Politically Correct Puddings

ODD!!!

I don’t really have much time for political correctness at the best of times, but when I learned that they were renaming Spotted Dick to Spotted Richard, I almost fell off my chair laughing. What is going to be next?

Dick Turpin becomes Richard Turpin
Moby Dick becomes Moby Richard
What is going to happen to Fanny by Gaslight?
Football will become Footsphere

It has gone a bit insane. Perhaps there is something more sinister going on, as we are having our vocabularies dumbed down and reduced. Most individuals think in words and if you have less of them, then there is less you can think.

Spotted Dick Recipe- (For the rebellious!)

285g (10oz) Self-Raising Flour
150g (5oz) Shredded Suet
150ml (¼ pint) Milk
110-160g (4-6oz) Currants or Raisins
85g (3oz) Castor Sugar
1 Lemon, zest only, finely grated
Pinch Salt

Mix all of the dry ingredients, including the grated lemon zest, together thoroughly
Add enough milk to produce a soft dough.
Turn out onto a floured surface.
Roll out the mixture to produce a roll approximately 15cm (6 in) long and 5cm (2 in) in diameter.
Prepare either a tea towel lightly dusted with flour, or sheet of kitchen foil or a double thickness of greaseproof paper, brushed with melted butter.
Wrap loosely but securely, leaving enough space for it to rise.
Tie or seal the ends.
Place in the steamer and cover tightly.
Steam for 1½ to 2 hours.
Serve cut into thck slices with hot custard.

The great banking scam

Here is a very interesting post on the origins of money-

Origianl post here, on the www.fmotl.com forum

We never really think about money. I mean, where it came from and why we have it.

Our schooling will teach us how to count it and how to spend it and how to save it. But it doesnt explain the history of it, who thought of it, who created it’s concept and why.

What we call money, is simply a commodity we use in exchange for goods and services. Before ‘money’ we exchanged goods and services for goods and services. So what happenned to that?

A contract, you might say, was created between consenting individuals. One perhaps, could repair a roof while the other, who needed a roof repair was an excellent wheelright and could straighten diformed wheels. An agreement was created that gave equal weight in value to eachothers commodities and eachothers needs and henceforth were exchanged.

Nothing by way of new knowledge there of course. But a change from that simple system to what we see today must have occured at some point.

In an emergent economy, forever renewing itself with new ideas new beliefs new craves and desires, someone, considered that instead of offering a service or goods it might be an idea to offer something of, perhaps emotional value instead. Something of beauty perhaps, like gold or silver. An ideal material for making beautiful things, of value. Something precious and hard to find.

So instead of goods and services, tiny pieces of gold and silver were used. But these pieces of valued metal were rather bulky and often difficult to carry around. Perhaps, and I’m guessing here, that the blacksmiths and farriers became goldsmiths when someone had the good idea to uniform the pieces and give them different values depending on size. Coins of gold were much more convenient.

However the same problem existed, that too many gold pieces became very heavy indeed. And storing them meant that they could be stolen. So the goldsmith had another great idea. He would offer shelf space in his safe for the safe keeping of his friends gold in return for a small fee. A few pieces of gold per month perhaps. In return he wrote out a promise on a piece of paper noting the value of gold stored which could at any time be exchanged back for the gold.

As more and more people became aware of this service the goldsmith became swamped with people wanting shelf space. Thus the goldsmith made even more small fee’s and became rather wealthy. In return as usual, a promissory note was issued to the value of gold stored by the goldsmith on behalf of the owner. However the goldsmith began to notice that, instead of exchanging their gold in the markets, the people were now exchanging the promissory notes believing them to be ‘as good as gold’ as they were afterall a promise to the holder or, bearer that at any time they could be exchanged back for the gold kept by the goldsmith.

The goldsmith made an observation. It appeared that hardly anybody ever wanted their gold back. At least not all at once and not all the people wanted all their gold back at the same time. So the goldsmith took a risk. He began lending some of the gold out, and would charge a small amount of gold on top for his trouble. But people knew that the gold was equal in value to the promisorry notes and began asking for those instead of the gold. The goldsmith very quickly realised that quite literally he could create a promissory note out of thin air based upon his gold reserves and chances are he’d be perfectly safe in the knowledge that all the people never wanted all their gold back at the same time.

So debts, owed to the goldsmith were quite simply just written on a piece of paper and given to the people in return for a small fee, interest. A small profit for the goldsmiths kind offer to lend and more importantly to quietly make profits while lending out nothing but a piece of paper. The goldsmith became very rich very quickly and the townsfolk began to worry about where their gold was. All at once, all together they queued at the goldsmiths wanting to see their gold. He showed them, still there in the vault because of course by now he was lending promissory notes not gold. However to give the people some comfort he let them in on the deal and offered them some interest on their ’savings’. As a thank you for allowing him to look after their gold.

This was the beginning of banking.

Today, we see the same principle in operation. Deposits are subsiquently lent out to borrowers in the form of a debt, owed back with interest. And since ALL the ‘money’ created is debt, it follows that all the repayments must be made with ‘money’ or promissory notes which, in turn were created in the same way and so on. ALL out of thin air based upon the holdings kept within the banks vaults. ALL money without exception is debt and is created by the borrower by their signature, or promise, to pay it back.

by Free