Government to own majority of RBS / NatWest

The sale is part of the government's bail-out of the banking system

The government is to own 57.9% of Royal Bank of Scotland after shareholders bought only a tiny proportion of the new shares being offered by the bank.

The small take-up had been expected as the offer price of 65.5p was about 10p higher than the price at which the shares were trading.

The share issue by RBS, which owns NatWest, was part of the government's plan to recapitalise banks.

The government will pay about £15bn for the majority stake in the bank.

It will also buy £5bn of preference shares in the bank.

Existing shareholders agreed to buy almost 56 million shares, which represents just 0.24% of the new shares on offer, at a cost of £36.7m, making an immediate paper loss of £5.6m.

Strings attached

RBS shareholders voted to take the government money at a meeting last week.

There will be strings attached, with the bank losing freedom in areas such as executive pay and dividend policy.

RBS also had to agree to return to "normal" lending practices, and last week it announced that it would guarantee overdraft rates and contracts for its business customers for at least a year.

RBS is one of the many banks that has been hit by its exposure to debt based on US sub-prime loans.

It has also struggled with the collapse in inter-bank lending as the whole industry worried about which of their peers they could afford to lend to.

Critics say that RBS paid too much to buy ABN Amro last year. It led a consortium that paid 71bn euros ($91bn; £61bn) for the Dutch bank in October 2007.

Study shows how spammers cash in

reposted from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7719281.stm

A tiny response means spammers still cash in (PA)

Spammers are turning a profit despite only getting one response for every 12.5m e-mails they send, finds a study.

By hijacking a working spam network, US researchers have uncovered some of the economics of being a junk mailer.

The analysis suggests that such a tiny response rate means a big spam operation can turn over millions of pounds in profit every year.

It also suggests that spammers may be susceptible to attacks that make it more costly to send junk mail.

Slim pickings

The spam study was carried out in early 2008 by computer scientists from University of California, Berkeley and UC, San Diego (UCSD).

For their month-long study the seven-strong team of computer scientists infiltrated the Storm network that uses hijacked home computers as relays for junk mail.

At its height Storm was believed to have more than one million machines under its control.

The team, led by Assistant Professor Stefan Savage from UCSD, took over a chunk of the Storm network to make it easier to run their study.

"The best way to measure spam is to be a spammer," wrote the researchers in a paper describing their work.

They created several so-called "proxy bots" that acted as conduits of information between the command and control system for Storm and the hijacked home PCs that actually send out junk mail.

The team used these machines to control a total of 75,869 hijacked machines and routed their own fake spam campaigns through them.

The research team created a legitimate looking pharmacy site.

Two types of fake spam campaign were run through these machines. One mimicked the way Storm spreads using viruses and the other tried to tempt people to visit a fake pharmacy site and buy a herbal remedy to boost their libido.

The fake pharmacy site was made to resemble those run by Storm's real owners but always returned an error message when potential buyers clicked a button to submit their credit card details.

While running their spam campaigns the researchers sent about 469 million junk e-mail messages. The vast majority of these were for the fake pharmacy campaign.

"After 26 days, and almost 350 million e-mail messages, only 28 sales resulted," wrote the researchers.

The response rate for this campaign was less than 0.00001%. This is far below the average of 2.15% reported by legitimate direct mail organisations.

"Taken together, these conversions would have resulted in revenues of $2,731.88—a bit over $100 a day for the measurement period," said the researchers.

Scaling this up to the full Storm network the researchers estimate that the controllers of the vast system are netting about $7,000 (£4,430) a day or more than $2m (£1.28m) per year.

While this was a good return, said the researchers, it did suggest that spammers were not making the vast sums of money that some people have predicted in the past.

They suggest that the tight costs might also open up new avenues of attack on spammers.

The researchers concluded: "The profit margin for spam may be meager enough that spammers must be sensitive to the details of how their campaigns are run and are economically susceptible to new defenses."

Kew's - 250th birthday next year.

I've spent many hours at Kew in the early 1980s.

Audio Slideshow: Kew's beautiful buildings

The world famous gardens at Kew in west London will celebrate their 250th birthday next year.

They began life in 1759, when Princess Augusta - the mother of King George III - started an amibitious nine acre garden around Kew Palace.

Today, covering 326 acres, the Royal Botanic Gardens are home to the world's largest living plant collection - with 30,000 species listed.

But the World Heritage Site is also home to more than 40 listed structures.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Boris Grishenko - Yes! I am invincible!

In a week when my diet is going to plan and after a couple of runs with Jazzie...

Yes! I am invincible! as Boris Grishenko (Alan Cummins) says in James Bond GoldenEye.



and so...

Blogging Plagiarism

excerpts reposted from: Atheist Revolution: http://www.atheistrev.com/2008/09/blogging-tip-11-combatting-plagiarism.html

But I've Given You Credit - Scenarios where copying a post in its entirety is unacceptable practise.

See Atheist Revolution post.

The Heart and Soul Nebulas

reposted from:

One in seven students drop out of university

 

Nearly a quarter of undergraduates fail to complete their degrees Photo: GETTY

The failure rate has barely improved in the last 12 months and drop-out rates are worse at former polytechnics, it is revealed.

In total, nearly a quarter of undergraduates failed to complete their degrees as thousands also transferred to other universities or gained lesser qualifications, while the failure rate soared to half at one new university. 

It follows criticism that ministers are effectively forcing universities to take large numbers of weak students - often on inappropriate courses - to meet Labour's manifesto pledge to ensure 50 per cent of all school leavers go onto higher education.

The proportion of students failing to finish the degree course they started across the UK is even higher, at 22.6 per cent, a slight increase compared to 22.4 per cent a year earlier. Around two-thirds of these students dropped out and a third either transferred to other universities or were expected to be awarded lesser qualifications, 

The failure rate is highest among new universities - a focus of the Government's drive to boost the number of sixth-formers staying on.
Half of students at Bolton University failed to complete degree courses compared to 43 per cent a year earlier.

At Anglia Ruskin, London Metropolitan, London Southbank, Middlesex and Thames Valley universities more than four in 10 students failed to finish their degrees. At 43 universities across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland the degree failure rate was higher than a quarter. 

But Bill Rammell, the higher education minister, insisted that staying on rates were among the best in the world.
"Although there has been a slight increase in the proportion of full-time first degree starters expected neither to get an award nor transfer, we still have one of the highest levels of student retention when compared internationally," he said. "This has been achieved and maintained during a period when the student population has increased and its diversity widened." 

The overall number of state-educated students recruited by the 37 universities which are affiliated to the elite Russell Group and 1994 Group also increased.
But numbers dropped at several key institutions, including Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Loughborough, and St Andrews. 

Wendy Piatt, director general of the Russell Group, said many state school pupils were not applying.

"We are doing everything we can to help raise attainment and aspirations by working closely with local schools, colleges and community organisations. We are particularly concerned by a number of recent reports that suggest pupils are not given enough information, advice and guidance about Russell Group universities." 

Worst universities for drop outs
The figure relates to the percentage of 1st year degree students expected to complete the degree which they started
Bolton University - 50.5
Anglia Ruskin University - 51.2
London Metropolitan University - 55.6
Middlesex University - 56.2
Thames Valley University - 56.5
UHI Millennium Institute (Scotland) - 57.9
London South Bank University - 61.5
Glamorgan University - 62.9
East London University - 63.5
Liverpool Hope University - 63.7

Education: University entrants hit record high

• Polly Curtis
• The Guardian,
• Thursday August 21 2008

The number of students due to start university in the autumn has hit a new high, with more than 375,000 having won a degree place by yesterday. 

The 8.4% increase in successful applications compared with the same point last year - a total of 30,000 additional students - may be being fuelled by a renaissance in traditional degree subjects, the university admissions services Ucas suggested.
 .

The number applying for biology is up by three percentage points, chemistry by five points, physics by four points, mathematics by seven points, and engineering subjects by six points.

The most popular degree is now law, followed by design, psychology and English.

UK population 'will be top in EU'

The UK population is projected to become the largest in the EU

The UK population is set to become the largest in the European Union, according to a report.

It is expected to increase from its current figure of 61 million to almost 77 million in 2060 - a rise of 25%.

This would make it the largest population in the EU, ahead of the projections for France (72 million) and Germany (71 million).

The EU's statistical office Eurostat also predicts the EU population will be 506m in 2060, up from 495m in 2008.

It is expected to peak at 521m in 2035 but then decline.

The report predicts the average age of the EU population will rise, due to "persistently low fertility and an increasing number of survivors to higher ages".

The proportion of the population aged 65 or above in the UK is projected to reach 24.7% in 2060, from 16.1% in 2008.

The number of Britons aged 80 or above is expected to reach 9% in 2060, compared with the current figure of 4.5%.

If the projection is correct, 42.1% of the UK's population would be above retirement age - that proportion is currently 24.3%.

Ahead of the UK, the largest population growth within the EU is expected in Cyprus (+66%), the Irish Republic (+53%), Luxembourg (+52%).

A Home Office spokesman said: "Projections such as these are proof that we are right to be carrying out the biggest shake-up to the immigration system for a generation.

"Centre-stage is our new Australian-style points-based system, which means only those we need can come here to work or study."

Strategy call

Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said the figures showed it was "essential we develop a coherent strategy to deal with population growth".

He added: "This strategy must bring together policy on issues from the family to border control, housing to skills and planning to immigration control.

"We not only need to ensure that our population grows at a more sustainable rate but that we also prepare properly for that sustainable rate of growth.

"The government have shown that they have no answers to the challenges we face by failing to plan for our increasing population - this makes them part of the problem, not the solution."

Alasdair Murray, director of think tank CentreForum, said the projection should not be considered a certainty.

He said: "Population statistics are predicted by using recent figures so this report will have used the statistics of immigration in the UK in the last few years. The level is high so the prediction will be high.

"There are signs that immigration in this country is starting to tail off. If you were to do this again in 2010 or 2011 I think it would be different.

"A more realistic assessment would be to consider the two factors of birth rates and immigration rates together when predicting population."

Five alternative Olympics medals tables

The official Olympics medals table is based on the number of gold medals and it puts China top and Great Britain third. But what happens if other factors are taken into account?

Much has been made of the Great Britain team's lofty position in third place in the official Olympics medals table.

That is based on the number of gold medals, with the number of silver and bronze medals only counting when two countries have the same number of golds.

We have won one gold medal in the last 48 hours and our six-gold advantage has almost disappeared entirely BBC's Matt Slater Official medals table Olympics blog: Battle for third

This system counts against countries like France which, as of 1000 BST on Friday morning, had enjoyed 32 podium finishes but only a handful of wins.

Maybe with this in mind, and half an eye on China, media in the US have been publishing a table of total medals won, regardless of colour, and that puts the US top.

Here are five alternative ways to interpret how countries rank, taking into account gold, silver and bronze, population size, gross domestic product and size of the Olympic team. The medal tallies were counted at 1000 BST on Friday.

TOTAL MEDALS WON

RANK	COUNTRY	TOTAL
1	United States	100
2	China	83
3	Russia	53
=4	Australia	41
=4	Great Britain	41
=6	France	33
=6	Germany	33
8	South Korea	26
=9	Japan	24
=9	Italy	24

POINTS SCORED (THREE FOR GOLD, TWO FOR SILVER, ONE FOR BRONZE)

RANK	COUNTRY	TOTAL
1	China	212
2	United States	190
3	Russia	101
4	Great Britain	89
5	Australia	77
6	Germany	67
=7	France	56
=7	South Korea	56
9	Japan	48
10	Italy	45

POPULATION PER MEDAL

RANK	COUNTRY	TOTAL
1	Bahamas	307,451
2	Jamaica	311,592
3	Slovenia	401,542
4	New Zealand	463,717
5	Australia	502,459
6	Armenia	593,717
7	Belarus	645,717
8	Estonia	653,803
9	Norway	663,499
10	Lithuania	713,041

GDP - BILLION DOLLARS PER MEDAL

RANK	COUNTRY	TOTAL
1	North Korea	0.36
2	Jamaica	0.53
3	Zimbabwe	0.85
4	Armenia	1.28
5	Georgia	1.29
6	Tajikistan	1.40
7	Krygzstan	1.41
8	Mongolia	1.57
9	Togo	2.21
10	Belarus	2.46

NUMBER OF ATHLETES AT GAMES PER MEDAL WON

RANK	COUNTRY	TOTAL
1	Uzbekistan	2
2	Jamaica	2.95
3	Panama	3
3	Togo	3
5	Zimbabwe	3.25
6	Afghanistan	4
7	Indonesia	4.8
8	Georgia	5.83
9	US	5.95
10	Tajikistan	6.5

Sources include the CIA Factbook and the World Bank.

Argentine dog saves abandoned baby

By Daniel Schweimler BBC News, Buenos Aires

La China has become a celebrity in her shanty town (Photo courtesy of Clarin)

An eight-year-old dog has touched the hearts of Argentines by saving the life of an abandoned baby, placing the girl safely alongside her own new puppies.

The country's media are calling her "the miracle baby".

She was born prematurely to a 14-year-old girl in a shanty town outside the capital, Buenos Aires.

The mother is said to have panicked and abandoned the baby in a field, surrounded by wooden boxes and rubbish.

Then along came La China, the dog which somehow picked up the baby and carried her 50m to place him alongside her own puppies.

The dog's owner heard the child crying and found her covered with a rag.

The baby, weighing 4kg (8lb 13oz), had some slight injuries, but no bite marks. The owner called the police and the child is now being looked after by the authorities, while a decision is taken about her future.

The frightened mother appeared shortly after her baby was found.

The Argentine media has descended on the shanty town, talking of "the Argentine Romulus and Remus", the founders of Rome, abandoned as babies and rescued by a wolf, nearly 3,000 years ago.

La China, worried about her own puppies, is reported to be petrified by her new-found fame, and her owner says he is worried that she is not eating.

Working at Google, Chicago

This is what its like to work at Google via Brian FitzPatrick - Fitz (Google 15 author).

Just following procedure - that's the mantra of cost-cutting Britain

So the moral is, try to speak to the MD or directors when you encounter 'procedure ignorance' and let them know the idiocy of their procedure without human intelligence.

The misery of the call centre experience shows customer and employee alike are dragged down in the name of efficiency

All comments (7)

• 
• • Jenni Russell
  • The Guardian,
  • Thursday August 14 2008
  • Article history

A few weeks ago I was listening to a news report about Boots's treatment of a 12-year-old schoolgirl whom they had detained for trying out a dab of nail polish from a bottle that wasn't a tester. The minute the polish touched Hannah Gilbert's nail she was stopped by a security guard, told she had committed a crime, and marched into an office. Three policemen were called to the scene. The policemen checked to see whether she had a criminal record. Boots then summoned Hannah's parents, who were told that unless they paid the full (£6.29) cost of the nail polish, Hannah would be charged with theft. After more than an hour of detention, the shocked child was released.

What I wanted to know was how Boots would apologise for this ludicrous, heavy-handed overreaction by junior staff. Why had they called the police when a tap on the shoulder and a 30-second lecture on the difference between testers and pristine bottles would have been enough?

Why indeed had a permanently overstretched police force decided that this was one of its priorities? How would a company that needs to keep the custom of teenage girls in these credit-crunchy times redeem itself?

Boots's head office was quite clear. There was no apology. Their statement was prim and self-congratulatory: "Our staff were following set procedures."

This isn't a defence, but a monstrous smoke screen. It's an increasingly common and chilling variation of the old defence of the indefensible, "I'm just doing my job". Too many organisations seem to imagine that sticking to procedures is in itself a virtue. That's not how it feels to those of us at the receiving end of this inflexible, wooden approach. Too often it feels as if we're being corralled into a cage made by madmen, pleading for some kind of intelligence or humanity from the person in front of us or on the end of the phone.

Earlier this summer my father, who is in his late 70s and disabled, had a stroke. It happened on a Friday, and my distraught mother rang in the late afternoon to say that he had collapsed, and could neither walk nor speak. She was calling the neighbours around their remote hillside in rural Wales to see whether they could help her lift him up.

Forty-five minutes later I called her back but there was no reply. Fifteen minutes later: "This number is not recognised."

In a panic, I rang BT. The first person I spoke to was in an Indian call centre. Could he check the line please; this was an emergency. He asked me for the account number. What account number? The telephone number? No, he needed to know the account number before he was permitted to check the line. How would I find it? By asking the account holder. "But that's why I'm ringing you! I can't speak to the account holder because something's gone wrong with your line!" Then he couldn't help me. Well, could he transfer me to customer services, or the engineers?

Number, name, postcode, account number. Desperate, I explained the situation to person number two. This one was in England. She told me there was no record of my parents' line. And that, as far as she was concerned, was that. Please, I said, look again. This line existed until an hour ago. Meanwhile my father might be dying on a Welsh hillside. Complete indifference from person number two. I plead to be transferred to someone else.

I explain everything again to person number three. She finds the line and confirms that it has been cut off that afternoon. I know this isn't about bills, this is some madness. Can it be reconnected as a matter of emergency? She's not interested in my emergency. Nothing can be done until BT can determine why it has been cut off. I am transferred to person number four.

It is now an hour into the call.

Number, name, postcode, account number. It turns out BT has been confused over the validity of the line, whatever that means. It is their mistake. They do not care. The engineers have gone home and I cannot talk directly to them anyway. I will have to go on a list for reconnection which could be a fortnight.

Tearful, I ask if the wait can be shortened for cases like this. The answer is no. Person number four is as bored by me as the rest have been. Not one has said they're sorry - either for the situation, or for BT's mistake. Can I speak to a manager? No, they've left. No, there's no one else who can help. If I want to make an appointment for reconnection, I will have to speak to person number five.

Person number five offers me a date. It is a month away. Incredulous, with knots of fear in my stomach, I explain it all again. No reaction. This is the system, she says. Do I want to make the appointment or not? Because if I don't wish to accept it, she will terminate the call. As an afterthought, and because it's clearly on the script, she asks: "And is there anything else I can help you with today?"

I put down the phone and burst into tears.

It has been an 80-minute call, and I have either been listening to machines, or conversing with automatons throughout. The indifference of the system feels brutal, and I can't break through it. It is now seven o'clock. As a last resort, I ring directory inquiries and ask them to put me through not to the faults line, but to BT's head office.

A real person answers the phone. She is a middle-aged Welsh woman with a comfortable voice, and when I tell her why I'm ringing, the first thing she says is: "Oh dear! That sounds terrible!" She is the chairman's secretary, and she isn't following any script. She says immediately that she has a list of managers and she will start ringing them now until she finds one who will deal with it and call me back. And she does. The phone is reconnected within 40 hours, and many apologies sent to my father as he recovers.

We have all had miserable experiences like these, often as companies try to increase efficiency by giving workers templates to work from, and by outsourcing work to call centres here and abroad. It's better for them if every client can be fitted into the pattern which makes their work simplest. Yet this attitude also runs the risk of damaging what is supposed to be their core purpose: keeping customers satisfied.

Cary Cooper, professor of management at Lancaster University, says that too many companies imagine that, in rule-bound workplaces, employees will still recognise that solving customers' problems must come first. In practice the majority of employees are too frightened of getting things wrong to make that effort, he says. Give them a procedure and they'll follow it blindly. And that's the real test. BT may have apologised where Boots was unrepentant, but nothing in BT's procedures or attitudes will stop the same thing happening to someone else tomorrow.

Working to rules, with no opportunity to use your initiative, must be as depressing for employees as it is for us on the receiving end. Companies must be calculating that the frustration on both sides matters less than cutting costs. Maybe they're right. If we disagree, it's up to us to demonstrate it - where we can - by using consumer power to reward the ones that do respond on a human level.

jenni.russell@guardian.co.uk

Student debt 'could top £17,500'

Student fees have massively increased student debt

Students who started university in the UK last year can expect to owe more than £17,500 by the time they leave, according to an annual poll on debt.

The Push survey of 2,000 students also suggests that

the average debt tops £4,500 for each year of study - nearly 10% more than last year.

The rise suggests students are being badly hit by the credit crunch.

Another poll of 3,385 students for the National Union of Students found many under-estimated their living costs.

According the NUS survey of 3,135 current students and 250 would-be students, they spent £710 a year on groceries when they expected to spend £510.

They spent £740 on household bills but thought they would spend £580 and £100 more on travel than the expected sum of £285.

It is clear that many students are sleepwalking into financial crisis Wes Streeting, NUS president

The Push survey revealed considerable differences between universities, with 11 breaking the £20,000 mark for projected debt.

It also revealed differences between students in universities in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The average yearly debt was highest in England at £4,729, where students are now charged £3,145 a year in fees.

But debt was lowest in Northern Ireland at £3,061 where students face the same tuition charge.

It was second highest, at £3,453, in Scotland - where contributions from students who live in Scotland were abolished in February 2008.

Before that date, students from Scotland would had to pay a graduate endowment tax of £2,289. So many of the students surveyed in the poll would have had to pay some fees.

Also students from outside Scotland pay the same tuition fees faced by students in England and Northern Ireland.

Series editor of Push.co.uk Johnny Rich said increases in the cost of living in Scotland may also have had an impact.

'Credit crunch'

He said: "It's easy to become immune to stories about student debt, but this increase is not just another rise. Some students are facing real financial hardship.

"Even so the advantages of having a degree still outweigh the costs and the Push survey shows that - with high quality advice and information - students can keep their debts while still enjoying the benefits of university."

The NUS survey also showed more students expected financial help than they are likely to receive.

Some four out of 10 believed they were entitled to a bursary to help support their studies, but only 28% were.

NUS president Wes Streeting said: "It is clear that many students are sleepwalking into financial crisis.

"As the credit crunch kicks in, and with food and fuel costs set to rise even further, we can expect more and more students to get into serious financial difficulty, with many having to resort to taking out commercial loans, or being bailed out by their parents.

"Our research shows that prospective students need far more information, advice and guidance about how to manage their own finances.

"When they leave home for the first time, many students are unaware of the costs of everyday life and how debt can mount up."

He also called for a new, simpler national bursary scheme so that support is based on what students need not where they study.

Chief executive of umbrella organisation Universities UK, Diana Warwick, said fear of debt was a real issue that concerned universities.

"Government, universities, schools and colleges - all those involved - must continue to ensure that all those who can benefit from going to university are not deterred from doing so by the prospect of debt."

She added that universities had done much work to raise awareness of the support available and had also made strenuous efforts to get bursaries to all eligible students.

Map Of The British Empire

The map below shows teritory that was at some point controlled by the British Empire (in the traditional pink) — the thin white lines show the modern country boundaries. Needless to say, the definition of ‘controlled by the British Empire’ is not universally agreed upon.

If you want to know more about the British Empire, the definitive book is Lawrence James’ The Rise And Fall Of The British Empire. Unlike most books on the British Empire, it is remarkably unbiased, and worth a read wherever you live.

• The Rise And Fall Of The British Empire at Amazon.com
• The Rise And Fall Of The British Empire at Amazon.co.uk (for British readers)

source: http://www.safalra.com/other/british-empire-map/

cumulative historical UK inflation rate between 1750 and today

The table below shows the cumulative historical UK inflation rate between 1750 and today and allows you to convert between prices in any years in that range, or just to browse the history of the UK inflation rate.

To calculate the modern-day price, multiple the price by its year’s multiplier — for example, £1000 in 1970 is the equivalent of £11000 (£1000 × 11) today.

The multipliers are rounded to two significant figures.

The Retail Prices Index (RPI) inflation measure is used — the historical inflation data come from the 2004 paper ‘Consumer Price Inflation Since 1750’ (ISSN 0013-0400, Economic Trends No. 604, pp 38-46) by Jim O’Donoghue, Louise Goulding, and Grahame Allen, which estimates historic British inflation back to 1750. You can also download the data in either Comma-Separated Values (CSV) format or Tab-Separated Values (TSV) format.

Year	Inflation	Multiplier
2007	4.3%	1.0
2006	3.2%	1.0
2005	2.8%	1.1
2004	3.0%	1.1
2003	2.9%	1.1
2002	1.7%	1.2
2001	1.8%	1.2
2000	3.0%	1.2
1999	1.5%	1.3
1998	3.4%	1.3
1997	3.1%	1.3
1996	2.4%	1.4
1995	3.5%	1.4
1994	2.4%	1.4
1993	1.6%	1.5
1992	3.7%	1.5
1991	5.9%	1.5
1990	9.5%	1.6
1989	7.8%	1.8
1988	4.9%	1.9
1987	4.2%	2.0
1986	3.4%	2.1
1985	6.1%	2.2
1984	5.0%	2.3
1983	4.6%	2.4
1982	8.6%	2.5
1981	11.9%	2.8
1980	18.0%	3.1
1979	13.4%	3.7
1978	8.3%	4.1
1977	15.8%	4.5
1976	16.5%	5.2
1975	24.2%	6.1
1974	16.0%	7.5
1973	9.2%	8.7
1972	7.1%	9.5
1971	9.4%	10.0
1970	6.4%	11.0
1969	5.4%	12.0
1968	4.7%	13.0
1967	2.5%	13.0
1966	3.9%	13.0
1965	4.8%	14.0
1964	3.3%	15.0
1963	2.0%	15.0
1962	4.3%	15.0
1961	3.4%	16.0
1960	1.0%	17.0
1959	0.6%	17.0
1958	3.0%	17.0
1957	3.7%	17.0
1956	4.9%	18.0
1955	4.5%	19.0
1954	1.8%	20.0
1953	3.1%	20.0
1952	9.2%	21.0
1951	9.1%	23.0
1950	3.1%	25.0
1949	2.8%	25.0
1948	7.7%	26.0
1947	7.0%	28.0
1946	3.1%	30.0
1945	2.8%	31.0
1944	2.7%	32.0
1943	3.4%	33.0
1942	7.1%	34.0
1941	10.8%	36.0
1940	16.8%	40.0
1939	2.8%	47.0
1938	1.6%	48.0
1937	3.4%	49.0
1936	0.7%	51.0
1935	0.7%	51.0
1934	0.0%	52.0
1933	-2.1%	52.0
1932	-2.6%	50.0
1931	-4.3%	49.0
1930	-2.8%	47.0
1929	-0.9%	46.0
1928	-0.3%	45.0
1927	-2.4%	45.0
1926	-0.8%	44.0
1925	0.3%	44.0
1924	-0.7%	44.0
1923	-6.0%	44.0
1922	-14.0%	41.0
1921	-8.6%	35.0
1920	15.4%	32.0
1919	10.1%	37.0
1918	22.0%	41.0
1917	25.2%	50.0
1916	18.1%	62.0
1915	12.5%	74.0
1914	-0.3%	83.0
1913	-0.4%	83.0
1912	3.0%	82.0
1911	0.1%	85.0
1910	0.9%	85.0
1909	0.5%	86.0
1908	0.5%	86.0
1907	1.2%	87.0
1906	0.0%	88.0
1905	0.4%	88.0
1904	-0.2%	88.0
1903	0.4%	88.0
1902	0.0%	88.0
1901	0.5%	88.0
1900	5.1%	89.0

Zimbabweans play the zero game

By Kathryn Westcott BBC News

Quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion - crazy numbers with lots of zeros, that independent Zimbabwean economist John Robertson found himself chewing over with colleagues in the capital Harare this week.

In January, the bank introduced a Z$10m note

The financial throes of the country are now so severe, that some people are seeking a new language to understand it.

On Monday, the Zimbabwe government introduced the 100 billion Zimbabwe dollar note (for the uninitiated, a billion has nine zeros).

The counting of zeros had already become a nightmare for bankers and shoppers before the introduction of the new note - which at the time of writing would buy about two loaves of bread.

So far this year, the country ravaged by hyperinflation has been forced to print 100-million, 250-million and 500-million notes in rapid succession. All of them are now almost worthless.

It has become common now for Zimbabweans to talk of their daily expenses in trillions (one trillion has 12 zeros).

When John Robertson pinned a chart to the wall of office naming numbers up to twice as long, he says he "raised a bit of a laugh" from his colleagues.

But for many officials and accountants, a quadrillion - a million billion - is the number of the day.

BIG NUMBERS Quadrillion: 15 zeros Quintillion: 18 zeros Sextillion: 21 zeros Septillion 24 zeros This formulation is from the widely-used US system

Only last week, the Harare Herald advertised the Lotto bonanza prize being offered was 1.2 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars. At the time, that was equivalent to around 4,000 US dollars.

So how do Zimbabweans deal with such astronomical numbers?

"I actually Googled what comes after trillion about a month ago, and sent that out to all my friends so they'd be prepared," says 28-year-old Esther, a Harare resident who writes a regular diary for the BBC.

Day-to-day transactions for ordinary people have not reached the quadrillion stage, she says, but even trillions present difficulties.

"What is confusing is counting of the figures on your cheques as you try to make sure you are not under or over paying someone, or the struggling to read price tags in shops that have not yet knocked off zeros and so on," she says.

Hard currency

This practice - knocking off zeros - is the most common way of preserving sanity.

Most calculators simply cannot show enough digits.

The new note is three zeros short of Germany's 1924 100-trillion-mark note

Tills throughout the country have been struggling to cope, as have banking computers, and accounting systems.

As a result, the banks recently agreed to lop six zeros off transactions and documentation.

Economist John Robertson predicts that within a month they will be forced to drop another three.

The other main technique for keeping zeros under control, is to think in terms of a hard currency - in this case, US dollars.

It would be against the law to advertise your house in US dollars, Mr Robertson says, but in practice this is the currency used for big purchases.

"Nothing would be written down and on the day of exchange, that figure would either be paid in US dollars, or converted into Zimbabwe dollars. Then you would be talking big numbers - which will take a bit of getting used to."

While Zimbabwe is the only country currently suffering from hyperinflation its economic woes are not unprecedented.

Bundles of cash

History has shown that in countries experiencing

hyperinflation - characterised by a monthly inflation of more than 50%

- the central bank often prints money in larger and larger denominations as the smaller denomination notes become worthless.

Beyond a million it all becomes a blur Marcus du Sautoy, Maths professor

In Yugoslavia, for example, the rate of inflation was five quadrillion per cent between October 1993 and January 1994. The government was forced to issue a 500 billion dinar note in 1993.

In Germany after World War I, prices were doubling about every two days and workers were paid daily or more often with bundles of cash. The highest value banknote issued by the Reichsbank had a face value of 100 trillion marks.

Marcus du Sautoy, professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford, says in general people are very bad at assessing numbers of this size.

"Beyond a million it all becomes a blur," he says.

"People are really looking for the ratio of one product to another, and then it's irrelevant how many zeros there are at the end of the number," he says.

If shops and banks don't drop the zeros, it's done instead by the human brain.

Net firmsn music pirates deal

Customers who illegally share music will get warning letters

Six of the UK's biggest net providers have agreed a plan with the music industry to tackle piracy online.

The deal, negotiated by the government, will see hundreds of thousands of letters sent to net users suspected of illegally sharing music.

Hard core file-sharers could see their broadband connections slowed, under measures proposed by the UK government.

BT, Virgin, Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse have all signed up.

Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI, which represents the music industry, said: "All of the major ISPs in the UK now recognise they have a responsibility to deal with illegal file-sharers on their networks."

Mr Taylor said it had taken years to persuade ISPs to adopt this view.

So far, the ISPs seem to be grabbing the carrot - while avoiding the stick BBC Technology Correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones Read more on Dot.Life

The plan commits the firms to working towards a "significant reduction" in the illegal sharing of music.

It also commits the net firms to develop legal music services. "Conversations are ongoing between record labels and ISPs," said Mr Taylor.

Letters to pirates

The BPI has focused on educational efforts and limited legal action in recent years, in contrast to the US, which has embarked on tens of thousands of lawsuits against alleged file sharers.

The six internet service providers have signed a Memorandum of Understanding drawn up by the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR).

HAVE YOUR SAY

Why should I yet again pay for, say, the Beatles' White Album at full whack? I already bought it on LP, eight-track, cassette, and CD! This is those customers getting their own back

Mark, Hampshire

Send us your comments

The Motion Picture Association of America has also signed up.

The BPI said the memorandum covered consumers who were both uploading and downloading music.

Mr Taylor said: "The focus is on people sharing files illegally; there is not an acceptable level of file-sharing. Musicians need to be paid like everyone else."

He added: "File-sharing (of copyright tracks without permission) is not anonymous, it is not secret, it is against the law."

At the same time the government has started a consultation exercise that could result in laws that force net firms to tackle music piracy. A working group will be set up under the auspices of regulator Ofcom to look at effective measures to tackle persistant file-sharers.

Mr Taylor said newspaper reports stating that online users could be subject to an annual levy to cover losses from file-sharing were incorrect.

"A levy is not an issue under discussion. It has not been discussed between us and government and as far as we are aware it is not on the table."

He said: "There should be effective mechanisms in place (to deter file-sharing) and as long as they are effective, we don't mind what they are."

The consultation document proposed that hard core file-sharers could have technical measures imposed, such as "traffic management or filtering and marking of legitimate content to facilitate identification".

In the past few weeks net firms Virgin and BT have sent letters to some customers identified by the BPI, which represents the UK record industry, as persistent music pirates.

'Long process'

Before now the BPI has called for a "three-strikes" system which would see net connections of persistent pirates terminated if three warnings went ignored.

Many net firms have resisted the call from the BPI and have said it is not their job to act as policemen.

FROM THE TODAY PROGRAMME More from Today programme

Feargal Sharkey, chief executive of British Music Rights, said the plan was "a first step, and a very big step, in what we all acknowledge is going to be quite a long process".

Mr Sharkey, formerly lead singer with The Undertones added: "Government, particularly in the UK, has now realised there is an issue, there is a problem there."

One BBC News website user Mark, from Hampshire, said he downloaded and shared files illegally and argued customers were "getting their own back".

In an e-mail, he said: "I used to run half a dozen record shops in the 80s and saw how far the fat cats of the record industry would go, in milking customers and retailers dry with more hyped rubbish."

"Why should I yet again pay for, say, the Beatles' White Album at full whack? I already bought it on LP, eight-track, cassette, and CD! This is those customers getting their own back."

"So will this make me sharing a CD with my next-door neighbour over the fence illegal?" he added.