In the days when we first started to use wire ropes for lifting loads we used to pass the rope through an eye or cleat and fix it back to itself with a wire rope grip (a u-bolt with a flange) The trailing free end of the rope would be tied onto the rope to keep it out of the way. This worked well but after a couple of mishaps where the u-bolts were not inspected and they either were damaged or worked loose through overloading it was decided to use two wire rope grips should be used in case one failed between inspections. No problems ever occurred but someone eventually decided that three would be better than two and this was common safe practice for many years. That was until some safety manager in an office saw a picture and thought that we should halve the risk by using SIX; this became law!

How much of this kind of thinking is wasteful of resources without adding benefit?

3

Mathematician: the integer greater than 2 and less than 4

Physicist: a value greater than 2.5 and less than or equal to 3.5

Engineer: three's three but we'll call it ten to be on the safe side.

>>I'd like to live in a country where you are allowed to take a few risks and you live with the consequences of your actions. Make all these regulations into guidance that you can choose to follow or not. Most people do the right thing anyway, unless the "right thing" is an afront to common sense, and those that don't ignore regulations in any case. They serve no purpose other than to reduce the productivity of the economy.<<

And then there was Northern Rock. There's always one. An old joke: What's the difference between Doctors and Engineers? Doctors can only kill one at a time.

;-)

Fire Officer thinks........The home owner will prop the fire door open with a wedge, but my ass is covered because I insisted that they fit the self closer.

>>The only way to stop this happening again would have been to let them go to the wall, but the authorities lack the bottle and the banks know it.<<

Or allow mandatory takeover of deposits together with full funding of all insurance deposits (as in the US or Germany): Leaves the bank swinging in the wind if the FSA were to have the power and then use it.

The point about the comment was that, if society requires certain activities to be critical to their wellbeing such that those running the activities should not be allowed to take disproportionate risk then regulation or mandatory review is necessary. NR took on excessive risk and the remains of the banking industry now suffers (as will all homeowners soon).

Using the same comparsion, I would not like to see a state of affairs where one or two engineers were allowed to take excessive risk (either in overestimation of their own skills or in reduction in times taken to do a task). The review process undertaken by building control, and the occasional overestimate that must be made in order to be sure that they will be satisfied is an unfortunate necessity. Once upon a long time ago, when clients did not build in advance of approval, more economies could be made.

Jon

:-)

Not so long ago Tom. I remember working for a practice in the early '80's where construction drawings would not be issued, as a matter of policy, until Building Regulations approval had been achieved.

Posted By: Chris Wardledo you think building inspectors actually check these documents?

In my experience yes, they pay outside consultants to check my consultant!

I understand many of the banks, including the big well know names like Barclays, have set up SPVs in offshore centres to invest in CDOs, the leveraged instruments backed by the sub-prime junk. They have invested in the US market as well as the UK. This whole thing is spread throughout the international financial system. The banks have implicitly backed these SPVs although they are technically "off balance sheet", which means they will have to bail them out. If they can't they will have to go to the central banks for loans to bolster their balance sheets.

My guess is the central banks will print any amount necessary to underwrite the financial system. Ultimately it is the little guy who pays through higher rates of inflation, eroding the value of his savings. The hedge fund guys and the bankers will have taken their slice and salted it away long ago. The whole thing is corrupt and will never change until we have a currency backed by something, whether it be gold or maybe even carbon quotas, and private sector organisations are allowed to fail when they cock up.

It will be no suprise that I disagree with you Jon. All currencies were linked to gold from when they were first invented until 1971 when the dollar, as the world's reserve currency, broke the link with gold. They did this because the gold link imposed a discipline on the federal government to act responsibly and live within its means (because if they didn't other nations would ask for their paper dollars to be exchanged for gold bullion as the French did in 1971) . The Vietnam war meant they could no longer live with this. Fiat money has only lasted 37 years and I wouldn't give it more than another 5... The Roman empire collapsed when it started debasing its coinage, I think we're going the same way.

Inflation is an INcentive to take risk. In an inflation, I can borrow paper money, which is being devalued and use it to buy real assets, like property which is going up in nominal terms. This is what buy-to-let has been about. If I thought that property would stay fairly stable in price I would have to be mindful of the rental yield and the letability because I would need to repay my mortgage with interest, rather than just letting inflation do the job for me.

Re the high street banks. They all have investment banking arms and they have been looking at the massive profits that have been made in hedge fund management. Bankers being bankers have fancied a slice of the action. Borrow some Yen at 1 % in Japan and use it to buy a mortgage backed CDO with a AAA rating yielding 7% and pocket the difference. Stick it in a SPV offshore out of the way of the regulators. There were rumours about Barclays a few weeks ago. I don't think Northern Rock is the end of this, but, if the central banks are going to bail everyone out then the bubble will just continue to inflate.

Going back to the building control thing, it would interesting to put some bogus engineers calcs for approval that looked fairly convincing but with some errors in them and see what they came back with...

I doubt this will end until Peak Oil is recognised as an imminent reality. That will be what finally bursts the bubble, say 2011 ish? Who knows. Without growing energy supplies, I doubt the economy can continue to expand and without expansion we can't earn the money to repay the debts plus the interest, so how can the banking system as it is currently constituted continue? It will be interesting to see what actually happens. I may be carted off the an asylum as some kind of delusional fantasist...

I don't get your logic Jon. The bubbles you mention weren't bailed out because there weren't any central banks around to bail them out by printing more fiat money. Consequently, the bubbles burst and those foolish enough to have suspended disbelief were left with some worthless tulip bulbs they had paid millions for i.e. they lost everything and learnt a valuable lesson. We are keeping our bubble going by printing more money. We are effectively saying "we will buy your tulips bulbs off you for whatever you paid for them, don't worry you won't lose a penny". This can only encourage further speculation.

To quote Bill Bonner in MoneyWeek this week, "What is different is that, instead of permitting reckless speculators to get what they've got coming, losses will be socialized - redistributed to consumers and savers everywhere. And instead of allowing the market to liquidate weak companies and remove the rot, the rottenness is encouraged to spread." I agree.

However, you are right, this is all way off topic. I'm having a chimney repaired at the moment. The builders should have started a while back but they are waiting for a "method statement" from a health & safety consultant (I will be paying for this). I suspect that 5 years ago, they would have just got on with it taking common sense precautions as they always had done in the past, and probably have finshed by now. No wonder building work is so expensive these days. CDM regulations - another example of the cure being worse than the disease.

Double joist under stud wall ? Now two bits of wood bolted together at certain centres etc . Why not use a bit of wood twice as wide???

Typically 2 of 195x47 plus bolts and labour = more cost, more waste, more time than one bit 195x 97 ? Cheaper quicker and better