SECRETS OF GIVING ADVICE

Secrets of giving advice

Can you remember times when you tookgood advice ... and didnt?

So, starts, as usual by listening.

Asking open questions

Asking questions that also allow the respondent to see a benefit for themselves

Waiting for them to ask you for advice.

Telling of other people or yourself, not give instructions!

Don't care about if it is followed or not.

Dont mind if they do something different!!!

Compare:

Coaching

Consulting

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NORTHERN IRELAND PROTOCOL

"The way forward is for the UK and EU to cooperate in measures to curb the flow of non compliant goods in either direction across the Irish land border, while leaving each side free to make and follow its own laws and rules within its own territory."

That says nothing.

The answer is a digital border, where it should be, and the technology is here ready to deploy.

 The EU is The Single Market, which is the so-called "four freedoms", broken out into a cascade of deeply trivial rules (300 in the case of the NIP), policed by the EU's own court. 

That's fine for members, but not at all fine for non-members. 

 Any disputes can go to independent arbitration. That is not controversial.

 This whole dispute can be sorted out using a digital border and independent dispute resolution.

 Why hasn't this been done? 

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THE CASE FOR THE NATION STATE

From Poland's perspective, the case against an EU federal Europe is the case for the primacy of the nation state.

But from the EU point of view, this is an existential threat. It is quite unlike Gernany's objection from its constitutional court.

 

The EU is built on the Single Market. From these so-called "four freedoms" flow all the rules that so annoy lovers of freedom for their own parliaments. These rules are judged and enforced by their top court, the ECJ.

 Without the ECJ, member states would be free to do as they please, choosing cake when it comes to subsidies, for example, or sandwiches when it's a matter of economic policy for their own country.

 So Poland's challenge to à federal Europe is taken very seriously. The response from the Commission and EU Parliament isn't yet decided: go in hard with, in effect, sanctions and fines; or be more accommodating by finding out precisely what the current govt in Poland wants to do and perhaps relaxing those rules in a more flexible approach.

VALUES

I'd say one more thing. This conflict is not simply Poland asserting itself as a nation state and challenging the loss of sovereignty implied by a union of states into a federation. This is about very different sets of values.

Let us not forget that it was only 30 years ago that Poland escaped Vassal status in one empire. No surprise that it wouldn't want to join another.

 With Hungary and the Czech republic, these peoples are not interested in LGBTetc rights or the EU an for "gender equality", they do not believe that abortion is a good thing and as to identity politics, it’s not transphobic for Poland to want to recognise only men and women and uphold their traditional, more conservative values and way of life.

 Let's get real a little. The EU intends a law to “protect the rights of rainbow families so that their parenthood and same-sex partnership is recognised throughout the union.”

How will that down with the vast majority of the people of Poland? And if the Polish govt refuses to obey, it will be in conflict with the EU and will get taken before the ECJ.  

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OUR INHERITANCE

23 October 2021

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/23/parents-occasionally-abrupt-children-may-guilty-mild-neglect/

Who says you can't take it with you?

 

The costs of care in the home can reach £2,000 a week, or as much as twice the bill for care in a private care home. So it is quite possible for a parent to burn through the family fortune, leaving the family or beneficiaries with nothing. Nothing?

In those final years and months,  much and increasing stress in the family can be expected, dementia setting in, personalities crystallise out on the dark side, clashes are inevitable, so that the defunct's only legacy could be a family split asunder.

The future belongs to those who remain. But here, the only inheritance will be a family where each goes their own way.

Who says you can't take it with you?

 

The costs of care in the home can reach £2,000 a week, or as much as twice the bill for care in a private care home. So it is quite possible for a parent to burn through the family fortune, leaving the family or beneficiaries with nothing.

Could carers at home provide the same standards as procedures on tap in a care home?

Whilst many families and the elderly themselves wish to be near their loved ones, in familiar surroundings, many will not and many will prefer the social opportunities available in a care home and would welcome their family in relaxed circumstances.

Because along the way in those final years and months,  much and increasing stress in the family can be expected, personalities seen to crystallise out on the dark side, clashes will be inevitable, so that the defunct's only legacy could be a family split asunder.

This will be their inheritance.

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ACCESS THAILAND

• Passport or travel document with a validity not less than 6 months
• Visa application form (filled out)
• One(1) recent 4x6cm. photograph of the applicant
• Round-trip air ticket or e-ticket (paid in full)
• Proof of financial means (20,000 baht per person/40,000 baht per family)
• Proof of Hotel or private accommodation

After receiving your Thailand tourist visa and certificate of entry from the Thai Embassy or consulate, the traveler must prepare the following documents before traveling to Thailand:

• Certificate of Entry (COE)
• Valid visa in your passport
• Declaration Form
• Medical Certificate with a laboratory result indicating that COVID -19 is not detected. The COVID test must be by the RT-PCR method, within 72 hours before departure. Some airlines do not accept home kit tests so please check specific requirements with the airlines you are traveling with.
• Printed COVID 19 travel insurance certificate and all pages of the terms and conditions on the COVID-19 coverage and medical benefits. You may be refused to board the flight if you could not show that the insurance meets this requirement.
• Copy of confirmed ASQ Hotel booking
• Copy of confirmed flight reservation
• T8 Health Form
• You must download the “Thailand Plus” Application on your mobile phone

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HEAT PUMP

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Six things you'll only know if you have a heat pump 

As Boris Johnson encourages people to replace their gas boilers, new converts tell us what the low-carbon alternative actually involves 

By Luke Mintz and Yolanthe Fawehinmi 19 October 2021 • 8:37pm 

Richard Casson admits he was a little nervous when a mechanic arrived at his north London flat in May to replace his traditional gas boiler. He wasn’t coming to install a newer model but a heat pump, the low-carbon alternative being hailed by Boris Johnson as the forefront of Britain’s home heating revolution. Casson, who works as a fundraiser for Greenpeace, was obviously motivated by a desire to tackle climate change – but also, if he’s honest, by a simple fascination with new gadgets.

“With everything changing in terms of how we heat and power homes, it didn’t make sense to lock myself into getting a[nother] gas boiler,” says Casson, 38. “I wanted something new and exciting, [that would also] cut my carbon footprint.”

Casson’s heat pump is one of only about 200,000 in use in the UK (in contrast, 25 million homes use a gas boiler). Now, he looks like something of a visionary, as Johnson presses ahead with his net zero plans to end the installation of gas boilers altogether in the next 15 years. The Government this week announced a campaign to encourage homeowners in England and Wales to replace their gas boiler with a heat pump when their current boiler eventually breaks, with grants of £5,000 to help 90,000 households make the switch. But what will it actually involve? Here’s what you need to know...

1. How on earth do they work? 

Heat pumps are usually affixed to an outside wall. Aided by a fan, they extract warmth from the outdoor air. This warm air causes a special refrigerant liquid inside the pump to evaporate, turning it into gas. That gas is then sent through an air compressor, increasing its pressure and making its temperature rise. This hot air is then blown straight into a home, or used to heat water which feeds radiators.

It works rather like a fridge in reverse, says Will Rivers, senior manager at the Carbon Trust consultancy. “A heat pump is taking a very large quantity of low-temperature heat [from outside the house], and then compressing it into a smaller volume of high-temperature heat. It might only be two degrees outside, but there is still energy in that air if you capture enough of it.” Manufacturers claim this process works in temperatures as low as -20C – although the colder it gets, the more energy the pump needs to function. There are also heat pumps that draw energy from the ground or water.

2. Will they cost more to run? 

Richard Brown says his heat pump allows him to save between £300 and £400 a year on fuel costs Credit: Andrew Fox 

Experts say the average heat pump costs between £6,000 and £18,000, depending on the model installed and the size of a property. But this cost can be reduced by government grants. Casson paid £11,000 for a heat pump for his Finsbury Park flat – significantly pricier than gas boilers, which usually cost below £2,500 – some of which he will get back under the Government’s Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive scheme, which pays him about £1,000 a year for seven years. “It goes straight into my bank account.” The exact amount he can claim depends on the amount of fossil fuels his household previously used (the more carbon you are ‘taking out’ of the system by buying a heat pump, the more money you will receive).

Richard Brown, 57, an IT project manager, paid roughly £10,000 last February to replace his gas boiler with a heat pump at his four-bedroom detached house in Derby. He says it allows him to save between £300 and £400 a year on fuel costs.

Ministers claim their newly-announced £5,000 grants will make the cost of a heat pump comparable to that of a new gas boiler, although environmental groups claim the policy is not going far enough.

3. Will my home be colder? 

Heat pumps heat the water in your house to a maximum of about 65C – significantly lower than it would reach under a traditional gas boiler (about 75C for water in radiators, and between 50C to 60C for the water in your kitchen and bathroom taps). This means they generally take longer to heat your home. Sceptics worry that heat pumps will leave them cold during winter, but Brown says he simply left the heat pump switched on “all the time”, rather than trying rapidly to warm everything up when arriving home from work. This allows his home to get just as warm as it would under a gas boiler, while still using much less carbon. “It keeps us perfectly warm,” he says.

Casson, too, says his initial concerns were unfounded. “You hear rumours, but I’ve found those things to be myths. You choose the temperature you want. We set ours at 50C, and it really comfortably gets to 50C. If we put our radiators and hot water on, we just never have any issues.”

The Governmenthas announced a campaign to encourage homeowners in England and Wales to replace their gas boiler with a heat pump when their current boiler breaks Credit: Paul Grover 

4. Just how noisy are they? 

Some worry that the whirring of the heat pump’s fan might prove noisy. But Casson says he cannot hear his fan when inside his flat (the fan is fitted to an exterior wall at the back of his block). “When the engineer switched it on for the first time, he was saying, ‘You won’t be able to hear this’. And I was thinking, ‘God, is he just saying that?’ And he turned it on, and I literally laughed out loud. You read all this stuff about it being noisy, but it’s really not.

Casson thinks heat pumps might “start to make noise over time”. But he says if that happens he can simply “put a bit of WD40 [lubricant] on the fan to sort it out” (his pump receives a free annual check-up as part of his payment deal).

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Brown’s fan was installed on the outer wall of his kitchen. He says he can only hear it while standing in the garden. “It works hardest in winter, when you’re generally not using the garden anyway. Whereas in the summer, it’s off for most of the daytime.” Even on the rare occasions he’s in the garden in winter, the hum of the fan is little more than a “gentle background noise”, Brown says.

5. Are they tricky to use? 

Richard Casson: 'I wanted something new and exciting, [that would also] cut my carbon footprint.' 

Even though he works for Greenpeace, Casson admits the technology behind heat pumps is “quite sophisticated, there are some parts I don’t really understand myself; I’m getting my head around it.” But after some “tinkering” with the settings to make his pump as cost-efficient as possible, he’s now getting the hang of it.

Meanwhile, Tom Jenane, a nutrition and fitness coach, admits he was “incredibly confused” when he moved into his rented flat and discovered his landlord had installed a heat pump instead of a boiler. “It was not previously mentioned by estate agents; they told me that it would save money on my monthly energy bills, so I should be happy about it. They mentioned that it utilises the soil outside in my garden to create the heat, but that’s as far as my knowledge goes in this area.”

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But, Jenane adds: “The idea that I might be lowering my carbon footprint sounds good to me.”

6. Will we all have to have one soon? 

“The Greenshirts of the Boiler Police are not going to kick in your door with their sandal-clad feet and seize, at carrot-point, your trusty old combi,” Johnson wrote in The Sun this week. But setting out his new green agenda today, he announced builders would be banned from fitting conventional gas boilers in new-build homes by 2025 and committed to the “ambition” of ending the sale of gas boilers in the UK from 2035.

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NO MORE PATIENCE FOR THE EU

18 October 2021

The EU is a dangerous and wayward power. It has no vision of its future. It has no idea of the balance of power in the world. It treats its enemies, like China and Russia as friends ;  and it treats its friends, the UK and the United States, as enemies. It shows no respect to its peoples, instead it seeks to discipline them (the Greeks, the Poles, the Hungarians.) It serves only German industry and French vanity. It exists as a vortex of power, draining member states of their skilled and competent, becoming ever more self-centred in the process. It has always taken Britain for granted, and always tolerated French selfishness. 

No one asked the British people if they consented to be governed by a European super-state. No one asked the Europeans either, though they don't care.

Yes, we were morally entitled to take back our sovereignty. Yes, we can make a practical success of it. Yes, we have always been and always will be sovereign : we didn't join the euro, we didn't agree to bail out the Greeks, we didn't join Schengen and we vote to leave the EU ... AND WE LEFT.

At present our greatest difficulty is the sabotage being perpetrated by remainers in influential places, who will use every rumour, every innuendo, every insinuation, to destroy confidence in their own country, and delight in every setback they can find, whether or not caused by themselves. 

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AN INVESTING STRATEGY (work in progress ...)

14 October 2021

Looking at the Cyclically Adjusted Price Earnings ratio (CAPE):

Ie average on the FTSE 100 and 250

Average over last 10 years.

 

It is middle of the road territory on both:

FTSE100 at 7,000 is CAPE in 14 to 20 range

FTSE250 at 23,000 is CAPE in 19 to 28 range

So fair value on both - meaning you can expect the average return of 7%, divis reinvested.

 

Now compare with the S&P500:

It's up 1.71% today at 4,438.26.

The CAPE is over 32.

32 is off my scale

32 is way way average.

Best bet is to identify lower P/E, higher divi stocks  If you can find any with a good track record. Put them on a watch list. Decide an allocation and diversification policy. Buy the undervalued and sell the overvalued, according to your position-sizing.

Take account of yield, of growth, and of valuation.

And sell out of these stocks or a covering ETF, if inflation is installing itself on a more permanent basis at 5% and above.

INDICATORS

1. FUNDAMENTAL

2. TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

3. SENTIMENT

1. FUNDAMENTAL

1a. YIELD

1b. GROWTH

ROCE  Finding a business that has the potential to grow substantially is not so easy, but it is possible if we look at a few key financial metrics. 

Firstly, we'll want to see a proven return on capital employed (ROCE) that is increasing, and secondly, an expanding base of capital employed.

1c. VALUATION

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YAYOI KUSAMA at THE TATE MODERN

15 October 2021

Does this art tell us something about the artist? About ourselves?

It was excellent but upon opening there was a strong mouldy stench of horse piss rhat sucked in the face and you'd think the wine was corked.

But actually, it just needed to be aired for half an hour ("chambrayed" - how do you say that ?). I could have decanted it from bottle to glass to another glass a bit, but I'd probably have spilt it over the first course.

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THE FIGHTING TEMERAIRE

10 October 2021

Three images

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BRACE FOR INTEREST RATE RISES

10 October 2021

Petrol - isnt this where fears of inflation started? There's all you need to take your kids to school, we are told, it's in the country somewhere, just not in the right places. So it's only haulage.

Later, we are told it is a multitude of small, short-term issues, of which panic-buying fuel is but the latest, and once we're through we'll be in global-Britain times enjoying our prosperity, power and independence to the max.

But will we? As it feels as though the situation is worsening, with bad surprises flying in every week. And for the causes, don't look local, because these are global supply chain problems. Of course.

Looking at why the army is being sent in and why temporary visas (as it is only a short-term problem) are being issued (and already extended):

working conditions, pay, red tape, laziness and over-sensitivities, many drivers quitting because of the lockdowns, not training up new HGV operators, and not women, Brexit causing many to return home, giving a shortage of 100,000 drivers. That's a lot and you do wonder what the RHA has been doing - all asleep in their cabs!

We are talking about logistics for retail food and fuel, but that's not all. What we are talking about is shipping costs, and gas price rises and a drop in sterling, we're concerned about inflation and interest rates, tax rises both 2.5% NI (yes, 2.5%) and local authority tax rises, and ultimately how all this joins up to the medium and long term as concerns the EU FTA, the break-up of the kingdom, and beyond that to recession, debt-collapse, climate change, migrations, the rise of China.

We can imagine low interest rates and high inflation, followed by high interest rates and recession. If high-wage, capital is going to replace labour and put those low-wage often immigrant, workers on the dole, at taxpayer expense.

It's a lot for Boris to think about (we are getting into a cult figure status).

Can we see what's happening through this glare of more and more short-term problems? Saunders is interesting

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/10/09/brace-interest-rate-rises-warns-bank-england-rate-setter/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr. 

Oil prices have reached a three year high, $80 a barrel, and climbing thanks to output disruptions and this high demand. Traditional oil companies are selling out and investing in green, adding to supply problems and green is much more expensive. Germany is now back to relying on coal and on Putin!

Then there's the construction sector where more than one in three businesses can't get the materials, goods and services they need within the UK. How will a young person rehab the flat they've just bought? What effect on the target of 300,000 housing starts?

The gas surge closed two of the UK’s big industrial fertiliser plants in a completely unexpected and inflationary surprise, showing graphically how everything is connected to everything and everywhere there are knife-edges,resulting in more govt takeover in the "market" economy and state aid and yet more borrowing.

Food prices and staples. Commodities. Is this the start of a new supercycle?

So now we have inflation at 4 per cent for the short-term, plus a possible base rate rise early next year, possibly even this year 2021. America same same. Plus if we enter the land of 5% inflation there will be the threat to stock markets, not just imminent tapering.

Still, no significant upturn in unemployment nor  substantial corporate distress. Only inflation, supply difficulties that threaten the economic recovery (which is already faltering).

And what about the jobs of those coming off furlough? Will they want to back to work? Will employers have work for them? Given the worsening outlook.

Only worries and questions. No real answers. Yet everyone is talking of recession. And the Prince of Norway offers the UK help with food and fuel. That's quite humiliating.

Sort out the short term, the central bank needs to say no interest rate rises medium term, but the long term is surely out of the hands of management or politicians.

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