and they are charging the equivalent of 4p for a unit.' The doctor added he wanted to see new laws making it illegal to sell alcohol for less than 50p a unit.

Now that, I believe would be called price fixing. And that is most definitely illegal.

Exactly How The Credit Crunch Happened

But in a slide presentation of stickmen. Best viewed in full screen (click the little icon in the bottom corner)

Hat tip to Obnoxio The Clown (and if you think I swear a lot, you may want to cover your eyes)

Next Domino To Fall?

Following on from the failure of the Northern Rock in the UK and Bear Stearns in the US, CNN are reporting that Lehman may be the next victim of the credit crunch.

The brokerage firm saw its shares drop as much as 39% in early trading in wake of JPMorgan Chase's $2-a-share purchase of Bear Stearns. Monday's sell-off took Lehman shares to $24.50, down from $39 Friday, before they staged a mild recovery. The recovery mirroring the general up turn in the Dow Jones.

The collapse of Bear Stearns has fueled fears of a widespread breakdown in the U.S. financial system. Lehman, like Bear Stearns, has been a big player in the mortgage market in recent years and investors worry that its exposure to now-toxic mortgage-based securities, combined with its relatively small size, might be fatal. Lehman is the fourth-largest U.S. player on Wall Street, behind Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.

I've also heard, separately, that the Fed are considering a 0% interest rate - like Japan did in the late 80s and early 90s, although they did go to negative rates at one point - in an attempt to kick start consumer spending again. As people are being told "there's a recession coming" so they start to save their money. Unfortunately, this actually speeds up the recession as there's a reduced demand for goods and services, leading to lay-offs and closures. Which prompts more people into saving.

You can see the spiral, can't you?

As far as I am aware, the Bank Of England has no plans to follow suit, although this is more likely due to the inflationary effect such a policy would have on the UK's housing market.

World Economics

Excellent piece from Robert Peston (BBC's best Business & Market Analyst by a country mile) about the scary possibility that a single rogue trader - the French chap on the run from SocGen - has forced the recent dramatic rate cut by Federal Reserve bank.

It does raise the question of whether the US would be better served protecting themselves from accidental (or otherwise) economic attack, rather than spending the billions of dollars they have in stopping a so far non-existent terrorist attack.

Although this could just be the funniest thing the French have ever done to the US.