Category Archives: Rants&Rambles

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Life lessons

Sali Hughes has recently written in the Pool about lessons that she might have found useful and it made me think not only about things I might have valued but things my daughters might have missed:

HOW TO COOK THINGS YOU WANT TO EAT

All kids used to have “Cookery”lessons at school, somewhat dressed up as home Economics. We learned how to make scones and bread, a strange combo dish called “cobbler” and remarkably little about nutrition. Nowadays most kids don’t even get this.

Useful food that you might want to eat would probably start with soup. As Ms Hughes’ points out an inability to make yourself – and a date – some dinner is pathetically unattractive and wouldn’t it be useful to have some idea about how to make one value bag of pasta last a week.

Bread making is all well and good, but not that useful when one only has two eggs and an aged Babybel in the fridge and doesn’t know how to make a simple omelette. The ability to make an all-in-one cheese sauce (Hughes’ recipe: bung together 40g cold butter, 40g flour, a pint of cold milk  – then heat gently, stirring all the time. Season. When cooked and thickened, turn off heat and add cheese) will serve you well throughout life. Meanwhile, a generation of girls are dropping entire food groups like hot potatoes because some prat on Instagram tells them to. Osteoporosis: bone health is ultimately more useful than a concave abdomen.

SAYING NO

Kids are great at saying no but, instead of encouraging the impulse where appropriate, we scold and punish them out of it. They will desperately need the confidence to use “No” throughout life.

“No, I don’t want to be touched; no, I won’t cover for you; no, I won’t be giving you my number; no, I don’t want to do you that favour; no, you can’t come for Christmas; no, I can’t take on any extra work; no, it’s actually not OK; no, I’m not coming to the party; no, I won’t lend you the money; no, I didn’t orgasm, NO NO NO NO N-O”. A firm, clear, polite but negative response is among the greatest of all life skills and yet, still, most of us take decades to acquire it the hard way, because we’re too scared that we won’t be liked.

NOT EVERYONE WILL LIKE YOU & THAT”S OKAY

By the time we reach our forties, all being well we will know this. But it should be taught much, much sooner.

Most people spend their teens and twenties feeling bad about themselves and everyone else when people seemed not to like them which, if you think about it, is extraordinarily self-obsessed and entitled, not to mention a huge waste of a fine time. It’s an unavoidable truth that no one but Julie Walters is liked by everyone, and not being liked is not a sign of a bad person.

Recently my youngest daughter came home very upset because her Chemistry teacher appeared not to like her and didn’t seem willing to make the effort to get to understand her problems (she underperformed on a test after a stinking cold made her feel sick as a parrot).

I pointed out that while this may be true, it isn’t actually anything to do with who my daughter is or indeed who the teacher is. Liking each other is not part of the deal.  They just have to get through their mutual dislike (or more likely, indifference in the case of the poor teacher) in the most respectful and tolerant way possible. Adults have to get along with people they can’t stand almost every week of their lives. The teacher-pupil relationship is as good a place as any to start learning how.

THIS IS WHAT AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP LOOKS LIKE

A couple of half-hour lessons would save us all a load of practical coursework. My parents had an abusive relationship that I thought gave me a head start here – certainly I’ve avoided most of the disasters of my BF from a much more well-adjusted home life.

When men or women tell you what to wear, who to see or what to do, or when they spy on you, or routinely read your diary/personal emails/texts, or who withhold your money, important documents and property, or who constantly criticise your weight/appearance/intelligence/character, or who try to vet your friends and family, or who physically hurt you or make you engage in anything you don’t want in bed, or make you have a baby you don’t want, or who threaten to either harm themselves or you if you ever leave them, are abusers. You cannot fix them, however “special” they tell you you are. They will systematically ruin you if you stay.

You need to confide in people you trust outside of the relationship and then you have to leave. You need to leave.

HOW TO DO WELL AT WORK

“Turn up, work hard, don’t be a pain in the arse” – this could save whole terms of “careers guidance” and is absolute key to success in the early days of any career, regardless of job title, qualifications, experience and contacts. All else being equal, and obviously it isn’t, people give jobs to those who knuckle down and make life easier for everyone else. My daughters’ teachers are understandably so preoccupied with grades that they failed to give them, the three most important pieces of workplace advice, closely followed by…

HOW TO ASK FOR MORE MONEY

British people are useless at this, especially women. By the time we get around to asking for a rise, however deserved, we are desperate, have tied ourselves up in knots and the whole thing has become personal.

Employers don’t care that you have bills to pay, or a car to maintain, or extra mouths to feed. They need to hear why your specific work calls for more money, which duties you’re effectively performing for free, what added value you’re bringing to the role that would cost significantly more were another to fill it. Be forensic, dispassionate and methodical, and show clearly how you’ve come to your proposed salary increase figure. Then negotiate.

HOW TO TIP

15% for servers, 10% for taxi drivers. A couple of quid for your hair washer, 10-15% for your hairdresser or manicurist, unless they’re the salon owner, in which case none.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU FIND YOURSELF PREGNANT

In soap operas and science lessons, women get pregnant and just have their babies, however unwanted. In real life, people make mistakes and civilised societies give them options. Your doctor will not shout at you; you will not necessarily have to beg, borrow or steal to pay for a safe termination. Yes, it’s undesirable, will be uncomfortable and can be traumatic; no, you will not necessarily regret it for the rest of your life (the same should be taught of divorce).

The first step is a GP, family planning clinic or Brook Advisory Centre. You will need a friend to take you home and will need to sort out future contraception before you leave. Take it.

SELF-DEFENCE

Perhaps all kids should be taught how to punch, where vulnerable tissue lies, the power of a jagged key and why it’s most important of all to get the hell out of a scary or intimidating situation. Self-defence would better serve our girls (and boys) than hockey, and bolster their confidence far more than not being picked for the cool girls’ team.

HOW TO RESPOND WHEN SOMEONE’S LOVED ONE DIES

It’s a sad truth that no one really knows what to say until they themselves need to hear it.

You say, “I am so sorry for your loss.”.

You can add if you know them well “This is absolutely awful and horrible and I am so bloody sorry you’re having to go through it.”

Do not attempt to identify a silver lining, because there isn’t one. Do not draw comparisons with your dead pet, because no one cares.

Assume the bereaved person has needs, even if they aren’t expressing them. By all means, offer to help, but either be specific (“I would be very happy to make all the sandwiches for the wake/babysit your children for the next few days”) or take matters into your own hands and leave a lasagne on the doorstep.

Similarly, never respond to someone’s critical illness diagnosis by telling them which members of your family almost or actually died from the same condition.Just don’t.

HOW TO FILE A TAX RETURN

I know people who have spent days – even weeks – of their early adult lives crying about their tax return. Most people, want to pay their tax, but navigating the sodding form without suffering a minor breakdown can be difficult for people – ask for help!

Everyone would be happier for receiving basic tax, credit (someone needs to tell kids that making your minimum monthly payment on any credit card is essentially a decision to die in debt) and finance guidance at school. Maybe not at the time, but certainly for years afterwards

WHICH SIDE TO STEP WHEN ABOUT TO BUMP INTO AN ONCOMING PERSON

I still don’t know this. Learning is a lifelong project.

Political, Rants&Rambles

Shiny

A recent article in the NYTimes asks: “Is America’s Military Big Enough?”

Trump has proposed a $54 billion increase in defense spending, which he said would be “one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history.”

U.S. defense spending

Source: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Spending (in 2017 dollars) with POTUS changes marked

Past US administrations have increased military spending, but typically to fulfill a specific mission. Jimmy Carter expanded operations in the Persian Gulf. Ronald Reagan pursued an arms race with the Soviet Union, and George W. Bush waged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Trump has not suggested a new mission that would require a military spending increase which kind of begs the question about why. Erin M. Simpson, a national security consultant, called Mr. Trump’s plans “a budget in search of a strategy.”

At $596 billion the United States has higher military spending than any other country partly because its foreign policy goals are more ambitious: defending its borders, upholding international order and promoting American interests abroad. In comparison the UK spends around $55billion

“Our current strategy is based around us being a superpower in Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific,” said Todd Harrison, the director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “We’ve sized our military to be able to fight more than one conflict at a time in those regions.”

Some of Mr. Trump’s statements have suggested a reduced footprint for the United States military.

He criticized America’s role as a global military stabilizer. Last month, in his first address to a joint session of Congress, he said the United States had “defended the borders of other nations while leaving our own borders wide open. He also called for defusing tensions with Russia, the United States’ chief military competitor. But he has also taken positions that point to a more aggressive military posture. He has advocated challenging China and Iran more directly. He wrote on Twitter that America must “greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability.”

These statements have left analysts unsure about the role Mr. Trump wants the United States military to play in the world.

1 Troops

The United States has approximately 1.3 million active-duty troops, with another 865,000 in reserve, one of the largest fighting forces of any country.

The United States also has a global presence unlike any other nation, with about 200,000 active troops deployed in more than 170 countries. Many are stationed in allied nations in Europe and northeastern Asia. Mr. Trump has criticized these alliances, saying the United States does too much to defend its allies. It seems unlikely, then, that Mr. Trump intends his spending increase to bolster those deployments.

“The general concept of readiness often happens without a conversation about what the forces are for,” said Benjamin H. Friedman, a research fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington. “They don’t know exactly what they want to do, except that they want a bigger military.”

Mr. Trump wants to increase the number of active-duty military personnel in the Army and Marine Corps by about 70,000 — a rise of about 11% over the current total of 660,000.

The United States increased troop levels in the early 2000s for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but has scaled down as it has withdrawn from those conflicts. Mr. Trump has been critical of those missions, suggesting that he does not plan to ramp up operations in either conflict.

Gordon Adams, a former senior White House national security budget officer, said, “Unless you decide you’re going to war — and going to war soon — nobody keeps a large military.” Arguably a large military creates it’s own problems. It needs to be paid, fed and watered and kept occupied. Large groups of young fit men need active engagement if they’re not to become a social menace.

2 Air Power

The United States has around 2,200 fighter jets, including about 1,400 operated by the Air Force. Mr. Trump wants to add at least 100 more fighter aircraft to the Air Force.

Analysts informally categorize fighter aircraft by “generations” and there is a broad consensus that American aircraft are more advanced than those of other nations. The military already has plans to spend an estimated $400 billion on new F-35 fighter jets, a fifth-generation plane. But Mr. Trump has not provided any details on which programs he would expand.

Because different warplanes serve different roles at different costs, it is difficult to know what problem Mr. Trump is trying to address by adding 100 fighter aircraft.

3 Naval Power

The United States Navy has 275 surface ships and submarines. Mr. Trump wants to increase that number to 350, including two new aircraft carriers.

The new carriers would add to America’s already overwhelming advantage: More than half of the world’s 18 active aircraft carriers are in the United States Navy.

The world’s 18 active aircraft carriers, by country

In early March, Mr. Trump said that the United States Navy was the smallest it had been since World War I. Most analysts reject this comparison. Technological advances mean that individual ships are far more powerful and versatile than they were a century ago, allowing a single ship to fulfill capabilities that would have once required several ships.

Mr. Trump has not specified new missions that would require additional carriers, which could take years and billions of dollars to build. Expanding the fleet size could come at significant cost. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that building a fleet of around 350 ships could cost about 60 percent more per year than average historical shipbuilding budgets, with a completion date of 2046.

But a larger fleet could help reduce pressure on the Navy, according to Brian Slattery, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. “They’ve had to push those deployments longer and longer because the Navy needs to be in all the same places in the world, and there are fewer ships to do it,” he said.

Others argue that the Navy’s resources are stretched because they have too many deployments and that a more modest strategy around the world would alleviate the strain. “To the extent that they are not in great shape, it’s because they have too many missions,” Mr. Friedman said.

4 Nuclear Weapons

After Mr. Trump tweeted his pledge to expand America’s nuclear capability, he told the talk-show host Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC: “Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.”

He has not specified whether he hopes to build more warheads or develop new weapons systems for delivering them.

The United States and Russia possess the vast majority of the world’s nuclear warheads, although both have reduced their arsenals under a series of treaties. Mr. Trump criticized the latest of those treaties, a 2010 agreement with Moscow called New Start, as “just another bad deal,” according to Reuters.

He has not clarified whether he will consider abrogating the treaty, which could open the way for the United States and Russia to expand their nuclear arsenals and capabilities.

Analysts say Mr. Trump’s call for a nuclear “arms race” could potentially cost billions. But as with other spending plans, he has not articulated a strategic goal.

While Mr. Trump has said that he wants to defeat the Islamic State, he has not explained how increasing the size of the military would accomplish that.

Mr. Trump’s focus on big-ticket items is mainly “useful in more conventional military campaigns,” said Michael C. Horowitz, a University of Pennsylvania professor who studies military leadership. “The kind of investments you would make if you were primarily focused on counterinsurgency campaigns are very different.”

Mr. Trump’s announcements appear to emphasize optics as much as strategy, Mr. Horowitz said. “To the extent that tangible pieces of military equipment symbolize strength, those are things that I think the administration is interested in investing in.” He appears more interested in buying bright and shiny toys for “show and tell”, more money spent to demonstrate size and virility?

One of the worries is that having invested all of this money, potentially buying a lot more kit, the president might feel in need of a war or similar in order to play with these new shiny toys.

Political, Rants&Rambles

Something Positive, Sort of

In many respects, the vote to leave the EU was paradoxical. It was a vote for change that made positive change harder to achieve, but change of some sort much more likely. First and foremost, our economy is in need of deep, fundamental change. During the referendum, Remain campaigners argued that things were fine when they were not and, since the result, Brexiters have argued that things will be fine when without serious change they will not be.

Even now, some Remain voters have retreated into the comforts of pointing to a base and deceitful campaign by the Brexiters, rather than seeking to define or to solve the deeper problems that led to the vote against the status quo.

At the heart of both the Leave and Remain failure is an inability to identify, acknowledge and understand the reality of daily life for many people and communities in modern Britain, the refusal to acknowledge that the current economic model is not working for many people.

It is argued that immigration has become such an important issue precisely because free movement of labour is the crucial enabler of the low skill, low productivity, low wage economic model that has been imposed on much of the country. It is this economic model – combined with the cultural and identity challenge of large-scale immigration – that has created such discontent with the status quo.

But of course, freedom of movement has had a different response in the parts of the EU. The UK’s move towards a  low skill, low productivity, low wage economic model is a very British interpretation of freedom of movement, not an inevitability. leaving the EU, is unlikely to change an economic model that the British have chosen to follow. We are now told by government representatives that immigration is unlikely to fall, unlikely in fact to change very much at all, as a result of brexit.

The version of brexit that we are heading towards is likely to deliver “more of the same” rather than addressing underlying problems within our economy.

There is of course nothing progressive about declining to invest in skills in this country, while plundering poor countries of nurses or doctors or carers and then approaching immigration as if people were commodities to be bought up on the open market.

But when challenged about the costs of Brexit, leading Leave figures continue to argue that the UK can enjoy all of the benefits of membership, such as frictionless, tariff-free access to the single market, while bearing none of the burdens. When asked about the challenges, they respond with false reassurances that everything will be fine, and nostalgia for our past, as if this is a prescription for the future.

Brexit is the summit of their ambitions for Britain, not the starting point to solve our future challenges. Indeed, it has never mattered to the Brexit campaign leaders that leaving the EU will make it harder to confront Britain’s economic and social problems.

Theresa May offered her analysis of the problems facing Britain on the steps of Downing Street moments after kissing the Queen’s hand in July. Chancellor Philip Hammond offered an “upbeat assessment” of the British economy. Just like his predecessor, Hammond chose to focus on the top-line numbers while ignoring the deeper problems below the surface.

Relatively good headline growth figures mask a more troubling story about the fundamentals of the British economy. A few quarters of reasonable economic growth serve only as a rebuke to the more alarmist predictions of Remain campaigners.

There are multiple symptoms of a distressed economy, many of which stretch back for decades. Brexit is not the cause of these problems, but it should force us to face the diagnosis. We need a new national economic policy that is pro-growth and pro-economic justice.

The first problem identified is one of investment. Investment is the engine of the economy, driving wealth and prosperity now and in the future. For a quarter of a century, the proportion of the UK economy dedicated to investment has been declining. We lag behind comparable countries in the west, and miles behind fast-growing economies in the east.

Businesses in Britain are failing to invest in order to create good quality jobs. Brexit compounds the challenge by undermining two central parts of the investment case in Britain: political stability and unfettered access to the single market of 500 million people.

Cheap and plentiful labour from across the European Union has led firms to add more workers at low cost rather than to invest in plant, machinery or new forms of automation that drive up productivity. Some British corporations appear to have given up on investment, preferring to return more cash to shareholders than to invest in the future. This has led to the rather astonishing situation where British companies have become net savers rather than borrowers.

The second major problem is poor productivity. Low investment leads in turn to low productivity, and thence to low wages. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman observed: “Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything.” Since the financial crisis, productivity growth in the British economy has stalled, leading to a stagnation in living standards for the majority of households.

The third problem is trade. It is all well and good to aspire to be a “great global trading nation” but today we have a massive trade deficit. If countries are queueing up for a free trade deal with Britain – and it’s not clear that they are – it is because we’re an importer, not an exporter. The last time we sold more to the rest of the world than we bought was in the mid-1990s, and sustained surpluses have not been achieved since the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Our enormous trade deficit means that the British economy is dangerously dependent on the “kindness of strangers”, who we need to sustain investment in our economy.

The difference between what we sell and earn from the rest of the world and what we buy from it has grown to 6% of the entire British economy, financed by expanding debt and selling off British assets. Were it not for the sale of ARM Holdings, Britain’s largest tech company, to Japan’s SoftBank for £24bn in July, the position would be even worse.

The fourth problem is inequality between households. In the 1980s, the gap between the richest and poorest in society accelerated rapidly, where it has stubbornly remained ever since. The richest 10% of households have incomes that are 11 times those of the poorest 10%; in France and Germany, the difference is seven-fold, and in Denmark it is five-fold.

These differences accumulate over time, meaning that there is an enormous gap in wealth as well as income.

Theresa May faces questions during the EU summit in Brussels last week.

The fifth problem is the profound regional imbalance of our economy. London is the wealthiest region in Europe and, together with the south-east of England, accounts for 40% of national output. Meanwhile, all other regions of the UK lag behind most other regions of northern Europe. Outside London and the south-east, every other region has below average productivity.

The most striking fact about these problems is that they are all of long standing, in some cases going back three or more decades. They are not temporary weaknesses in an otherwise sound model. they are not due to membership of the EU. They show that fundamental reform of the British economy is necessary.

As well as facing up to the deep and persistent problems in the economy today, we need to prepare ourselves for a decade of disruption. The changes on the horizon have the potential to reshape our economy and society – for good or for ill, depending on the quality of our response.

During the referendum campaign, there was no articulation of the challenges that we face in the decades ahead and why and how they might be easier to confront in partnership with our neighbours than alone. With better leadership, the EU might have been transformed into a safe harbour in an era of profound challenges from globalisation.

During a campaign that revealed the public’s appetite for change, Remainers had fought an uninspiring campaign for the status quo. There was no attempt to make the positive case for international co-operation. No account was given of how Britain had shaped the EU, nor any roadmap offered for how we might influence its future to better respond to the big drivers of change.

But that boat has sailed.

The first driver of change is what has been described as the fourth industrial revolution: exponential improvements in new technologies. Accelerating computing power, machine learning and artificial intelligence, automation and the “internet of things” have extraordinary power to utterly reshape how we live and work, to reorganise our social, economic and political institutions and to redistribute power and reward in society.

Without deliberate policy, technological change is likely to increase the share of rewards to those who have capital, whilst diminishing the rewards that go to workers for their labour. The rich will get richer. Moreover, the rewards for the highly skilled will continue to accelerate whilst diminishing for everyone else.

The second big driver of change is demographics. Our population will continue to grow, with the UK set to become more populous than France by 2030, and exceeding Germany’s population by 2040 to become Europe’s biggest country. At the same time, the population is set to age significantly, with a 66% increase in the number of people over the age of 75. With this change comes huge challenges in housing, health and social care. Between now and 2030, the working age population will grow by just 3%, while the number of people over 65 will increase by one third.

The continuing shift in economic power eastwards is the third driver of change. By 2030, emerging economies will have emerged: they will account for half of global output, up from a quarter today. Nearly 60% of global middle-class consumption will come from Asia, and 17 of the top 50 cities by GDP will be in China. With American leadership of the post-war global order increasingly in question, the shape of global institutions is likely to shift considerably.

The final driver of change is the new geological era we appear to have entered, where human activity has become the dominating influence on nature.

Today, we are consuming resources at 1.5 times the ability of the earth to replenish them. This requires a radical economic response in the coming decades to mitigate and reverse environmental damage. The transition towards a low-carbon world is crucial to the vision of an economy fit for the future.

There are two possible broad choices to be made in responding to these changes.

One is to embrace greater international co-operation, act in the belief that a problem shared is a problem halved; that just as capital flows and firms operate across borders, so there will be a greater premium on nation states working together in the future. That argument – the positive case for the EU – was never really put to voters. Exiting the EU makes this path significantly harder.

The other choice is to argue that the extraordinary pace of change means that it will be agility – the ability to respond rapidly and flexibly to change – that will matter. If this is true, then Britain might be better placed to prosper outside the clunky framework of European regulations and institutions. This argument was only ever made in the abstract, devoid of any substantive actions.

Yet it is precisely in their response to the challenges of the future that Brexiters reveal themselves. Lacking any substantive answers, they respond by attempting to shut down debate by condemning “remoaners”. They do not even attempt an argument that future success will be determined by the agility that Brexit might create, let alone offer meaningful ideas or proposals. In truth, their version of Britain’s future is a nostalgic past that never really existed.

We are living at a moment when an old economic settlement is in crisis, but a new settlement has yet to be formed.

The politics of the future will belong to those leaders who are prepared to face up to our present problems and future challenges – and to articulate a new destination for our economy and society. As our politicians navigate the Brexit storms, they would do well to keep an eye on the new horizons which will come to define the new era of British politics.

Political, Rants&Rambles

For whom?

Sometimes, most times these days, I’m left who brexit is for exactly. If you voted “remain” clearly it’s not for you so that’s 48% population screwed.

If you voted because of immigration, the recent White paper and comments from government minister have made clear that numbers might well rise, so that’s the 52% disappointed.

If you voted to take back sovereignty, well the shenanigans of the Tory government trying to avoid parliamentary scrutiny, have certainly disappointed, and that’s the two main reasons for anyone who voted “leave” rendered totally meaningless.

In the meanwhile, stuff people really want to happen like trade and looking after citizens located outside their place of birth, have long been sacrificed.

 

Political, Rants&Rambles

NATO

Another week another pointless argument started with America’s allies by it’s president.

The German defence minister, Ursula von der Leyen, on Sunday rejected Donald Trump’s claim that Germany owes Nato and the US “vast sums” of money for defence.

“There is no debt account at Nato,” Von der Leyen said in a statement, adding that it was wrong to link the alliance’s target for members to spend 2% of their economic output on defence by 2024 solely to NATO.

“Defence spending also goes into UN peacekeeping missions, into our European missions and into our contribution to the fight against [Isis] terrorism,” Von der Leyen said.

Trump, who was spending the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida, said on Twitter on Saturday – a day after meeting the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, in Washington – that Germany “owes vast sums of money to Nato & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!”

His words prompted criticism, also published on Twitter, from a former permanent representative to Nato under President Obama.

Ivo Daalder, permanent representative from 2009 to 2013, wrote: “Sorry, Mr President, that’s not how Nato works. The US decides for itself how much it contributes to defending Nato. This is not a financial transaction, where Nato countries pay the US to defend them. It is part of our treaty commitment.

Trump has urged  Germany and other Nato members to accelerate efforts to meet Nato’s defence spending target.

Von der Leyen said everyone wanted the burden to be shared fairly and for that to happen it was necessary to have a “modern security concept” that included a modern Nato but also a European defence union and investment in the United Nations.

German defence spending is set to rise by €1.4bn ($1.5bn) to €38.5bn ($41.4bn) in 2018 – a figure that is projected to represent 1.26% of economic output, the finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has said. In 2016, Germany’s defence spending ratio stood at 1.18%.

During her trip to Washington, Merkel reiterated Germany’s commitment to the 2% military spending goal.

 Each member country pays into the NATO budget in accordance with an agreed cost-sharing formula based on relative Gross National Income (GNI).

NATO is actually divided into three different budgets:

  • civil budget
  • military budget
  • NATO Security Investment Programme (NSIP)

The USA is indeed the main contributor, around 22%. Then comes Germany (14.5%), France (11%) and UK (10.5%).

But it’s important not to conflate the money contributed towards Nato with the overall military budget of a country. The US spends a huge amount on it’s military, an amount set to rise under it’s new president according to his recently announced budget. This is a political choice, one each country is free to make or not.

A recent Wall Street Journal article conflated NATO budgeted expenses with member’s military expenditure the data can be found easily on the NATO database (Nato funding).

But of course spending a great deal on your own military escapades, does not necessarily make you useful to the defence of your allies

Just remember the huge cost of the American interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. This military cost is included in US military expenditure, though obviously both Germany and France, two major contributors to NATO, refused to participate in the intervention in Iraq and did not pay a dime on it.

The USA has a large military budget. It is a significant part of how the country self-identifies. It’s a political choice.

Rants&Rambles

Healthy 20

The NYTimes has just run an article suggesting the health habits worth picking up in your 20s, to serve you well in later life. It’s so obviously true that youth is wasted on the young, and also that believing themselves immortal, no 20 year old ever cared enough to take this advice, yet I will persevere and run these ideas past my daughters just in case:

 

 

Staying healthy in your 20s is strongly associated with a lower risk for heart disease in middle age, according to research from Northwestern University. That study showed that most people who adopted five healthy habits in their 20s – a lean body mass index, moderate alcohol consumption, no smoking, a healthy diet and regular physical activity – stayed healthy well into middle age.

 

So the healthy 20s list goes something like this:

Weigh yourself often – I am conflicted about this one, which probably says more about my own issues with my weight than anything to do with either healthy advice or my children. The advice given is to buy a bathroom scale or use one at the gym and weigh yourself regularly. There is nothing more harmful to long-term health than carrying excess pounds, and weight tends to creep up starting in the 20s. It is pretty easy for most people to get rid of three to five pounds and much harder to get rid of 20. If you keep an eye on your weight you can catch it quickly. At the same time, a later piece of advice is to practice portion control ie. be aware of what you’re eating and max out on the fruit and vegetables whilst moderating sweets. alcohol and processed foods. Maybe I could summarise this as “be aware”.

Learn to cook – My daughters know how to cook, how to follow recipes and how to put together a meal. They’re not experts but they’re on the path to a whole level of enjoyment. The official advice of course was less focus don enjoyment and more on “Learning to cook will save you money and help you to eat healthy. Your focus should be on tasty ways to add variety to your diet and to boost intake of veggies and fruits and other nutrient-rich ingredients”. Hmm. L:et’s add in a bit of advice to stay away from anyone who hasn’t bothered tolerant to cook. If they’re male, it speaks to an upbringing steeped in the patriarchy that no daughter of mine needs to deal with in her life. If they’re female, they’ll expect you to nurture and look after them whilst I see that as something they should do for themselves.

 

Cut back on sugar- The next advice was to try to avoid excessive simple sugar by eliminating the most common sources of consumption: 1) sugared soft drinks 2) breakfast cereals with added sugar and 3) adding table sugar to foods. My advice would probably be something along the lines of “know your sugar” ie. a bit of cake at teatime isn’t going to kill you but be aware of hidden sugar, casual pointless sugar that isn’t really adding any value such as soda drinks. Excessive sugar intake has been linked to obesity and diabetes, both of which contribute to heart disease.

 

​Live an active life – Build physical activity into your daily life. Find a way to get 20 or 30 minutes of activity each day, including riding a bike or briskly walking to work. While many people can’t find time for a scheduled exercise routine, that doesn’t mean you can’t find time to be active.

 

 ​​Eat your veg – My kids have been brought up to eat a range of vegetables and it would be sad to see that variety disappear. Nutrition science is complicated and debated endlessly, but the basics are well established: Eat plenty of plant foods, go easy on junk foods, and stay active. The trick is to enjoy your meals, but not to eat too much or too often.

 

​Adopt a post-party exercise routine – If you engage in a lot of drinking and snacking, ensure you exercise a lot to offset all those extra calories from Friday to Sunday that come with extra drinking and eating. We found in a study that on Friday through Sunday young adults consumed about 115 more calories than on other days, mainly from fat and alcohol.

 

​Find a job you love- Ohio State University research found that work life in your 20s can affect your midlife mental health. People who are less happy in their jobs are more likely to report depression, stress and sleep problems and have lower overall mental health scores. I want my kids to find a job they feel passionate about. This passion can keep them motivated, help them find meaning in life, and increase expectations about their future. That in turn will make them more engaged in life and healthier behaviors, which will have long term benefits for their well-being.

 

Rants&Rambles

Divorce

All of my life I have worried about money, not in a “desperate to make it” kind of way, but rather desperate to have enough, just enough. And then you ask yourself what enough might mean and for me, the answer has always been “enough to walk away”

Money is a means to an end, and the end is independence. When I tell my partner that everyday I wake up and decided whether to stay or to leave, he laughs. Various friends and acquaintances are shocked or even horrified, and I’ve never really understood why. Surely at some level this is something we should all be doing, would all be doing if we felt we had a real choice. Who wants to share their life with a partner forced into keeping them company? What would that say about them and their relationship, less a partnership than a commercial enterprise.

And now with a friend trapped in a loveless marriage, not by money but by ties to her children, I’m made aware that money cannot of course solve all of the problems. She loves her children, not so much the husband who (for all she makes reasoned explanations of his behaviour, stress, pressure at work, sick parents) treats her like shit on his shoe far to often. Her own parents divorced when she had just gained independence and she found it traumatic. She wants to delay that trauma for her children until they’re older, until at least they have left home for university.

And so she puts up with him. She tells me it’s not so bad “He’s away a lot” and the rest of her life, the bit without him in it, is good. But she also worries that her kids will start to normalise their father’s behaviour and see this as an acceptable way to treat women, that the violent arguments when he’s around will impact their own emotional well-being. Is it better to stay or make the break, for the sake of the children?

When her youngest boy starts to swear at her and treat her with contempt, is it teenage hormones or a child copying the way he see’s his father behaving? When she points out to the child that he doesn’t like it when his dad treats him like this (apparently not uncommon) so why would he behave this way to her, he apologises and they move on. Is it enough to call it out for what it is, family bullying, a pattern of behaviour you don’t want to travel down the generations?

When her oldest boy is stressed out by exam pressure compounded by his father’s extreme expectations (Oxford Maths or a failure) and seems to be suffering from an eating disorder, what do you do? Is it better to hope that he succeeds and gets out of the house to sunny Oxford, or that it all fucks up early and he get’s some help in rebuilding himself the way he’s happy with not his father’s mini-me?

Four years is a long time to live miserably.

His retirement is just around the corner. Will it make the situation bitter or worse? Without the kudos of a big, well-paying job, what will this mean little man do to prop up his ego? He could just relax into the swing of his “third-age” playing golf, taking up some voluntary work and chilling out. It might well be the making of him and possibly his marriage.

I couldn’t forgive him. I couldn’t let go of the spite, the nastiness. Not for ten years or more. Whatever the reason, and I’m sure he has many, there’s no need to bundle up all of that anger and use it to hit out emotionally at your partner, your helpmeet and friend.

I couldn’t stay, not for a week never mind four more years.

At least when it’s over, she has enough money to walk away. Most women don’t.

Barbara Reeves, a partner at Mishcon de Reya, has decades of experience in family law. She says risk is inevitable in divorce – and managing it is crucial. “There is a perception that women in England do well out of divorce – with London being described as the world’s divorce capital,” she said. “But it’s important to remember that if this is the case, it is only so for the wives of the super-wealthy. The reality for most women is that they have often created homes, raised children and supported their partners while their own careers have stood still, or progressed at a considerably slower rate.

“The money these women could have earned – and consequently their potential to save for their own future long-term needs, including retirement – has been significantly compromised.

“Divorce has always been a daunting prospect for the financially weaker party, and historically this has been the woman. It is not so much the cost of the proceedings that is daunting – but the aftermath. As the CII report shows, typically it’s women who absorb the risk: those in middle age can find themselves unemployable in an industry they may have thrived in before their marriage and/or having children.

“Once their children have grown up and any maintenance payments begin to dry up, they are often forced to rely on state provision. As Sian Fisher of the CII points out in the report, the historic support systems are receding: ‘We’re all expected to look after ourselves. On top of this, [women] may be caring for elderly parents and contending with their own mental or physical health issues.’ ”

But Reeves adds: “Divorce is a far less daunting prospect for women than non-marital separation: we still see women who have spent decades as a homemaker, raising children … being forced to walk away at the end of their relationship with nothing. If she was married, the ‘homemaker’ has a right to share a partner’s pensions. However, this is a share of the pension assets at the time of the divorce.

“Following divorce, the financially stronger party – historically the man – can continue to earn at his full earning potential and top up his pension pot; meanwhile, the woman may have a reduced earning potential following years out of the employment market while she was building the home and bringing up children. And for women who are unmarried, there is no entitlement to a share in their former partner’s pension. Risk is inherent in relationships for women. While the gender pay gap between men and women in their 20s has closed, the gap opens and widens in later years – in quite a significant part because of women taking time out of employment to have families.”

A relationship, she went on, is the biggest financial risk women take. “Any woman embarking on a relationship should at least hear the facts and be aware of the risk she is adopting.”

Political, Rants&Rambles

Looking Forward

By the end of this month, perhaps as early as next week, the prime minister will have signed and dispatched a letter notifying the European Council of Britain’s decision to leave the European Union through the provisions of article 50 of the Lisbon treaty. There will be no turning back. The most serious negotiation in our post-war history will commence. It must conclude within two years – unless the remaining EU member states determine that the negotiating period can be extended. It will shape our new settlement for decades to come.

It has been suggested that there is a 50:50 chance that no deal will be struck and the UK will bounce out of the EU onto WTO rules only. The UK government as represented by David Davis and Boris Johnson could not even bring themselves to agree as to whether any contingency plans for WTO rules were being in put in place on Sunday.

At this juncture in our history, we face a crucial choice. Will this be a moment for national renewal, where we courageously confront our problems, or will we simply attempt to muddle through? Nothing would be more British than the latter – and that would appear to be where both sides of the Brexit divide are taking us. I am now entirely convinced that whilst we are where we are, none of the leading “out” campaigners currently in government, and certainly none of those in government who campaigned to remain, believe that brexit is going to be good for the country.

As time has passed, committed brexit campaigners such as David Davis and Liam Fox, have come face to face with the many many complexities staring them in the face as part of the negotiations, not least of which is managing the still rand expectations of some Tory back-benchers.

So if the government is increasing aware of the looming disaster, and is with the best intentions set upon mitigating the disaster whilst delivering on the referendum mandate, what happens next?

We muddle through. We pay the price for a poor decision to call a simple referendum on a complex questions after years of demonising and blaming the EU for UK government mistakes and unpopular decisions.

But there is also a case for the other approach – for using Brexit as a moment to bring about the change that Britain needs. If we are to embark on fundamental changes, we must first frankly acknowledge our problems. The rancour over the referendum, plus the fundamental ambivalence by the people who won the vote makes the acknowledgment of problems near impossible but it is the only way to make something positive, to turn the sow’s ears into silk.

Political, Rants&Rambles

Elite

There was an excellent article in the Spectator by Matthew Parrish that I have decided to take to heart. I have decided to enjoy brexit going forward. This does not mean I agree that it was a good idea, in any way shape or form. I think we’re fucked. I genuinely believe that we have taken a turn in the wrong direction and millions of British citizens will be poorer as a result.

But that’s not on me. That’s entirely the responsibility of those people who voted “leave” and I’m not one of them.

So when the discussions turn to the rights or otherwise of British citizens living in the EU, I am calm. I have done my best for them. I voted “remain” to maintain their rights so the current turbulence, the lack of security and serenity is entirely due to “leave” voters.

Maybe all of the many many pitfalls and pratfalls I see opening up in front of our country will never come to pass. It’s possible that pessimism is overstated.

But each and every time something goes wrong, I can clearly and easily acknowledge the fact that this is not my doing. I did not vote for this. And if you did, well shame on you because you were definitely warned.