WolframAlpha Brings Semantic Web To Life

I see that WolframAlpha has just launched. It's a "computational knowledge engine" that gives an answer to your query by doing computations from its own internal knowledge base, instead of merely searching the web, returning links and leaving you to figure out an answer. That's not to say it's the right answer, any more than the search results you're used to seeing. But it's very likely to be a much better start, or at least worth doing in parallel to a normal search.

The introduction is certainly impressive already, and it's potential is limitless.

At last we are starting to see the fruits of semantic publishing, but even if it only kills price comparison sites, I'll be ecstatic!

The Bull Market in Australian Cattle Stations

Yep, amidst all the bloodletting and mayhem of the credit crunch, there's a bull market in Australian cattle stations - over 30 have been rounded up in the past 6 months. It seems they've been under-capitalised, relative to their potential capacity and projected global beef requirements, and stand to benefit from the decline in available land elsewhere.

Amongst the buyers are The Macquarie Pastoral Fund, Terra Firma (which just bought out the Packer's rural holdings) and Primary Holdings (management pictured on location), which is in the process of tying up with ex-Murdoch man Ken Cowley's iconic RM Williams vehicle.

It's such a significant opportunity that old mate and CEO, Bob Tucker (pictured, seated left), former COO at Man Global Strategies, recently moved from London to Sydney, after securing seed funding from the RAB Special Situations Fund.

I have a little empathy, as Irish ancestors on my mother's side helped open up the area of the Kimberley region in Western Australia that is now the Ord River irrigation area. The history is covered in Mary Durack's book, "Kings in Grass Castles". I see there's even an upcoming tour of the trek the various families took to get out there in the 1880's.

It's still a hard life out there, by all accounts. Nice to see that the humble whiteboard remains an essential tool.

The (Further) Shaming of Westminster

It's a feeble institution that allows itself to come to this.

Black Swans and Risk in Retail Financial Services

In a recent speech, the EU Commissioner for Consumer Affairs, Meglena Kuneva, signaled 5 current priorities in relation to retail financial services:

1. Address the way investment products are designed, described and marketed to consumers; and ensure that new proposals in relation to the sale of credit and mortgages "meet the high standards of modern consumer policy".
   


2. Strengthen the strict rules and enforcement on the misselling of retail investment products, in the light of "clear indications that the laws that are meant to protect consumers were insufficient and may have been repeatedly violated."
   


3. Complete by the end of the summer an in-depth study of banking fees and charges to consumers which appear to be unfairly hitting consumers.
   


4. "Start with regulators a new debate on the correct balance of risk and reward on Main Street. It seems that in recent years, risk has been significantly outsourced to unwary consumers. The question is what amount of risk and toxic products are we willing to tolerate in the retail financial market?"


5. Start a serious discussion on the regulatory oversight structure that is needed to generate accountability to consumers and to ensure consumer protection principles are consistently implemented across retail markets.

The nub of all these priorities lies in the highlighted question. I'm equally fascinated by it, even though the answer to it must surely be "nobody knows." It's part of the process of democratising the financial markets. However, as a starting point for the discussion, I'd be more comfortable with the statement that risk has simply landed on unwary consumers (and taxpayers, more importantly), rather than that it was somehow "outsourced" to them, implying intent and activity on the part of someone else. Otherwise we risk focusing on who outsourced the risk, and how, which is necessarily facing the past, not the future. Nailing those who broke the law should not be part of this debate. The fact is, the law failed to protect consumers and taxpayers from risk in the financial markets.

To put it another way, it was a mistake for us ever to have believed that we had successfully outsourced our own personal financial risk to banks, employers and governments.

The credit crunch is a Black Swan event - a surprise event that has a major impact and is [being] rationalised by hindsight, as if it had been expected. Inquiry into the why's and how's is therefore largely academic, albeit tantalizingly so. To take a counterfactual approach, one might ask whether it would have occurred if the CDO had been strangled at birth in 1987. The CDS also played a role, so we might consider the implications of it's death on a whiteboard in 1997. And we might ask the same in relation to Gordon Brown's rhetorical adoption of the so-called Golden Rule - that the government would only borrow to invest rather than to fund current spending, and in doing so it was "prudent" to maintain debt levels below 40% of GDP (implying it was also prudent to borrow up to that limit).

But we will never really know the cause of the credit crunch. And nothing we do will necessarily prevent another one.

Yet it seems likely and perfectly natural that we consumers and taxpayers will continue to rein in our expenditure, and take steps that we believe will maximise the sustainability of our income, for as long as it takes for us to feel we are able to survive another major financial disaster. As markets seem to "recover" in parallel, it will become harder and harder not to become lulled into thinking that our self-discipline is working, and that, at some ominous peak, we are finally safe...

So the real challenge is: how can we ensure that we consumers and taxpayers always understand that each of us personally bears the risk of financial disaster?

You are on your own. Pay less. Diversify more. Be contrarian!

MPs: Please Pay More To Vet Our Expense Claims

Surprise, surprise: the MPs' suggestion for keeping their own noses out of the trough is to create another Quango (number 191). They estimate this will cost the taxpayer £600,000 a year to run.

So, in addition to excessive expenses paid to date, we're now asked to pay even more, just to keep MP's honest.

These people aren't really in it for us, are they?

The Commons Fees Office is already "overseen" by a committee made up of MPs (WTF?) which is in turn "overseen" by the National Audit Office. One might flippantly observe that with so much 'oversight' it's easy to see how Swinegate happened. But seriously, where is the explanation by the alleged oversight committee of how it allowed Swinegate to happen on its watch? Where are the NAO's audit reports on the subject? I see that the NAO was called in to look at expenses abuse in 1995 by the Nolan Committee into "standards in public life". But clearly whatever action was taken only encouraged MPs in their audacity. It also seems from the report of its investigation into a blow-out in MP's expenses in 2005-06 that the NAO doesn't audit the exercise of the Commons Fees Office's discretion in approving accounts, merely the tally of those approvals against budget estimates (see House of Commons Members Resource Accounts). Does this mean there is no compliance audit function?

For the answers to these and other questions, one can always file a Freedom of Information Request on WhatDoTheyKnow.com.