Oaksys Tech Update

The Greek Government has agreed big public budget cuts to reassure international investors.

It won’t be long before that happens in the UK. The Bank of England (UK Government) may have forced the interest rate down to an unnaturally low rate so that Mr Brown can afford to borrow so much money, but before long that interest rate will creep up to attract investors to UK Gov’t sovereign debt. The consequence will be that the interest payments on Gov’t Debt will spiral causing  even greater cuts to public spending. Savers and pensioners on fixed incomes will suffer as inflation follows.

Guru

I’m fascinated to see the french court case between La Martiniere (a french publisher) and Google over the Google Book project. La Martiniere has won damages and Google have been ordered to stop digitising book from France. Strangely enough the french government have just announced approval of a 1 Billion euro project to digitise french books.

I wonder how the french publishers would react if Google remove all reference to the french books and their publishers from the french publishing industry? The publishers would sink into digital oblivion if Google decide to retaliate.

Guru

Barclays Retail is terminating its desk top PC support contract with Getronics earlier than scheduled. Working through the reported figures each desk top PC is costing in excess of £2000 p.a. in support charges. I wonder if that contracted fee included extra that arise after the original contract was negotiated?

I always have one particular problem with the outsourcing of the support of PC’s to a third party organisation. It is whether the company is outsourcing the real problem?  Quite often the in-house support staff are TUPE’d to the outsource company so it is unlikely that the staff are causing the problem. Should the senior management team be looking more closely at outsourcing the management of the support team rather than the coalface workers?

Guru

We just had a sales call from a software security firm wanting to open business relations.Our reply “No, your Company screwed us about 7 years ago. We don’t do business with you.”In this world of “just in time”, CRM Systems and marketing led business models it is easy to forget that businesses and people have long memories.Sharp practice is never forgotten and is quite often retold to other people.Guru

The Credit Card Economics of the current government are leading the country towards a cycle of inflation caused by further devaluation of the Pound. With interest rates close to zero the government is spending close to £30 Billion on interest for the national debt. The Chancellor’s solution is to borrow more money. Before long international lenders will demand and get a higher interest rate on their loans. A higher interest rate will mean that the government has to borrow more money to service the loans, unless of course higher rates of taxation are imposed – a fat chance of that before the next election.

I can see that that the “solution” will be to allow inflation to rise so that there is more “money” to pay back debts. It is a bit like “Quantative Easing” really.

It is people on fixed incomes, such as private pensions, who will pay for this negligent fiscal attitude. There is no magic bullet, like North Sea Oil, to rescue our economy.

Guru

The bonus tax will be a blow to many of the middle ranking front office/back office staff working in Investment Banking in the UK and they have my sympathy. They will have worked hard and will be innocent of the excesses of the senior traders. The senior directors of those banks affected have brought this problem onto the employees by their insensitivity to the public mood. They have given the Chancellor the opportunity to impose a publicly “popular” tax on the bank employees. It is a measure of of the senior directors’ collective incompetence in handling their banks’ affairs.

The bottom line is that without the Government intervention many of these moaning directors would now be out on the street looking for a new job. Show some common sense guys! Weather some austerity for a couple of years and you can get your snouts back to the trough.

A report on the BBC News website says that the Local Authorities are 250,000 tons short of road salt compared to a few years ago having switched to “Just in Time” ordering. A retort from the Local Government representative was that this was scaremongering by the Automobile Association and “…It’s up to councils, not the AA, to decide whether it is a good use of their council taxpayers’ money …”

Well this taxpayer has watched the councils fritter away taxpayer’s money on ludicrous vanity projects whilst council tax has increased massively above inflation. The councils have increasingly ignored their basic duties and reduced the “service” on things such as road salt etc etc. The Local Authorities assume that there is an inifinite supply capacity [at the Salt Mines] at the time of highest competition from the consumers of the product.  It is clear that the AA has got it right and the arrogant attitude of council officials is wrong. It is business who pays the cost of the unpreparedness of the local authorities.

Guru

We are seeing persistent attempts by persons unknown to enter comments on this blog advertising “thecommissionpayload .com” These are clear attempts at SPAM or SPLOG. As such that is the kind of organisation that we would blacklist and never recommend to any third party.

Some of the Sad Cases creating this Spam appear to be using the Russian software Xrumer tool, but I’m afraid guys that, while it often handles the Captcha interface, it does not overcome the Mark I eyeball of the administrator.