Bonus!!

The Beard, as some of you are aware, or in true Heisenbergian fashion, aren't at exactly the same time, has often said that in order to save the world, it must become profitable... for an example, the moment big companies realise that they will make substantially more money cleaning up the atmosphere than they do polluting it, then you can almost guarantee that fresh air will be the big thing... likewise, when aid organisations struggling to save lives in Africa, Asia and other such places complain that they don't get enough help quickly enough, they are in fact missing a trick... they actually need to approach the big multinationals, and tell them that it is within their interests to make sure everyon ein these places is adequately fed...

But why, I hear you ask?? It's quite simple really... if too many people in the developing world die, then all these big firms have suddenly lost their large, cheap workforces... which means getting stuff produced in the expensive bits of Europe and the USA.... and that means having to pay more for your trainers folks.... even worse from the companes' points of view, it means that the average employee won't actually be able to afford them... which means either upping pay, or lowering prices... and either of those would be disastrous for the people with money... after all, how would they manage if their incomes decreased to around the two million a year mark...

So, the news that the boss of RBS has declined his bonus has had a mixed reaction... the Beard personally thinks that he should have refused it before all the fuss... that would have set a good precedent and been a PR miracle... and, lets be honest, he hasn't really lost much, has he...??? The Banks, however, feel that this is a bad thing... after all, if we stopped all the big banking bosses getting undeserved bonuses, how would they convince people of the right calibre to do the job?? I mean, a salary in 6 figures just won't cut it... The Beard remembers the days when bonuses were just that... rewards for doing something above and beyond... for example, if you made a really good sale that netted your company a healthy income, after working exceptionally hard and overcoming many obstacles, then you got some sort of bonus.. if you just did the job you were contracted for, you didn't... as an example... a worker at Fords once figured out how the company could save an awful lot of money... now, working out things like this wasn't his job... so, when Ford looked at his scheme and saw that it would work, they gave him a new car... Bonus!!

The problem is though, people in certain walks of life got so used to their business overperforming, and thus so used to gaining bonuses, that they came to expect them as a right... and we all know where the Beard stands on rights... so we get the examples of people making realy big cock ups, and yet still getting rewarded... big bankers... think on this... if one of your shop front staff, completely off their own back, decided to lend thousands of pounds to people who had no hope of paying it back, would they get a bonus, or a disciplinary action..???

Of course, there are several solutions to all of this... one is to admit that capitalism was all a big con, and overturn it, replacing it with one of the other big cons, or to regulate it better.... now, the Beard has nothing special against capitalism... no more so than any other system... the whole idea that working hard increases the prosperity of the nation and therefore increases the workers' standards of living is in itself not bad... the idea that wealth filters down from above, that the rich improve the lot of the poor in order that the poor can work harder to increase the wealth of the rich is not necessarily a bad thing... and in part it does seem to work... until you realise that people are involved... and one day, one of those people suddenly realises that he or she doesn't actually have to let an awful lot of his wealth filter down... that he or she can actually keep hold of most of it, possibly even all of it, because the poor can't actually stop him or her... because the only options open to the poor are put up with it, or starve... and once greed gets in there, it all falls down... as do all other political systems...

The problem is, then, that if we want to regulate capitalism, the only people in a position to do it are the people at the top... and if they were content to live their lives on a few million quid, rather than a few billion... well... who knows... the introduction of a maximum wage would help, set at, maybe, whatever the premier of the nation is on... although that could lead to spiralling pay rises for politicians, and none of us want that... better would be a system which allows bosses to earn a maximum of 10 times what their lowest paid full time worker gets... which may even lead to an increase in bottom end pay.... and it doesn't have to be onerous... if your lowest paid employee gets 15000 a year, typical wages in retail and manufacturing, well, it gives the boss a solid 150,000 a year... and put bluntly, if you can't live on that, you really aren't trying... and bonuses too should be limited, to maybe half a years salary... and, in a more radical vein... bosses; your success would not have been possible were it not for your workforce... so lets have a rule that if the bosses get a bonus, then all employees receive one pro rataed according to their pay... after all, if you've been so successful as to warrant a bonus, then you should be able to afford to spread it around....

On a totally unrelated note, last Friday saw Holocaust memorial day.... and the Beard was again carrying around a purple triangle... as opposed to the almost universal yellow star of David.... now, lest you think this is some anti semitic holocaust denial thing, may I clarify... and take you back once more to the Germany of the 1930s... along with the Jews, several other classes of people were "removed" from society... Gays, Blacks, the mentally disabled, Gipsies.. and among them all one group which stands out... the only group who actually had the choice of going to the camps or not... imagine if you were told that by signing a piece of paper swearing allegiance to the Reich, you would be allowed to go home and carry on as if nothing was happening... well, that's what happened to the Bible Students... they could even have lied on the form, and got out of it... but almost to a man and woman, they refused to sign, saying that rather than deny their beliefs they'd go to the concentration camps.... many survivors of the camps have said that the presence of the Bible Students in the camps, with their steadfast faith in God, and their refusal to become downhearted in the face of terror, made the unbearable almost bearable...

Now, which of us, placed in the same position, would show such strength?? Or would we be like Niemoller's people of "First, they came..."?? People like the Bible Students, those who have the strength or sheer bloody mindedness to stand up and say what they feel is right or wrong, despite the consequences, and to take those consequences calmly, without compromise, are the people who make a real difference... had their been more like them in the thirties, who knows what would not have happened... Their descendants are still around... they've changed their name, and the Beard, controversial as this may sound, has a great deal of respect for them... so next time one of them knocks on your door, at least be polite... Jehovah has instructed them to witness, so that' what they do...

But today's rant is at an end... If the Beard has made you think, then I'm sorry... that was the last thing he intended... but until we all have the strength of our convictions and the convictions of our strengths, Wisebeard Salutes You!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shoplifting, chefs and shames.....

The Beard, as you may have guessed, is a big lover of food... by all definitions of the phrase.... so it was no surprise to find the entire family Beard and selected friends at the amazingly good value Wing Wah all you can eat buffet in Burton on Trent, home of Beer, the other night... the occasion, of course, was the coming-of-driving age of Beard Junior... who, as soon as his licence arrives, will be spreading terror on the roads in the time honoured manner.... but I digress...

Mankind has always had a close association with food, not least because we would die without it... unless the breathairians are correct... which I doubt... and so it was no surprise to anyone, least of all the Beard, who was far too young to be surprised, that almost as soon as books and radio and television began, we have made celebrities out of cooks... indeed, cooks became well known and famous before anyone else but kings, nobles, soldiers, priests and bandits... so suck on that actors and sportspeople... and even today the celebrity chef is still in vogue...

Which brings us to the case of Celebrity chef and thief Antony Worrall Thompson (other celebrity chefs are available...) ... Now, the Beard has not the competence, as Sir Thomas More would say, to decide whether Mr Thompson has a problem with kleptomania, or whether he just figured that self service checkouts are easy to fiddle and decided to get some free cheese... but it remains to be said that if Mr Worrall Thompson (who, along with Rick Stein shares the dubious accolade of being one of only two chefs who have never cooked on TV anything that the Beard has fancied eating... kudos instead to Jamie Oliver and Heston Blumenthal, who never fail to cook at least one thing he does... and of course to Ainsley Harriot, whose chefing may not intrigue the hirsute, but whose celebritying is at least annoyingly entertaining... Roccky Horror anyone??) had been one of the uncelebrities who make up the mass of the populace, the question of treatment for the problem would have been easily solved by a big fine, an asbo, or a light prison sentence... or possibly the chopping of a a limb segment, depending on where you happen to be reading this....

The Beard, despite appearances, was once involved in the law enforcement business, dabbling in security guarding, private detection and in store security... the first two of which were to be honest, mainly composed of sitting in cold damp places while nothing much happened... but the in-store stuff... well, when uniformed(as opposed to uninformed, which is what my contract stated...) it amounted to standing in fairly warm, dry, and well lit places while nothing much happened, which allegedly was an improvement... it was the plain clothes undercover boys who had the excitement...

In all that time I spent undercover in supermarkets, I arrested and deterred (as the phrase goes) well over two hundred shoplifters... and after comapring notes with others in the profession, came to a few conclusions... and while it's still true that you can't tell a shoplifter by looking at them, there are subtle clues to follow that increase your collar rate... firstly, groups of teenagers... boys tend not to be shoplifting, in my experience... mucking about, yes, causing trouble, yes, but nicking, no... groups of teenage girls, especially the ones wearing far too much make up and far too few clothes, especially if accompanied by a couple of girls dressed a bit more modestly.... well, they tend to be the ones to watch... whereas boys and girls wandering about on their own... well, they're just as likely as each other...

Strangely, though, the people found stealing most often, and taking the most value stuff, weren't who we expected...now, most people I've asked expect it to be "gyppos" (!!) and pensioners, and homeless people, or chavs... and while these sections of the public aren't by any means without their dishonest representatives, it was very rare that we got any of them apart from the pensioners... and those pensioners we caught had something in common with the biggest group of shoplifters.... and I'll bet you can or can't guess what....

Well, let's just say that we almost never had any cases of genuine hardship caught shoplifting... the people who genuinely had nothing tended to come to the back door and take stuff out of the bins... often with the implied consent of the management... no, the great majority of shoplifters that we apprehended were quite well off by the standards of the day... even most of the old people we arrested were on quite decent pensions... one woman we caught was stealing clothes and food, then driving off in a brand new Volvo estate... in the days when that was seen as the equivalent of a BMW... turned out that her family was subsisting on a joint income of just under 60 grand... and that was nearly twenty years ago, when your money went a bit further... and she was the rule, rather than the exception...

Where the difference was really apparent though, was in their reactions to being caught... the teenagers would be either bolshy then scared, or instantly terrified... the few genuinely needy ones would be apologetic and ashamed... the middle class would be indignant and blame us for their predicament... they were usually horrified... not that they were thieves, not that they'd been caught, but that we had had the temerity to lay hands on them and tell them that they were in the wrong... they acted, almost to a woman (and it was nearly always the women doing it) as though it was their right to steal... and not a few times we would be treated to an audience with the husband a few days later... and that would go one of two ways... either Hubby would be arrogant and threatening, telling us in no uncertain terms that if we didn't drop any charges we and the store manager would be sacked and never work again (I recall no sackings ever occurring as a result...) or the Hubby would be very apologetic and assure us that wifey was getting treatment for her problem...

Now, maybe some of these people genuinely have a behavioural problem that they can't help... but I'm told by friends of the Beard with experience of such things that those with such problems tend to react with shame and uncertainty when confronted, rather than with arrogance and anger... and thereforre draw the conclusion that the only problem most of these women had was that they simply couldn't understand why they had to actually do the same thing as commoners and actually pay for stuff... Now, I have no idea how Mr Worrall Thompson behaved at his arrest, but I hope for his family, his friends, his fans and himself, that he was confused and apologetic... because that could point to him actually having some sort of real problem rather that just being dishonest... and dishonesty, as the Beard has possibly not mentioned, is usually a bad thing...

But I run the risk of digressing, and I'm sure this rant has gone on long enough... it remains only to be said that shops are actually quite hard to lift, although holding up banks is apparently far more tiring... so until we all know what we deserve and how to get it, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Boob jobs and missing points....

Just lately the Beard has been hearing quite a bit about breasts.... for some reason, mention of the word on the radio or television seems to grab his attention, for soem strange, hard to fathom reason.... but I attempt to digress...

Specifically the news has been concentrating on breast implants, in particular some slightly dodgy ones from the continent... there has been plenty of discussion on tv and radio, and most of the voiced opinions seem to take one of two points of view... first, that if these implants are dangerous, then the NHS, our fantastic free health care people, should remove said implants, or second, the diametrically opposed view that those who had the implants would have been told of the dangers before the op, so basically stuff 'em and let them fund removal themselves.... Alongside this raged the usual argument about whether people should have had the implants anyway, with the usual "its just vanity" argument being faced down by those with developmental problems and those who have unfortunately had to suffer mastectomies...

In all of this though, the Beard feels that the major argument in favour of the view of those who feel hard done by due to these dodgy implants has been missed... allow one to demonstrate...

Imagine that you have gone to shop at a large, reputable supermarket... it really doesn't matter which one, and I'm certainly not naming names, because this is purely in the realm of the hypothetical... but regardless, you've decided to go there to buy some vodka... remember, this is a reputable shop, that sells foods and drinks approved by the laws of the land...

Now, when you get home, you make yourself a nice vodka and lime... or tonic if you must... personally I'd use the lime, but then again I think that lemon juice goes better on chips than vinegar does.. but I digress... anyway, after drinking your drink, and possibly another, you begin to feel ill... not hung over ill, but really gut wrenchingly painfully ill... and going to the doctors, you find out that the so-called "vodka" was actually industrial cleaning fluid.... even worse, after further investigation, it seems that the people in charge at the shop knew that this vodka was not fit for human consumption, yet made the conscious decision to buy it in and sell it to you anyway...

Now, in that scenario, you'd think that the unfortunate drinker would have a valid claim against the company, yes? And if the firm suddenly went bust and said it was unable to pay the medical expenses of the people it had deliberately poisoned then the NHS should step in and help... yes??

Well, in the boob job case, the company responsible for the implants knew that the silicon used was not approved for use in humans... and that, my readers, is the big scandal... that this apparently reputable company deliberately let these women have illegal and dangerous substances put inside them....it's not a case of the vain woman suddenly changing her mind... this is a whole bunch of women who were prepared to take a risk and have an operation, suddenly finding out that what they got was not what they ordered, and have found that they have taken a risk that they weren't warned about... and that's why we should be hunting down whoever is responsible, and making them pay the NHS to sort this out... or so it seems to the Beard....

It seems that in cases like these, and there are many, peopletend to latch on to just one part of the story, then fit their pet argument into the mix, even if, possibly especially if, their opnion actually makes no sense when applied to the actual stated problem... most simply spout their own, usually indefensible prejudices, without caring about context... it doesn't matter what the actual problem is, someone wil always manage to use it in oder to turn the conversation towards whatever it is they happen to hate... for example, in the above dodgy implant thing, people ignore the fact that people have been sold stuff under false pretences, and simply berate the woman who chose to have a boob job... when the riots happened, everyone was very quick to blame the alleged prevalence of American ghetto culture and the ease with which smarphones can be used, rather than asking why all of a sudden a bunch of people decided to go on a robbing spree... actually though, the Beard knows the answer... it's simply human nature... the only thing that stops us humans stealig and fighting and just doing what we damn well please is fear... not civilisation, that elusive and almost certainly non-existent state to which we aspire, but fear... fear of getting hurt, fear of getting caught... lets be honest with ourselves, if we thought we could have gotten away with it, we'd have been there too, getting a free television and some perfume for the Mrs... just as, without the fear of reprisal, we'd follow through with the threat we made in our head to dismember the person who backed into our car in the car park... and so on...

The Beard, as you know, has no truck with civilisation... the whole idea holds us back, and prevents us becoming truly civilised, or at least seeing whether we can become so... we are so obsessed by the idea that our own prejudices and tribal/personal survival techniques are actually civilisation, that we are unable to recognise them for what they are... tribal survival mechanisms... which is why we see outsiders as not quite civilised.... because deep down we want their land, their resources and their women... The way to go forward is to learn, to accept that we aren't what we wish to be... but our stubborness as a race, coupled with our asertion, however erroneous, that we are civilised, stops us objectively trying to find out what civilisation actually is... which is a shame, because, who knows, we could actually be quite good at it... but then, civilisation could simply mean stagnation... we seem to advance better when we struggle, when we have conflict... it's good for humanity as a whole if not for the individual parts... and stagnation leads to extiction.. which on reflection might not be a bad thing...

But it the night is merging into the morning, and bed and Mrs Beard beckon... so it remains only to be said that until we all accept that we can all make a boob every now and then, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!