Monthly Archives: July 2012

Interest on credit cards

Posted on by
Reply

Most of us have used credit cards, and paid the extortionate interest from time to time, and maybe even the default charges. Credit can be useful, but charges for credit can be a disaster. I’ve already made one change, so that if you don’t pay by card, you will save money at the shop. Next, interest rates need to be limited, as they were in England in the past, and indeed, as they still are in France. The very maximum allowed here is 20,56%. The highest rate for a loan secured on property is 6,48%, (for a bridging loan). Even Bank on Dave charges nearly 30% in some cases, but loans with rates of over 4000% are advertised on TV in the UK. The maximum rate should be 20% above the bank of Enland rate.

It is very difficult to get rid of a credit card, because once you’ve paid this months instalment you don’t have actual money left to buy groceries, so you need to use your card. This limits your choice. You can’t buy off anyone who doesn’t take card. So this is the proposition. If you give up your credit or store card, the issuer of the card must give you a month with no interest and no payment due, and then the interest will be reduced to 1% per month. You will pay at least 3% (1% interest and 2% off what you owe). The lender will  refund any default charges over the last 2 years and capitalise any arrears. After a year you payments will stay at the same level per month so that the balance is paid off in about 4 years. The issuer of the card must offer you a card which is debited in full immediately, or once a month. He may charge a fee of up to £25 a year + 0,75% on debits, for this, but no other fees or interest to you or the shop.

Diet, Supermarkets

Posted on by
Reply

There is no evidence to show that eating snacks between meals reuces the amount we eat at the next meal. The idea of eating snacks whilst working or walking along is new and has been sold to us by television advertising. Well more or less anyway. The first action to stop weight gain is not to have food constantly pushed at us. So snacks such as chocolate bars and crisps should be sold as they were 50 years ago. In the case of crisps that was in packets of 28 grams or slightly less. No more multi packs or large packs, and no extra charge for buying fewer packs. If a six-pack is £1.20 then 2 packs should be 0.40p. You can still buy 6 packs if you like and eat them all yourself, but at least you will know, that that’s a lot to eat, and not a “saving” by buying in bulk.

Don’t go on a diet, what about surgery?

Posted on by
Reply

There are many myths about diets. So here are the observable facts. Long term they very rarely work. Low carbohydrate diets work quite well short term, but are impossible to stick to and can cause health problems. Great motivation is required.

The more you eat the more your stomach swells and the more you feel hungry, isn’t exactly true, but it does give you the idea. Operations to reduce the size of your stomach can actually work long term. There are health risks but if your situation is so bad that the heath risk from your weight or hiatus hernia (for example) is greater, The operation can be recommended. After the operation, it’s the pain and discomfort that you get if you eat more than a tiny amount of food that gives the motivation required, as mentioned earlier. Vitamin supplements are required.

It would be better if the governement took action to avoid this situation.

Don’t go on a diet, change the governement, it’s more effective

Posted on by
Reply

The increasing number of people, including children, who are overweight, is a great source of misery and causes various health problems. The really sad fact is that this problem is largely caused by government policy, and certainly could be eased by govenment action. If you are overweight, it’s almost certainly not your fault. I will explain.

First one simple fact. Up untill 1970 or therabouts very few people were overweight. So if you could eat exactly like English people ate in the 1950’s or 1960’s you would gradually come down to a normal weight, with very few exceptions.

It requires govenment action though for this even to be possible. Take a simple thing like milk. When I was a milkman in the early 1970’s most people still drank full cream pasteurised milk in a glass bottle. This would have come from mainly fresian cows, fed mailnly on grass and hay. The premium product was Channel Island milk because it had more cream. The people who drank it weren’t overweight. I looked recently for jobs as a milkman to get an idea of how wages have changed since decimilasion and was shocked to see that all the offers were not jobs as such, but some sort of franchise arrangement. Nowadays most milk is in cartons, reduced fat and homoginesed and comes from high yielding cows.

Credit, debt

Posted on by
Reply

The right to be poor.

Untill fairly recently, being poor meant, not earning much money, so not being able to buy much. I remember a young man on the dole in Wales in the 1980’s buying a bottle of Southern Comfort. I must have questioned the wisdom of this, and he said, when the money’s gone, I just can’t buy anything till dole day. Now the lesson from this is, he might have a couple of days of misery, but come dole day all the money was his to spend.

This was before the great relaxing of regulation in the City of London, and of Banking. Now how many people can say, on pay day, this money is mine to spend as I wish. No debt to pay, no direct debits. What I’m really asking is, if you got paid in cash, would you have to run and put some, or most of it into the bank to avoid a disaster of some kind.; charges penalties repossessions electric phone cut off etc. The freedom to be poor, would mean, can’t pay, don’t have. It sounds harsh, but it is a great improvement on the present situation. One example, don’t put money in the bank to pay your insurance debit and the bank and insurance company will charge, and then there won’t be enough money in the bank to pay the electric bill, so they’ll charge and then cut you off, and then your oil central heating pump won’t work so you’ll freeze, because you can’t even light a fire, because you don’t have a chimney or it’s a smokeless zone. New sytem, don’t pay your insurance bill, you won’t be insured, that’s it.

Credit cards

Posted on by
Reply

Although it was inconvenient to us, because I didn’t know, I was very pleased to see that many restaurants and cafés wouldn’t take payment by card. This included the restaurant in the Geneva beach complex. So cash was needed, but, I hope, less of it because the cafés wouldn’t have to pay bank commission.

It is wrong that shopkeepers have to take cards or lose business, and charge cash customers the same amount even though they have no commision to pay on the cash payment.

The customer should pay the commission, and then they have the choice of giving some money to the banks or not. The same should apply to electronic payments like Paypal. The buyer should pay the commission.

Cosy Homes

Posted on by
Reply

I went to a Roman/Gaulish spectacle just over a week ago, here in central France. There was a tempoary post-office where I was able to some souvenirs of the event, but also a 10 euro legal tender silver coin for 10 euros. The spectacle wasn’t all that spectacular, but there was a recreation of a Gaulish dwelling, known as a black house. It was built of wattle & daub with spaces at the top of the walls to let the smoke out from the small wood fire burning in a hole in the floor. It was quite a cool windy summer day, and it was really nice to enter the house, really cosy, and no the smoke didn’t sting my eyes, it just smelt pleasant. They also had jacob sheep, alpine goats and a highland cow. So it seems Britain is still considered a good source for ancient breeds. But does England have good housing?

I’m not suggesting that the old Scottish style black-house should be brought back, but there aren’t all that many houses in England where you can light a wood fire, and keep a couple of hens. I shall be coming back many times to what I feel is more important than being rich, and it’s the right to be poor. It should be the right of the poor to gather fallen wood and burn it to keep warm if they can’t afford central heating fuel, and to keep small livestock if they can’t afford eggs milk or meat, and not the right of the rich.

 

Let’s start by using banks less, (helpful banking)

Posted on by
3

First, what do I know? well a couple of examples.

I was an accredited financial advisor in the 1980, during the period of the 1987 stock market crash and the begining of the Financial services authority. I have obtained a refund from my bank, not for payment protection insurance, but for the monthly fee, for an account with extras such as car breakdown cover, which I didn’t want, need, or ask for.

I was in Geneva last week, and while I was there, I changed some out of date swiss banknotes into current notes at the Bank of the Canton. This was my first experience of a Swiss bank, and I found them efficient and helpful. That is to say they took the old notes, gave me new ones, and sent the old ones off in a cannister in a vacuum tube.

Two months ago I changed some Jersey banknotes in an English bank, around the same value as in Switzerland, about £200’s worth.

They were polite and in the end helpful. That is to say they asked for my passport, and several ID questions, and did I have an account with them, because they had to pay the money into the account. As I already had more than 200 pounds in my account, they kindly let me draw it out again.

Personal experience, better than a thesis

Posted on by
Reply

I won’t be quoting references to academic works in this blog, mainly  because they are unreliable, often copied off another work; what I call the goats eat washing syndrome, an often quoted non-fact. I know it’s not true because I’ve kept goats, and milked them personally. I’m going to use the same method in most sections. Personal experience, my own and also that of people I know and trust.