happenings
Sep. 25th, 2008 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thedarkprojectI find it rather bizarre and pointless that, in the wake of the murder of a student in his home a few days ago, that police are going to step up their visible presence in the area in an attempt to reassure residents.
The reason for my thoughts on this can be seen here: behold, a map of the murder site (in blue) and the city's Central police station (in red):
If that isn't enough of a police presence already, then what is?
What's perhaps worse is that the ambulance service, which was the first emergency service called to the scene, immediately notified police. Police used to always attend serious injuries where an ambulance was needed, yet in this case, despite being just across the road, they still didn't get there first?
"Police have been probing the couple's links to a website dedicated to fans of computer fantasy game Advance Wars. Reports suggest Matthew had argued with a gamer, who had taken revenge." Internet gaming: Serious Business.
Apparently they arrested someone in Germany in connection with this, which is interesting. But it does mean that the armed arrest outside my house the other day remains, as yet, unexplained.
In other news... the credit crunch, isn't it fun? It's quite interesting to see all the details coming out of the highly unscrupulous activities undertaken by people in finance, such as traders borrowing shares and selling them in the hope of buying them back at a cheaper price (sometimes rightfully deflating a company's overvalued stock, other times wrongfully depressing the price due to the herd mentality of traders), and banks borrowing more money so that they can afford to lend, while ignoring that that money still has to come from somewhere. And the end result of all this is that governments bail out the banks, ie. privatising risk but socialising debt. When it goes well, the traders win, when it doesn't, the average person pays through their taxes.
An interesting and often forgotten aspect of this however is that it may not have come about if it wasn't for the so-called 'subprime' crisis, ie. a lot of Americans being given mortgages that they weren't in a position to pay off, and banks being left with their only option being to repossess a house which is worth less than what they paid for it in the first place. The root of the problem here is the American entrepreneurial attitude taken and applied to poverty, encouraging people to borrow more, work hard, and hard workers will (or should) see a return on their 'investment'. Work hard, and anybody can get anywhere. The American Dream, etc.
That approach is fine for business, where you gamble with your business, and declare bankruptcy if it goes wrong, and where all sides understand the stakes. But it's not fine for your domestic housing, which gives you and your family shelter from the elements, and provides a base from which you are able to earn and live. It's not something to be gambled with, and people on the borderline should be encouraged to rent within their means rather than encouraged to buy at prices well beyond them just so that the bank can cream off the interest. People have always talked about rent as lost money and a purchase as an investment, and there is truth to that, but house prices both sides of the Atlantic have been hyper-inflated for a long time. It didn't take a genius to see that, and it is totally naïve to assume that a house price will always go up or stay stable when the worth of almost everything else you buy in life goes down.
The reason for my thoughts on this can be seen here: behold, a map of the murder site (in blue) and the city's Central police station (in red):
If that isn't enough of a police presence already, then what is?
What's perhaps worse is that the ambulance service, which was the first emergency service called to the scene, immediately notified police. Police used to always attend serious injuries where an ambulance was needed, yet in this case, despite being just across the road, they still didn't get there first?
"Police have been probing the couple's links to a website dedicated to fans of computer fantasy game Advance Wars. Reports suggest Matthew had argued with a gamer, who had taken revenge." Internet gaming: Serious Business.
Apparently they arrested someone in Germany in connection with this, which is interesting. But it does mean that the armed arrest outside my house the other day remains, as yet, unexplained.
In other news... the credit crunch, isn't it fun? It's quite interesting to see all the details coming out of the highly unscrupulous activities undertaken by people in finance, such as traders borrowing shares and selling them in the hope of buying them back at a cheaper price (sometimes rightfully deflating a company's overvalued stock, other times wrongfully depressing the price due to the herd mentality of traders), and banks borrowing more money so that they can afford to lend, while ignoring that that money still has to come from somewhere. And the end result of all this is that governments bail out the banks, ie. privatising risk but socialising debt. When it goes well, the traders win, when it doesn't, the average person pays through their taxes.
An interesting and often forgotten aspect of this however is that it may not have come about if it wasn't for the so-called 'subprime' crisis, ie. a lot of Americans being given mortgages that they weren't in a position to pay off, and banks being left with their only option being to repossess a house which is worth less than what they paid for it in the first place. The root of the problem here is the American entrepreneurial attitude taken and applied to poverty, encouraging people to borrow more, work hard, and hard workers will (or should) see a return on their 'investment'. Work hard, and anybody can get anywhere. The American Dream, etc.
That approach is fine for business, where you gamble with your business, and declare bankruptcy if it goes wrong, and where all sides understand the stakes. But it's not fine for your domestic housing, which gives you and your family shelter from the elements, and provides a base from which you are able to earn and live. It's not something to be gambled with, and people on the borderline should be encouraged to rent within their means rather than encouraged to buy at prices well beyond them just so that the bank can cream off the interest. People have always talked about rent as lost money and a purchase as an investment, and there is truth to that, but house prices both sides of the Atlantic have been hyper-inflated for a long time. It didn't take a genius to see that, and it is totally naïve to assume that a house price will always go up or stay stable when the worth of almost everything else you buy in life goes down.
