pumpkinstrokemarrow

On the other hand, the Internet bizzies are alive and well. It seems that the provider of every bit of software on this PC has decided to go in for online update this week. There seems to be no end to the unsolicited pop-ups inviting me to take the latest whizzy release of whatever it is. All very tiresome; although one hesitates before rejecting them as the updates may actually be useful. So, for example, the PC spent some time yesterday taking an update from the BT Broadband Online Support System (B-Boss to cognoscenti, aka B-Brother). But I took it because it may save time when the time comes for the next huddle with their Bangalore help desk.

A very kind review of 'Brooklyn' in a recent edition of the NYRB (see 14/6/2009). It was a review by a lady which may partly account for it being kinder than my short notice. Review extended to 7 columns (less a couple of smallish pictures), so a substantial affair. First column given over to a slightly relevant anecdote drawn from the reviewer's own life. Remainder more or less given over to a resume of the book, which is good, considering how few reviews bother to do more than wave at it occasionally, in the margins of punting some hobby horse of the reviewer's. In this case the chosen comparator was James rather than Joyce. Maybe there is a connection of exiled single women, but James is very dense compared with Toibin. Perhaps I should take a peek at both Brooklyn and James again.

There was also an interesting peice about the economy, in the course of which it was explained that the financial services sector, while doing stalwart duty in keeping the rest of us going, also manages to absorb a large chunk of national product in their own pay and rations. The actual size of the chunk being a rather dodgy quantity. The article talks of the sector generating 30% of all corporate profits, where this excludes pay and rations. Corporate profits being what funds the income drawn by shareholders but not that drawn by employees, so presumably only a small proportion of national product. Must take another peek at those tricky national accounts in my remaindered annual abstract of statistics. But either way, this seems to be quite a big bill to pay for efficient allocation of capital (this being what we are told the financial services sector is for, apart from the dull businesses of insurance and retail banking). Particularly when they have been spectacularly bad at it of late.

Then, on the way to Cheam, got to pondering about who were the winners in the banking mess. So we start with a farmer, in the fringes of some big mid western town in the US, who sells his land to a developer. Better than not growing alfafa. So the farmer has got his dosh and so he is OK. The developer pays a builder to build the houses. The builder gets his dosh so he is OK. The developer then sells the house to a punter so he is OK. The farmer, the builder and the developer have now trousered the (as it turns out) inflated value of a lot of houses. The punter borrows the money off a bank, this last being gorged with cheap dosh from the hard working Chinese who have nowhere else to put it. Punter, being sub-prime, doesn't meet his payments. So the banks, or perhaps in the long run, the Chinese, take a bit of a pasting. But there are clearly lots of winners in this game. So why are they not spending us out of the recession?