The 50+ Club

Years ago I used to admire those who had gone to university and gained a degree, so much so that I went as a mature student and got one of my own 10 years after leaving school. Not any more. It used to convey so much and demonstrated the differences between us all. Of course, that was in the days when differences were allowed! And, of course, schools were called schools and not “places of learning”.

The approach was different then, of course, as we all went to school and the cleverer (or harder working) passed exams while the others didn’t. A smaller proportion secured places at university while smaller again went on to take multiple, or higher, degrees. Universally, though, the more education the more you seemed able to extrapolate, to deduce and to add to knowledge by using what you knew to produce new information. That doesn’t seem to happen any more, probably because everyone is too scared to make a mistake.

Take a visit to the vet, they seem to have a checklist of those limited things that can be guaranteed to be (that is, safe to treat) and if your pet’s complaint isn’t on the list they can’t help. Nobody thinks for themselves anymore they just tick boxes. Now, I’m not singling out vets as it happens in many other areas. Take your local garage for example. To maximise profits employees have to be cost-effective (cheap!) and they have to check boxes because services have been reduced to this. Send in something out of the ordinary and they’re universally baffled. End result? Usually, a huge quote to replace something which includes the fault by a wide margin. Like the BMW 4×4 last week (not mine, incidentally), quoted £6000 to replace transmission, fixed by a brake service costing £250.

Another example, my neighbour’s wife called out a guy to look at the computer. A few head shakes, grunts and low whistles later and the offending item was pronounced dead and a new one advised. Our good friends at Computer Medics got involved to transfer the data. It’s generally easier to transfer data from a working machine and they didn’t know it couldn’t be fixed so they installed a replacement power supply for around £30 and got it back on its feet.

Of course, all of these people, whether with or without degrees, have been taught to operate the checklist. If it’s not on the checklist it can’t happen, try this when you get cold-called:

Caller: “If I could show you how to save money on your ‘phone calls would you be interested?”

Me: “No!”

Caller: “But everyone is interested in saving money…”

Me: “Not me, I prefer wasting it thanks”

They hung up soon afterwards.

The point is their checklist couldn’t cope. There was no option for Mr Grumpy. Now, checklists are a great idea but, like many other things, if you place too much reliance on them they become like the proverbial millstone. We need at least some of us to think outside the circle and not rely on checklists. After all, if you’re dying of something and it’s not on anyone’s checklist you’re gonna be pretty pi*%&ed off about it…

The recent ‘invasion’ of Stansted airport didn’t change the World nor did 9/11. Oh sure, security got better. Now I can’t get on a ‘plane without surrendering my nail file and submitting to a strip-search in case I have some C4 secreted in my rectum! But the World didn’t change for the better and it won’t change after a suicide bombing or even one a day. So, if you want to change the World what can you do?

Opt out of consumerism. Just look at what’s happened over the last few months. The World is in complete panic. There’s no credit to be had and that means many can’t buy all those things they don’t need and will never use. However, that’s a major problem because consumerism drives the World. So, if you want to change things, stop buying. That will certainly get the message across.

Consumerism is simply not sustainable. To maintain growth the cost of consumer goods must fall year on year. That means moving manufacturing to cheaper labour markets hence the growth of China. But China is struggling to compete now so where will manufacture move next? Well, India is a good bet but not for long. When all of Asia is consumed where next? Probably Africa. What happens when we run out of impoverished nations to exploit (move manufacturing to)? Perhaps the Western World will be so poor by then that manufacturing will move back to the US and the UK.

So, it all goes full circle then?

And what have we achieved in the meantime? Nothing. Pandering to consumers results in broken societies. Goods are moved all over the World wasting huge resources but justified on the grounds of cost. But it’s a cost in financial terms while the cost in real terms is huge and unrecoverable. Cheap is not best, it’s usually costing the future something we will never be able to pay back and that’s a major tragedy.

We can all do something about this just by refusing to buy things we don’t need and shouldn’t even want. And one thing is certain, voting with your wallet is about the only thing you can do today to change the World for the better. And, you can’t get arrested for it either! Sadly, most people simply don’t have the balls to do it.

Is it just me or…

I know we are rapidly spiraling into recession, some would say we have already arrived, but why do I get the feeling we will not all be affected equally? The Bank of England cuts interest rates to 3% but the high street banks don’t pass it on and now they are looking for ways to recover the money they will lose by not selling payment protection insurance. For those of you who have been ‘off-planet’ for the last decade, payment protection insurance, or PPI, is foisted upon us as a way of ensuring our loan will be paid off if we can’t meet the payments. What usually happens is it doesn’t payout for the problem we actually have, whatever it may be, we pay through the nose for it, it’s added to the loan so we pay interest on it and, wham, bam, thank-you maam, the bank has shafted you again.

Then there’s all the redundancies at the likes of BT, 10,000 in six months, that’s unbelievable. What were all these people doing in the previous six months? Sitting on their arses? No, they’ve only just been identified as being surplus to requirements. What? All 10,000? Seems like an opportunity has been grasped here. Sorry, we’re in recession, we have to make some cuts to save the business. Save ‘fat cats’ life style more like.

So, 10,000 more people looking at a shite Christmas and more shite service from BT looks on the cards. Well, can a company lose that many people and see no reduction in service. If it can then let’s hope most of the people leaving are in the management team because they’re obviously doing bugger all!

In the meantime I’m writing a new TV gameshow. The title? “You’ve been shafted”. Bet you can’t guess what it’s about!

The United Kingdom has one of the lowest turnouts for elections in the World despite having one of the most transparent political processes. Could it be that this very transparency is responsible?

Apparently, 47% of people in this country are not interested in the US elections compared to 25% in France and 15% in Germany. Only 51% in the UK say they would vote in a General Election whereas 70-80% in other European countries is not uncommon. Only 27% of the electorate here have any trust at all in politicians generally yet, even in those countries with openly corrupt regimes, polling turnout is considerably higher than here.

It is my contention that a transparent political process following the usual posturing and brazen lies to secure control of parliament shows the electorate has been shafted yet again. You don’t need to have a brain the size of a planet to figure out that most people, if repeatedly kicked when they get up, will soon learn not to get up. So it is with politics. What’s the point of making the effort to consider policies and manifestos then go to the polling booth and vote for someone who is never going to do what they promised.

It might be better if we didn’t get to see what’s going on in politics as it just rubs salt in the wound. After all, getting shafted is one thing, but knowing you’ve been shafted that’s completely different!

Worried about the effect of the credit crunch on your pension? If you’re 50+ you should be. That’s not to say you should be panicking just taking a good, hard look at your retirement provision. Now, we are not going to pretend that we are experts on financial matters but, looking at our own retirement plans, we’ve got some concerns.

How can you get good, reliable information about savings and investments (or indeed any financial matters)? I suggest you take a look at The Fool’s website, there’s loads of information but you can also mail if you can’t find the answer to your question. I found them very responsive and helpful.

While I would never suggest that Independent Financial Advisers are a waste of time the best person to look after your interests really is you. You don’t need to be a guru to figure out a reasonable investment that suits you. At 50+ you should be looking for something that is low-risk as you may not have sufficient time to recover from market dips. Low-risk also means low return but at least your money is secure. Most people now know that there is a limit to how much you can hold in any one bank but, with the recent mergers and acquisitions, banks which had previously been separate entities may now be one.

This means that if you have more than £50,000 in two banks you may still only be protected to the maximum of £50,000 as both banks are part of the same group. You can find out which banks are in the same group here.

An increasing number of people are finding they are having to defer their retirement, some have lost a great deal of money in events such as the Iceland bank crash, to avoid this kind of disaster remember, these days if it looks too good to be true it is!

After an unexpectedly pleasant weekend, the sun shone for two days in a row, it’s back to normal service for Monday morning! The sun has gone away. Still, I’m in a quiet office in a pleasant rural location and the dog’s asleep under the desk. Makes me almost forget that my pension plan has been shot to hell over the past year and my house is probably worth bugger all.

The doom-mongers are out in force, it’s the end of the World as we know it with rising inflation and the end of Capitalism on the horizon. Of course, it won’t matter much because if rising inflation doesn’t get us then rising sea levels will.

It’s comforting, then, that some things never change like politicians being unable to tell fact from fiction or give a straight answer as demonstrated by Alistair Darling on Breakfast this morning. Asked by Bill Turnbull whether taxes would be raised to pay for increased public spending the Chancellor wriggled like a well-hooked fish. It was a simple question and deserved a simple answer, yes or no. Did we get that? No, what we got was jibber-jabber. It’s high time politics became a lot more transparent and our representatives a lot more accountable instead of acting, and looking, like a bunch of self-serving spivs.

Now that David Cameron has had his wind turbine installed and considering we probably would all like to save a bit on our energy bills I decided to do a little research on alternative energy, in this case wind turbines. What I found out surprised even me. Firstly, there are few sites which give accurate information and many that want money for, probably, not a great deal.

So, how can you tell if you would benefit from a wind turbine?

First of all do you have any wind! Seems pretty obvious but no-one seems to be explaining this very well. In urban areas wind can be quite turbulent as the flow is affected by all the buildings, the more consistent the wind is, the better. In the city a wind turbine needs to be above the roof line to give best results. Ideally, do a survey before letting go of your hard-earned, you can get your hands on a weather station with PC interface for around £100. Collect some information about average wind speeds at different times of the year and you will soon know whether a wind turbine would be any benefit. Compare your results with the specifications of the model(s) of turbine you are considering buying. Output is roughly linear so, if a 500 watt turbine needs a wind speed of 12 miles per hour (5.4 m/s) and your average is 6 miles per hour you’ll average 250 watts.

You’ll need planning permission although for the small 500 watt systems it’s unlikely to be refused and you could also qualify for a grant towards the cost.

Okay, so you’ve established that you could get some ‘free’ electricity from a wind turbine what do you buy?

Off the shelf

B&Q offer a fully installed unit for just under £2000. It’s designed to plug straight into a standard 13amp socket to supplement your supply directly. Admittedly, £2000 is a lot to spend but it is an approved system fitted by an approved supplier and, therefore, is a qualifying system for a grant.

Install your own

You can buy wind turbines from as little as £500 but you need to be aware that you need a degree of mechanical and electronic skill to be able to install and maintain them. For example, these systems are generally low voltage so will need a battery pack and control system to complete the setup. They are unlikely to qualify for a grant as they are, typically, not approved and are DIY installations.

Build your own

You can build your own for as little as £100 provided you have the necessary mechanical and electronic skills. There are courses run by people such as Hugh Piggott which can provide the necessary skills. If you have these skills already try Mike’s site which gives comprehensive instructions. You’ll need to hunt around for a suitable generator as the one he used is rare as hens teeth

Would you save any money? Well, at today’s prices tier 1 costs per kWh are around 15p; if your 500 watt system achieved an average 50% output (optimistic) you would generate 6 kWh per day saving 90p. Saving over a year would be around £328. In summary, build it yourself pays for itself in a year; install your own pre-built system and get your money back in 2-3 years but the B&Q option is going to take nearer 6 years to recover the costs.

I think I’m gonna look at building but I’m collecting wind speed information first…

There’s so much crap written about this that the average person has no chance of getting it right.

For example, it’s said that cattle in the UK are responsible for 25% of this country’s methane emissions. Methane is one of the gases said to be responsible for global warming - it has several times the impact of CO2 but is, currently, in much lower proportion. Reducing our meat consumption would reduce methane levels. However, methane only remains in the atmosphere for ~12 years and is removed by a natural process resulting in the production of water.

Carbon Dioxide, on the other hand, remains for around 100 years and is removed via photo-synthesis. We need more sustainable forest to address this and less consumption of fossil fuels but given the cost of oil/gas it won’t be hard to accept.

More importantly, we need a complete change of attitude including reducing travel significantly - commuting specifically - it’s ludicrous to travel up and down the country to the workplace when half the work doesn’t even need to be done at work.

But there are much simpler things that anyone can do. If you’re not short of cash fit solar panels, even in our crap summer you would have made savings. Consider a low voltage immersion heater system powered by a small wind turbine - free hot water forever!

Less in the budget? Get down to your local DIY store and get loads of roof insulation in; fit blinds to windows that are not double-glazed; install a small wood-burning stove.

Got no budget? Switch off unwanted lights and electrical appliances; buy fresh vegetables as you need them - rotting food in landfill produces methane; re-use shopping bags; build a composting bin from scrap wood. Try this site for further ideas.

If everyone does something, no matter how little, it would make a big difference!

Praise the Lord!

We’re saved from binge drinking!

There’s going to be a label on bottles of alcohol warning people about binge drinking.

That’s so inspirational, NOT.

It’s too late, the lunatics are already in charge of the asylum.

Curiously, you can now attend classes in Reality TV - how to gain an edge over your opponents reports Heather Alexander on BBC News! To get your 15 minutes of fame nowadays you need to be just a bit better prepared than the average stupid applicant.

In case you hadn’t noticed, political correctness is frowned on here so go here for translations if you are a sensitive soul.

Reality TV shows have few redeeming features but those that do spring to mind include keeping moronic viewers off the streets for while.

The only Reality I can see is that contestants are universally stupid; production crews are universally patronising while viewers are manipulated as usual. Still, it’s an effective way of keeping millions quiet when the required medical treatment would be too expensive to be made available by NICE.