Learning from Dogs

More musings after a year of ‘blogging’.

The greatest realisation that the last year has produced for me is that, in the end, it is our attitude to everything around us (that really means our attitude to everything within us) that is the most important thing in the world.

Yes, that’s a grand statement – everything in the world comes down to attitude.

Why?  Because our attitude drives our thoughts and behaviours.  Our attitudes are the manifestation of our internal energy.  Think about it! Your attitude to something fuels the energy that goes into that belief. And, as so many of the great teachers in life say, “We get more of what we think about most“!

Here’s Wayne Dyer in his book, There’s A Spiritual Solution To Every Problem:

Our institutions are built and organized around the idea of facilitating, regulating, and guiding human behavior.  You cannot go to schools, businesses, governments, or even churches, mosques, or synagogues to negotiate the presence of energy.  These institutions exist to deal with the material world and to keep human beings in line.  They vibrate to the lower energies of the material world and often are the source of, rather than the solution to, your problems.

Eventually, enough people will reach a higher state of spiritual vibration and form a critical mass.  Then you will see institutions emerge that are not designed to regulate, facilitate, or guide human behavior, but to access, implement, and teach a spiritual approach to life.  In short, the purpose of our institutions will shift from controlling to promoting bliss.

We can go back much further and see the same message.  Here’s an extract from Galatians 5:1:

Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.  For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want.  But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.

Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.  I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  There is no law against such things.

One can explore the writings of many other great thinkers and see the same message coming over time after time.

The peoples and creatures upon the face of Planet Earth are involved in one of the greatest experiments of all time.  How will we survive the next couple of hundred years?

We all truly know that our ‘institutions’ are not the answer, indeed they are part of the problem.  Conversely,  we also know that mankind has the ability, literally, to move mountains. The last year has shown, on a personal level, that a fundamental change in attitudes can also move emotional mountains.

It’s been an honour to publish Learning from Dogs for the last year – and I am very moved that so many of you have chosen to call by.  Thank you.

By Paul Handover

On coming of age

It’s been a partly exhilarating and very scary 12 months since the launch of Learning from Dogs. I can’t remember a time when there has been so much change and uncertainty that hits right down to the foundations of everyone.

Twelve months ago these changes were merely hinted at, and then only to a few in the upper strata of the finance world, from my point of view anyway. How everything seems to have changed now!

Where lies ahead?

Warnings abound about our use of our worlds’ resources. Our seeming need to procreate without self imposed limit is leading us to a place that coupled with climate change, we will be unable to sustain the current world’s population, let alone the projected increase within 20 years or so. Water is becoming scarce in many parts of the world and so is food.

For those who are awakening from a media-induced slumber which distorts and bends reality to suit who can apply the greatest financial influence and weighting, the reality of the situation we are facing as a planet, is rapidly catching us up.

We still have choices – all is not lost and they will require a highly integrous group of people and thinkers to guide us through the next hundred years or so. In other words, in our children’s or children’s, children’s lifetimes. People who are not driven by the ego, but to serve the highest good.

So what can we do as individuals? Enjoy what we have, perhaps? I think, work on ourselves through awareness and expose ourselves to everything positive and integrous.

Most of our problems lie within, from that thing called an ego, that would rather drive us to death, rather than admit it might be wrong. The world would be an even more positive place if we worked on ourselves and our awareness rather than looking for all the answers ‘out there’, with somebody or something else.

So, how do we work with that? Well, no surprises there really – by bringing in awareness and coming out of the dream state, or nightmare state, depending on how you see things at the moment, and into the Present or Now, as some writers have called it.

How do we do that? It can simply begin by remembering to breath! So by bringing our awareness to the breath, we come back into our bodies and out of the trance going on in the mind. Approximately 95% of our time is spent in this self-induced trance-like state, by the way.

Think you can’t survive without ‘your mind’ or ‘your thoughts’. There’s no such thing really. By coming out of the mind and back into the body, slowly, with practice and awareness, the noise gently starts to subside and we become aware of spaces of silence or no thought. That is where the answers lie, not in thinking.

The intellect and what we have learned kicks in after the quiet, to allow us to put into action what has come up through the silence.

Most of us have such a huge investment in ‘our thoughts’ or ‘our ideas’. If we could just make the time to sit still, in peace and quiet, so much more would be revealed to us.

So in this brave, new world going forward, to badly quote Einstein, we must aspire to move onto a higher level than the one that triggered this road we are relentlessly pursuing. We need to start becoming aware of the interconnectedness of all beings and focus on activities that are for the highest good, that benefit everyone, rather for the benefit of the few, to the detriment of the many.

By Jon Lavin

What a fabulous gift to openness!

Wordpress Logo

I subscribe to a Blog that comes with the rather intriguing name of The Gospel According to Rhys.  It’s a bit ‘geeky’ for my tastes but it offers sufficiently good advice on Blogging and other Social Media systems that it is a worthwhile entry in to my email in-box.

Anyway, in today’s in-box was a piece from Rhys about WordPress turning 7 years old.

Learning from Dogs is, of course, a WordPress driven Blog and thus is an example of the power of this wonderful software.  I trust that Rhys will forgive me if I quote at length from his article – I can’t better it.

Recently it was WordPress’ 7th Birthday. On the 27th of May in 2003, Matt Mullenweg released a fork of b2/cafelog, called WordPress. From the 0.72 release, it’s become the defacto blogging solution for thousands of publishers.I love it, I think it’s great, and although I’m probably preaching to the converted, here’s 7 reasons why I think your blog should be on WordPress.

It’s Free

For what it does, and for amount it costs, it is amazing that it costs nothing. Sure there’s hosting costs & domain names, but there’s nothing stopping you playing with the software for nothing.

It’s Open Source

Fancy yourself as a bit of a coder? Well WordPress is entirely free to see the code. In fact, I recommend playing with WordPress to learn the basics of PHP. There is great documentation (again, open source wiki) to help you with the WordPress framework, itself a great introduction into advanced PHP programming & working with API’s & frameworks.

Furthermore, with it being open source, if a bug is discovered, it’s fixed relatively quickly.

It Is Quick & Easy To Use

WordPress is famous for it’s five minute installation, and when you get good, it should take you half of that time. Logging in you can write a post within a minute, and it’s ridiculously easy to use. Changing design & adding plugins is easy as well.

As CMS’s Goes, It’s Pretty Good for SEO

Out of the box, f0r search engine optimisation, it’s okay. However, with a few tweaks, WordPress becomes a solid SEO platform. It’s certainly one of the better CMS’ out there.

It’s Well Supported

I’m not sure if there’s been a “state of the wordpress community” post ever done, but WordPress itself hosts nearly 10,000 plugins, and there must be tens of thousands of themes available online (WordPress itself only holds about 1 and a half thousand). Each one has a programmer or designer behind it, and although support varies (the official wordpress forum is average at best), enough people know what they are doing, both paid or free, to help you out.

It Can Make You A Rich Man (or Woman)

Whilst I’m not a rich man, running this blog & a few websites on WordPress have allowed me to make some money, and anybody can do this. As well as ebooks, adsense, affiliate marketing & god knows what else, you can make a fortune carrying out WordPress related services for other people.

It’s Never Going To Disappear Overnight

WordPress has some huge sites supporting it, a company fully dedicated to it’s production, and a thriving community. It’s not here today, and gone tomorrow.

So happy birthday WordPress, here’s to the next 7 years!

Well said, Rhys.

By Paul Handover

Conscientiousness isn’t all it’s cracked out to be!

(Foreword from Paul.)

Jon is one of those rare individuals who not only has been committed to a path of self-awareness for more than 30 years but who has also studied incredibly hard so as to be able to help others and do so from a base of real competence, as his own Blog describes.  I can speak as a current ‘client’ of Jon who is assisting me in my own journey.

But then I realised the great strength in what Jon has written.  It is this.

There are many notable teachers out there who thousands upon thousands have turned to for a deeper understanding of what life is all about.  As far back as time itself teachers have surfaced and given spiritual guidance to those that come in need.  But it’s very difficult to read or listen to these great teachers and connect with the fact that they were born, as we are all born, with nothing.  And all of them, like many of us, went through Hell on wheels to come out the other side with a greater self-awareness and a deeper understanding of the real truths in nature.  Like all of us who wish to rise above our present place they first acknowledged their own frailties. It is the starting point.

So, let me get to the point.  Jon has the awareness and understanding to offer real help to those that seek answers that are currently beyond reach.  Jon’s article is an wonderful illustration that he experiences the same fears and feelings of helplessness that you and I feel.  You and I and Jon and all of humanity are much more closely connected than we realise.

Paul H.

—————————————–

To see in is to see out!

I’ve been running my own business for about 12 years now. In the beginning it started because I had a thirst for wanting to make a difference in small business in our local area and a passion for wanting to do it through working with people directly, on their behaviours. Still have, really.

I think this came as a form of acknowledgement to the few exceptional people managers I experienced while I was employed, and the all too common, terrible ones.

I was also mentored by a group of people to whom no developmental tool was barred. My eyes were well and truly opened to how a change of view could change outcomes.

The final boot up the backside was redundancy in the late 90s. I was all ready to go and just needed a kick.

My work ethic, trained at home and then through an engineering apprenticeship, was to conscientiously work hard and try hard and to treat people the way you want to be treated. Nothing wrong with that. I assumed automatic reward would follow as long as I did those things.

Over time I wised up and became a bit less idealistic and a little more politically aware but carried on in much the same way.

Much later I found myself embarking on a whole new adventure, with a lovely wife and family, all dependent on me, with a few contacts to start getting work from!

It took a year before the first jobs came in that didn’t necessitate robbing the almost non-existent savings and redundancy payment just to keep food on the table. Then, work slowly picked up and it started to get quite good for a one-man band. We were able to go on holiday once a year, camping, but still great, and then abroad.

All the time, I beavered away, trying hard, being very conscientious, as I’d been brought up to be, but slowly getting very stressed.

Time was when it took Friday night to de-stress, then 3 days, then 10 days and recently, not at all.

So faced with this present downturn, which is likely to go on for much longer than any of the others I’ve seen and survived, I’m wondering just what new strategy to adopt. Money is already getting very tight and everything is feeling very ‘hand to mouth’. Can’t really see one month in front of the other.

I notice our local farmer who I went to school with but didn’t really know.

I’ve got degrees, lived abroad, can speak Finnish fluently, (what use is that, I hear you say!), and can turn my hand to most things, but I still feel quite dis-empowered and at a bit of a loss.

My farmer friend is always smiling, he’s got a flock of geese he’s fattening up, the same with his beef cattle, does livery for half a dozen horses or so, has fields planted with various cereal crops, and has his finger in lots of different pies – and definitely does not look stressed. He is also renting his land plus another farm.

I honestly don’t know what to make of this all except for a few really important things – the importance of diversification, relationships and appreciating what you’ve got, especially people things, here, in the now.

I have also come to the realisation that I still haven’t cracked the main thing with being self-employed, and that is replacing fear with trust.

It’s been said by various enlightened people that we see a reflection of the world we hold in mind. Going forward into this brave new world I would like to see opportunities rather than fear, I will diversify into things which make more use of my wide range of talents, and I will swap fear for trust.

By Jon Lavin

“An ethic of kindness, benevolence and sympathy extended universally and impartially to all human beings.” WikiPedia

Introduction

Friedrich Nietzsche

I do not in any of this mean to say that humanitarianism is a negative thing, I am merely attempting to describe why humanitarianism exists in the world today in much larger proportion than it has in the past.

I hope also in some of this to disagree, hopefully intelligently, with Nietzsche’s claim that humanitarianism decreases the overall strength of the human race, or at least its higher echelons.

Self-interest

Human beings are either entirely or nearly entirely driven by self-interest, this much has been made clear by both ancient and modern philosophy.

Different philosophers have realized this point in different ways.

• Mises said that all people are rational maximizers.
• Nietzsche said that the natural human being attempts to exert his force upon the world surrounding him.
• Plato said that all men desire good things, but each man has his own subjective opinion of the “good” which he came to via his own experiences (both during and before “life”.)

I highly doubt that human nature has changed a great deal in 100 years.

However, 100 years ago it was very common for European nations to do just about whatever they wanted to the rest of the world.  In fact, human nature is in all likelihood not very different now than it was in the days of the early church, when Christians were wrapped in lambskin, covered in oil, and burned alive in order to serve as torches.

Humanitarianism goes mainstream

Read more of Elliot’s essay

The answer to whom we turn to when the times are tough.

Light your own fire!

Regular readers of Learning from Dogs will know that a few days ago, Sherry wrote a piece entitled Light My Fire? It expressed her view that lately she was finding it a problem to be inspired, finding the passion as Sherry put it.

I have been thinking about Sherry’s article for the last few days and a couple of peripheral things come to mind.

We tend to get more of what we notice and orient towards. By allowing ourselves to become absorbed in the negative, that is what we tend to notice.  The fact is that the media thrive and make vast sums of money focusing on the negative. Just compare the amount of negative with the positive in any news cast.

That is not to say that we should not be aware of the negative or hide our heads in the sand. We can however change the way we view things and that has to come from within.

In fact, the answer rarely lies “out there”.

Change in how we view things, i.e. our attitude, needs to start coming from “within” ourselves.

The one thing that characterises these times is uncertainty.

A lot of us don’t even know where the next bit of money to pay the bills is coming from. In spite of the tendency to look ‘out there’ for strong direction, I still feel that the inner resolve has got to come for inside.

Another thing, I don’t believe it’s possible to think ourselves out of this one.

Although it’s a subject I go on a lot about, the sense of direction and well being has to come from us, or rather the feeling of interconnectedness that we share with everything. At a level, we are all connected.

We are all connected.

The one thing that gets us all through is a faith in some higher consciousness, that we can all tap into when we remember and ask for that miracle of clarity.

This is not thinking. The opposite in fact. This is a process of trust and ‘allowing’.

Allowing requires a power that few can sustain for long as we’re all geared to doing.  ‘Allowing’ requires us to turn off the noise machine that is in our head and creating a quietness and space for awareness to surface.

Paul recently wrote an article on Living in the Present that describes this way of letting go rather well.  I know for a fact that Paul is new to these ideas but already he is finding a peace and clarity emerging that shows that there’s always a good time to start – NOW!

Back to my thoughts. I am not advocating lying down and letting the world roll over us – the opposite in fact. By bringing awareness into this whole mess, we are more likely to take the right action.

I have honestly noticed that the more effort and circular thinking I have put into my present financial difficulties, and I’m a real expert in worry and circular thinking, the worse things have got.

I notice that by returning to silence and simply observing, a background is created that allows solutions and options to rise.

By asking to be shown the way forward and then letting go of the need for an instant solution, subtle options and ways forward present themselves.
Then right action follows.

An acceptance that in any moment we are all operating at our maximum level of consciousness. We are all doing the best we can. If we knew better, we would do better.

Therefore, what is going on in the world is a reflection of ourselves and is absolutely perfect for where the sum total of all of us are. (“Perfect”, does not mean we have to like it but it is, never the less, inevitable)

It follows, therefore, that the best way to help the world is to work on ourselves by striving to be the best we can, in every way. And the only way to do that is with awareness.

I think it was Abraham Maslow who coined the phrase, “Self Actualising”, meaning, being the best we can in every way, mentally and physically.

During these undoubtedly troubled times in the earth’s history, we all tend to turn to someone or something to provide a sense of direction.  That someone you need to turn to is yourself.

By Jon Lavin

A foreigner but not a foreigner!

Despite the fact that we have now been living in Payson, Arizona, since the end of February and, therefore, a degree of familiarity exists in both directions, the local Saturday Farmers Market prompted this thought.

Why do I not feel a foreigner here?

There is no question that America, in general, and Arizona, in particular, is very different to England.  In many ways the differences are far greater than, say, England and Australia, or England and New Zealand (I’m picking other English speaking countries to avoid to obvious difference between countries of different languages).

Local goats' cheese

I love Farmers Markets.  They seem to encapsulate the wholeness of locals growing meat and produce for other locals. They seem to serve as a reminder of the integrity that is needed just as much in food as in all other areas of life.

Of course, I am not so naive to think that we could wind the food revolution back to before the days of supermarket chains – food is wonderful value nowadays especially for those families on tight incomes.

But I can’t be the only one that ponders what the long term effect of all those

Local jellies (jams to Brits!)

E-numbers and other strange ingredients that one reads on most packets of most items, and whether or not fruit is sprayed with anything that we should know about, and so on and so forth.

That’s why that place in my psyche is ‘stroked’ so well by wandering around the Farmers Market.

One would expect if there was going to be any place where yours truly, dressed and sounding like the Englishman that he is, is going to feel foreign, it would be at the Payson Farmers Market.  I don’t even try to hide my origins, responding to a “Howdy folks” from the stall-holder with a quintessentially English ”Good Morning!“

Inevitably there are reasons why I am made to feel welcome here in Payson, my hunch is that it is much to do with this being a pioneering town for most of the last 100 years, and therefore co-operation, collaboration and a welcoming attitude were key elements of sustaining a way of life, but, in the end, analysis is pointless.

What matters is how we are made to feel, and we are made to feel very welcome.

Indeed, Payson with it’s predominance of right-wing, independent thinking, tough ‘cow-boy’ inhabitants echoing a recent past, may have an important lesson for all of us, across the globe, as the forces of disconcerting change build and build: be local, think local, preserve local.

I’m very proud to be slowly but surely turning into a Payson local.

By Paul Handover

Removing the fear of the unknown

I’ve been working with most of my clients recently through painful transformations brought about by the economic downturn.

An interesting metaphor really because since the first wave of uncertainty triggered panic, first noticed in the UK banking system, I have been picking up on that uncertainty that feels like it’s stalking the globe at the moment.

Interestingly, I, too, have been aware of an underlying fear that was difficult either to name or source.

It has been rather like a deep river in that whilst the surface feels slow moving, currents are moving things powerfully below.

So this ‘fear’ has caused a few household changes.

We now are the proud owners of 9 chickens. Our youngest son, Sami, and I have dug up the back lawn and planted vegetables and built a poly-tunnel.

We have also installed a wood burning cooker. Right back down to the base of Maslow’s triangle really!

Maslow's triangle of needs

These feelings have brought about such change everywhere and I wonder seriously whether we will ever return to what was; indeed would we want to?

I might not have mentioned it in previous blogs but as well as an engineering background, in latter years, I have focused on how interpersonal success in business is linked directly to relationships, integrity and vitally, self-awareness.

To inform this, some 7 years ago, I embarked on an MA in Core Process Psychotherapy, primarily to work on myself so that I could be the best I could be in my relationships, in and out of work.

The point I’m trying to make is that the same panic I notice in many of the companies I work in, and in me, is based on fear of the unknown and on a lack of trust in all its forms.  I’ve deliberately underlined that last phrase because it is so incredibly important.

The truth is that we get more of what we focus on.

So we can choose to focus on the constant news of more difficulties, hardship and redundancies, or we can focus on what is working.

In the workplace this positive focus has been pulling people together across functions and sites and pooling resources and ideas.

A farm evening

When we realise we’re not doing this alone it’s amazing how much lighter a load can feel and how much more inspired we feel.

I also notice how humour begins to flow and what a powerful antidote for doom and gloom that is.

Transformation is never easy but the rewards far exceed the effort put in ten fold.

So what is it going to be? Are we all going to bow down to the god of Doom & Gloom, fear and anxiety, heaping more and more gifts around it, or are we going to start noticing and focusing on the other neglected god – that of relationship, joy, trust, abundance and lightness?

Whatever the future holds for us all a belief in our inherent ability to adapt and change and focus on the greater good rather than fear, anxiety, greed and selfishness is the only sustainable way forward.

By Jon Lavin

[If you have been affected by this Post and would like to contact Jon, he would be delighted to hear from you. Ed.]

So where does this all end up?

Well, I am finally back from an eventful break from writing at Learning From Dogs that has entailed my graduation from Wake Forest University, some final preparations for the University of Georgia School of Law and my move to Athens, and the unfortunate passing of my grandfather, Paul Norman Engstrom.

Therefore, it has been quite some time since I wrote my original post — which at that point was posted by Professor Jarrell with me as a guest author — in which I laid out my goals pertaining to a discussion of the United States’ education system.  Since then I have discussed the positives of our system, the negatives of our system, and pointed out the view of Sir Ken Robinson, who believes that creativity should be given the same status as literacy in education systems.

We are often surprised after researching a topic to find our conclusions to be in opposition with our previous line of thought.  However, sometimes it can be equally as surprising to do a great deal of research and then wind up back where you started, simply with a larger factual foundation behind.  This has been the case for me throughout this entire discussion of the United States’ education system.  Despite the attempt I have made to challenge my own viewpoint and think critically about my own biases, I continue to see the costs of the United States’ education system as far greater than its benefits.

Brick and mortar school building

As I have stated before, there is a great difference between formal education and learning.  Or, to be more precise, perhaps I should say that formal education is merely one part, and perhaps not even that large a part, of what “learning” entails.  I would suggest that the problem is not so much that the United States’ education system is damaging merely because of its existence, but rather that the greatest damage comes from society expecting far too much from this system.  School is no replacement for the learning that entails integration into a complex and competitive global society that necessitates human interaction, critical thinking skills, and creativity.  Sure, one can force youths into cinder block rooms and force them to learn multiplication tables and historical dates.  And, to an extent, I think this is necessary in a mass society as we have today.  However, this formula of forcing youths to learn facts and then having these facts regurgitated has been entrusted with far too much of what we today consider “learning,” and if we are ever to have a positive shift in our society from one of idea-accepters to idea-creators, this must change.

Learning the multiplication tables

Perhaps high school could integrate into their programs a larger degree of extracurricular internships that count for course credit — I am sure that this is an experiment that could be undertaken by a few school districts quite easily, and then expanded if it proves successful.  Perhaps also school curriculum could be altered to include more classes on philosophy and economics, which I see as foundational for a solid understanding of our world.  However, this alteration of core curriculum would be a much more difficult task to accomplish, and would require some serious time and thought.

by Elliot Engstrom

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision

I suspect that you, like me, know diddly-squat about the Basel Committee.  As the Bank of International Settlements puts it:

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision provides a forum for regular cooperation on banking supervisory matters. Its objective is to enhance understanding of key supervisory issues and improve the quality of banking supervision worldwide. It seeks to do so by exchanging information on national supervisory issues, approaches and techniques, with a view to promoting common understanding. At times, the Committee uses this common understanding to develop guidelines and supervisory standards in areas where they are considered desirable. In this regard, the Committee is best known for its international standards on capital adequacy; the Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision; and the Concordat on cross-border banking supervision.

The Committee’s members come from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong SAR, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. The present Chairman of the Committee is Mr Nout Wellink, President of the Netherlands Bank.

OK, that’s clear then!

Pers Kurowski

Well, according to a good supporter of and Guest contributor to Learning from Dogs, Pers Kurowski, we really ought to know much, much more about this ‘committee’.

Pers has a Blog called Tea with FT (as in the Financial Times) and there is much to read there that helps us understand why we are in so big a mess with the banks.  Here’s his piece from the 4th May.

Basel Committee, why don´t you just shut up!

Sir who do these Basel Committee regulators really think they are bullying us around with an arrogant “the banks should be sensible and realise that it might backfire if they protest too much”? as reported by Brooke Masters, May 4.

They themselves are the ones who thought everything would be fine and dandy if they just had some few credit rating agencies determine default risks and then gave the banks great incentives, by means of different capital requirements, to follow those credit risk opinions. They themselves are the ones who believing in the abundance of safe triple-A rated lending and investments, caused the world to stampede and fall over the subprime mortgages. They themselves should shut up, because rarely has the world seen such a gullible naive and outright stupid bunch of regulators.

Now the banks, in the midst of a crisis, need to build up the equity they do not have precisely because the Basel Committee did not require them to have; precisely when we need the most the banks to lend. The regulators, instead of bullying banks, should busy themselves day and night finding ways for severely capital stretched banks to be able to lend to those small businesses and entrepreneurs who have had to pay the cost of higher capital requirements but who had absolutely nothing to do in generating this crisis.

And just in case, for the record, I am no banker, only a citizen, very upset with the fact that in the 347 pages of the regulations known as Basel II, there is not one single word that describes the purpose of those regulations. Basel Committee why do you not start defining a purpose for what you are doing? Is that too much to ask?

By Paul Handover