Derek Evans Thoughts

It has now been a week almost since Gary Speed took his own life and the inquest is ongoing. It is very likely that if a note had been left that certain parts that might give rise to a painful response for one or more persons will be left out. Given the speculation that there has been either publicly on the internet or privately in wondering why then I suspect that this will remain except for the few who will know or unless somebody (most likely the police service) leaks the contents of the note in full to the media - I am assuming a note was left because there were no suspicious circumstances. So why did he take his own life. Alot of people think that this is the easy way out but I would argue that it is the reverse. It may be easier to go on through what normality that could follow but that taking one own's life could be a one off painful event that at least would not give rise to a longer period of painful existance for all members of the family at least. So what would have dr...

I think that the end of the Euro as a pan national currency is very much on the cards. The recurring sovereign debt issues together with appropriate analysis even by historians (see Norman Davies's article in the FT on Saturday October 29th) bear this out. The only way out would be for the greater EU, those EU countries that have the Euro as their currency to become more like the United States. Why do I say this? Well if you look at the US it is clear that the different states have different economic conditions and economic strengths and weaknesses, from the highly industrialised states to those which was large agricultural and also tourism led. This is largely the same in Europe. Germany and then France are the two strongest and largest economies but they largely consume only from within their own "states". Yes the abiltiy to trade goods and services across these nation state borders has made economic flows move more in terms of volume and faster but this is not worked ...

Alot has been said about what is turning out to be a switch and backup malfunction which has affected all non business based Blackberry users such as I. However, I along with many others may have then looked at their emails directly using the webmail services most ISPs offer. What I have seen is that there have been no emails available for periods of around 2 hours on at least two occasions during the day. Therefore, the question has to be asked, is this more than just a Blackberry problem and is this in effect a concerted attack on the whole email mechanism by someone or organisation that is therefore affecting general email availability on the backbone. My thought is that there is more to this than what is being said, at least publicly, but the chances of us knowing more about this are probably slim. However, that does not stop me asking the question and perhaps this is one that users need to ask their ISPs along with the actual speed of connection in the future.

In my profession the big rock is the conversion requirements and preparation for moving to IFRS from a local GAAP. That local GAAP includes USGAAP and therefore the version of IFRS that we would move to will be a USGAAP inspired ethos. In Europe the differences between the GAAP applied to say United Kingdom and Ireland and Germany, and France is significant so that even an EU applied IFRS is probably going to have different treatments depending on that origin. Then we have Australian IFRS at least so we will always have at least two accounting operaitons in use for each company, being USGAAP IFRS and local GAAP IFRS and hopefully the methods will be very similar.

I was reading an article in this weekend's FT about the broadcaster Ed Stourton's experience with moving from hardbacks or paperback books to using an eReader and his mixed response to it. I have not yet moved to using an eReader for two reasons. Firstly, an eReader is a limited product, surely something akin to a tablet would have more use but then I believe that the tablet is a limited product where if you are able to type you will leave finger marks or residue unless the screen design is able to clean up without too much intervention. Secondly, it also means you are carrying more kit around and naturally the storage has to be enabled and of course you separately pay for soft and hardcopies potentially of that book. I therefore remain old fashioned with my book purchasing.

So S&P have downgraded the US's AAA debt grading. Big news given the overall depressive state of their economy and it is and been that way for a long time. Finally the excessive consumptive nature of that country is there to be bitten yet again I say. The US has been saved at least twice in recent times. Firstly by Japan, which in turn led to the reduction in Japanese consumption as outflows of funds led to what has become the Japanese economic problem. It has never recovered and that is why even with interest rates at virtual zero the exchange rate is having to be manipulated by the Central Bank because of its strength which seems to have no logic to it. The second more recent time was basically by the European banking system which was the precursor to the crisis of 2007-8. Greenspan was involved that time and laughed mocking the Europeans for being so dull and stupid, as the losses increased beyond the banks means to hold the financing. So here we are again. Debt ceilings bei...

We have just seen the end of an era with the final touchdown of the space shuttle atlantis. This leaves the Russians and potentially the Europeans and maybe the lesser space nations in carrying the can for the International Space Station. In many respects this ending is similar to that of Concorde. The financials did not add up and yet this is what sometimes happens to a technically advanced piece of kit. Consider this that the Shuttle was effectively a reusable vehicle although rocket boosters were not really recyclable and that such a gliding plane like configuration was generally well received. Also like Concorde it had its defining disaster (not totally killing the project at the time but effectively ending development). So will there be another like it for manned exploration at least up to an orbit around the planet Earth, or just like Concorde is the possibility of this sort of travel off limits for at least the next generation of 15 years or more.