10 day rule

France loves its rogue trader

French President, Nicolas Sarkozy: “Our financial system is walking on its head,” he said. “And it is losing sight of its goal, which is to lend money for economic activities that will ultimately generate profit . . . not to go and speculate on different activities which make massive fluctuations.”

The stock exchanges’ function in the world is (acclaimedly) to accurately place a value on stocks, shares, and other financial products. However, stock exchanges are all too often used by speculators to make short-term gains based on nothing other than differing levels of information-transfer (e.g. news reaching different shareholders at different speeds [dubiously legal]) or insider knowledge (definitely illegal).

Banks/institutions buy financial instruments that are a ridiculous number of steps away from the actual wealth generation, the actual companies, the actual workers who are “adding value”. People/institutions buy and sell these products, often with zero knowledge of the underlying products. A great example is the structured products that banks have been selling each other over the last few years, based on mortgages – aka CDO’s (Collateralized debt obligations). Recent news suggests that their “chickens might be coming home to roost”.

Anyway…my suggestion: What about making it illegal to sell a stock/bond/share/derivative/etc. within 10 days of purchasing it. Surely it would be better in the long run if shareholders/investors acted more like custodians – if shareholders bought shares because they believed they had actual value, rather than because they knew they could “make a quick buck”. It’ll never happen because…stock brokers make their money on short term differences on share prices. No government wants to upset their financial institutions as they’re a huge source of taxation.

Imagine what good could have been done with the billions that Jérôme Kerviel lost on Société Générale’s behalf. It’s sitting in someone’s pocket right now. A currency speculator, or a spread-better, or a stock-broker.

Not someone who has added any value to anything.

jcifs – use cifs/smbfs without installing linux kernel modules

I was recently doing some work on a Linux server that required access to a remote samba server, however it turns out that in order to attach a filesystem using the CIFS or SMBFS drivers, you need support compiled in to the kernel. This wasn’t an option for me at the time, I was working on a production machine. Recompiling the kernel and rebooting just wasn’t possible.

I was stuck until I discovered JCIFS, a Java implementation of CIFS. I wrote myself a quick java class for copying local files to a remote Samba server. JCIFS is so simple to use, and (as my experience goes) reliable and bug-free that it took me about 1/2 hr. Will post the simplified source here soon.

Helped me out of a BIG hole!

Nanny state abuse

Oh how I hate it when the term “Nanny State” is abused.

As far I’m concerned, a state can only be accused of “nannying” if it attempts to stop people doing things that (and here’s the nub) don’t adversely affect anyone else. Examples of activities that a “Nanny State” might want to prohibit are:

• Hang-gliding.
• Smoking in ones own home.
• Consensual mutual harming (I’m not saying it’s not weird but…consensual is the key here).
• Riding a bike.
• Swimming in the sea.
• Sales of large amounts of paracetamol.

None of these adversely affects anyone else. Ok, there are some ways in which they do impact others. Hang-gliding might endanger others. Smoking at home might be a problem if your health visitor has to breathe in your smoke. Swimming in the sea could be argued to impact the coastal-rescue services. On the whole though, these things are consensual acts that impact others very little, and endanger mainly the perpetrator.

There are many other activities that a government might want to ban that are not examples of “nannying”. For example:

1. Smoking in a workplace containing non-smokers.
2. Driving at 70mph in a 50mph zone.
3. Sale of fireworks to people who will not use them responsibly.

These activities have an unacceptably high risk of impacting third parties: If you believe the bulk of the evidence, passive smoking is a risky activity. Circa 3,500 people are killed on Britain’s roads yearly. Many bystanders are injured each year by people using fireworks irresponsibly (ask the fire brigade and the hospitals!). 1000 people are injured each year (quite a few, for a two week period!).

Governments have a duty to ban such activities. It’s not “nannying”.

Nannying is protecting you from yourself.

Protecting the majority from the irresponsible acts of the minority is NOT “nannying”.

You might disagree with a workplace ban on smoking but it is not the act of a “nanny state”. It’s the act of a state that has a mandate (and a duty) to protect its inhabitants.

Enfranchised – for the first time!

This may sound ridiculous but, at the age of 32, I am finally represented in the government by someone who I voted for! He wasn’t my first, choice, granted but…I’m represented nevertheless!

You have to understand: I’m English, and lived in England for 31 years. The voting system there is a first past the post system. This system has its merits – the traditional one that’s rolled out is that it “leads to strong governments”. This is true; and even good in some ways. In lots of ways though, the system is completely rubbish:

If you vote for the losing candidate, then you might just as well have stayed in bed.

Similarly, if you vote for a candidate who wins by a landslide majority then – again – staying in bed wouldn’t have changed the outcome.

Arguably, this isn’t particularly democratic. Certainly it doesn’t make one feel “involved in the democratic process” if ones vote is – essentially – irrelevant.

Situations are imaginable whereby governments can be installed with a majority of seats, but with (for example) just 20% of the “popular vote”. Less extreme cases have indeed happened. E.g. in the 2005 general election, the Labour party won 55% of the seats, having only secured 35.2% of the popular vote!

Ireland: Multiple-Seat Constituencies and Transferable Votes

There are two important differences here in Ireland.

Firstly, each constituency represents multiple seats in the Dáil (the government chamber – akin to the House Of Commons in the UK).

Secondly, you get to list your candidates in order of preference. If your first preference doesn’t get enough votes, then your vote gets transferred to your second preference, and so on… Furthermore. if your first choice gets in with a big majority, then a proportion of your vote gets transferred to your second preference, and so on…

Collectively, these two features make the electoral system a Single Transferable Vote (STV) system.

So…I listed our candidates in the “Dublin North Central” constituency in the following order:

1. Bronwen Maher: Green Party (didn’t have a hope of getting in but…I wanted to register my political/social beliefs and…hey, you never know, enough other people might feel the same)
2. Derek McDowell: Labour (because this country needs some people suggesting radical changes to the way it’s run – certainly some redistribution of wealth is in order)
3. Finian McGrath: Independent (because…well I’m running out of candidates now and…he seems like a nice-enough fellow, and certainly cares for his constituency)
4. Richard Bruton: Fine Gael (because, at the end of the day, I really want a change of government – ANY change!)

And…well, my vote for Finian got used, and he was duly elected, in third place:

Hurrah! I’m represented by someone for the first time ever!