Monday, monday...

Monday - "day of the moon" - has a similar meaning in many languages, but some of them prefer to eschew the pagan origin of the word. This is the case in chinese, 星期一 (xingqi yi), meaning "day one of the week". Also in Georgian, Greek and Syriac means "first day". For similar reasons the official liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church refers to Monday as "Feria II". The Portuguese name for Monday reflects this - the Portuguese word for Monday is segunda-feira. The Russian word for Monday is понедельник (poniediélnik), meaning "after holiday." In Hungarian (hétfő) means "head of seven"

As I don't do Mondays - even if I had a quite weekend - eitheir because of the metaphoric sense of the moon or the post-holiday role, doesn't matter...

doing the maths!

This is not mine, but nice to make you think...

What makes 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%. How about achieving 103%? What makes up 100% in life?

Here's a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions

If the letters were represented as numbers, like that:

A B C D E F G H I  J  K  L  M  
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 

 N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Then:

HARD WORK = 8+1+18+4 + 23+15+18+11 = 98%

KNOWLEDGE = 11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

But:

ATTITUDE = 1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

And:

BULLSHIT = 2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%

ASS KISSING = 1+19+19 + 11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 118%

Capitalism, the big winner

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the international organization of the United Nations system that assists in developing the world economy and were responsible for many of the countries in the 70's and 80's breakdown because of their extortionate interest rates, is back on business. If they were kind of out of fashion in the recent years, itr seems that they will have their revival now.

World Bank

The World Bank is not a “bank” in the common sense. It is another one of the United Nations’ specialized agencies, aka International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA). Together these organizations provide high-interest loans, and grants to developing countries - at their coast, of course!

Both institutions - World Bank and IMF - are known collectively as the Bretton Woods Institutions after the remote village in New Hampshire, U.S.A., where they were founded in July 1944. The World Bank and the IMF are twin intergovernmental pillars responsible for the vast majority of the money borrowed by developing and developed countries. To the international community and to the rest of the world, the niceties of the division of labor are even more mysterious than are the activities of the two institutions... apart from exploiting poor countries.

Are we doing this again?

All the eyes of the world seems to be on G20, looking for responses... Are we doinf this again? Relying on such people and organisations which have sunk us at this level of shitness? Yes, they are!

The European Central Bank is expected to cut eurozone interest rates by 50 basis points to 1 per cent on Thursday, but the key question is whether the ECB will follow the example of the US Federal Reserve and Bank of England in pumping more money into the economy via quantitative easing (QE).

The ECB seems sure that the eurozone recession is a normal cyclical downturn and appears unconvinced that the credit crunch will result in a severe and prolonged slump that would require “non-standard” measures as a response.

Until now the European Central Bank has resisted temptation for easing measures, like pumping more money into the economy, as the US Federal Reserve and Bank of England have done - they are such a sissy, arent't they? Buying back government bonds, however, remains a more complex and politically delicate issue - a more stinky bunch of shit, if you know what I mean!

They want to relax the collateral criteria.

Mr. Jennifer McKeown at Capital Economics presages that “The longer that it takes (the ECB) to come up with a plan, the greater the risk that the eurozone will experience a longer recession than elsewhere”. Sounds apocaliptic? Or too pushy? Well, here in Ireland we know how it works: they first throw you something nobody understands entirely and try to play a frind's fair game. When they loose, they will frighten you to dead before play the game again - viz. Lisbon Treaty. Others say there is a “high probability” that the ECB will embark at some stage into QE with purchases of private debt being more likely than buying of government bonds. No matter what they do, you know who will be paying the bill, don't you?

Ireland is doing its job already. Primer Minister Brain Cowen (yes, the one portrayed last week in some art galleries) has announced will be 5 years of "hard-times", and our life standard might be reduced at least in 10%.

I wish we could say that on our taxes, which seems to go all the other way round...

welcome to the world

We've learned that the advent of the G20 Summit in Central London could cause some disruption. On 2nd April next, the G20 Summit - the annual convention for the world's Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governers, which in fact is composed of 42 countries as we learned in here - will be held at the ExCeL centre in London's Docklands. The venue is close to London's City Airport, and spans stations within the Jubilee Line and DLR.

The Metropolitan Police expect potential disruption to travel into and around Central London, the City (financial district), and Docklands on 1st & 2nd April. They also anticipate additional disruption caused by potential activities from several large protest groups.

Companies are like to advise its employees to not travel into London on 1st & 2nd April unless absolutely critical. Work from home.

Additional security will be in place in South Bank; you are asked to fully co-operate with all security identification checks.

THEY WANT TO KNOW WHO YOU ARE! THEY WANT TO KNOW WHERE YOU GO! THEY WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU DO!

It's a brave, brave new world!