Disqus - Latest Comments for PeterDow

Re: Still Stuck on Windows 8.1? How to Upgrade to Windows 10 or Windows 11

Peter Dow — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 14:06:34 -0000

Which worked I am delighted to say after trying many things which didn't work.
I really didn't want to upgrade from Windows 8.1, even for free, but Ubisoft Connect would not run on 8.1 and I want to play Far Cry.

Re: Still Stuck on Windows 8.1? How to Upgrade to Windows 10 or Windows 11

Peter Dow — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 14:03:01 -0000

Microsoft initially let you upgrade from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 for free. Technically, that offer has since expired, but if you sign into Windows with a Microsoft account, a license should be linked to your account. This will remain in effect after you move from Windows 8.1 to 10.

I upgraded to Windows 10 Home using the Media Creation Tool but I had problems activating Windows, even though I tried signing into my Microsoft account (that I don't use much), that didn't seem to activate Windows. So I searched the internet for what to do, eventually happening upon this page "Activate Windows for free" (removed the link) , which gave me this for Windows 10 Home. (It's a different product key for different Windows Editions.)

Command Prompt App (Right-click "Run as administrator") to get to the WINDOWS\system32> prompt then enter

slmgr /ipk TX9XD-98N7V-6WMQ6-BX7FG-H8Q99 slmgr /skms kms9.msguides. com slmgr /ato

There is no space before "com" but I have added a space to prevent disqus treating the text as a link which gets the comment held for moderation and I am just wasting my time.

Re: Still Stuck on Windows 8.1? How to Upgrade to Windows 10 or Windows 11

Peter Dow — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 13:58:56 -0000

Looks like disqus links are being misdirected as was my link to github. Trying searching for

"Activate Windows for free" github

Re: Daily Question | 17/02/2021 | YouGov

Peter Dow — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 18:59:57 -0000

Now would be a good time to remove BoJo the Killer Clown from Downing Street.

The SNP and Labour should propose a motion of NO CONFIDENCE in Boris Johnson with special reference to his mishandling of the Covid pandemic.

I suggest Gina Miller as a care-taker PM until MPs can agree on someone else or vote for a dissolution and a general election.

This poll could make a perfect pretext to send in the military to remove BoJo from Downing Street if he doesn't take the hint from the people or from the House of Commons.

Re: Things We Saw Today: Jo Martin Is the First Black Doctor in Doctor Who

Peter Dow — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 19:34:26 -0000

Spoiler Alert!

Ah, a black woman Doctor Who makes an appearance - perhaps inspired by my video from 2008?

Dr Rice - that's who! Condoleezza Rice as Doctor Who

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

(Hey if Condi can become Doctor Who, do you think she could be elected PRESIDENT!)

So the BBC finally cast a Doctor Who in Condi's image - and she looks the part beautifully!

Re: Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson visits Cositas in St Albans | St Albans and Harpenden News | Herts Advertiser

Peter Dow — Mon, 07 Oct 2019 10:06:43 -0000

If Jo Swinson doesn't lead the Lib Dems in a Vote Of No Confidence to try to oust Boris Johnson as PM then it is SHE who isn't entertaining any other PM, voting to "Stand By Your Man".

Re: Scotland’s budget deficit improves despite worsening income tax revenues

Peter Dow — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 12:21:20 -0000

If you want to know the answer to that question, you have to ask an independence supporter who actually knows something about economics and in particular who knows that government fiscal deficits are normal, funded by government borrowing from its own central bank and necessary for the government to direct efficient investment of the nation’s savings, say 8% of Scottish GDP, £14 billion a year, and that having a lower deficit causes economic problems as the banksters waste the people’s savings instead of competently investing them as only good government will do.

So if you want the correct answers, you have to ask someone like me, for example, and I will tell you that £13 billion is slightly on the low side for the ideal fiscal deficit for Scotland – that £14 billion would be a bit more like what Scotland needs for its fiscal deficit.

The answer is – that if there is anything wrong with a £13 billion deficit for Scotland, it is that it is too small a deficit and that £14 billion would be better for growth and prosperity.

I’d also tell you that the independence movement would b e crazy to rush into another independence referendum wherein the hard questions like this one were being answered by “Pigsty” Mackay on the BBC.

First we must win home rule of broadcasting and Holyrood must establish a Scottish Broadcasting Corporation – replacing the BBC in Scotland with a truly Scottish public broadcasting service which bothers to ask the Scots like me who know the answers and which doesn’t give clueless numpties like Mackay the time of day – before we dare risk going anywhere near running another independence referendum.

Peter Dow
Science and Politics
Aberdeen

Re: Scotland’s budget deficit improves despite worsening income tax revenues

Peter Dow — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 12:20:46 -0000

The BBC and the press showed a fiscal conservative bias in reporting of the GERS deficit.

In my opinion, a fiscal deficit of 7% of GDP is on the low side and 8% of GDP is a more reliable deficit to sustain economic growth.

The negligent fiscal conservatives forever try to cut the deficit, balance the books, thereby allowing the City of London banksters to help themselves to national savings, via low interest rates and quantitative easing, to fund their high lives of luxury and debauchery.

Fiscal conservative politicians are guilty of aiding and abetting the banksters to embezzle public savings and should be subject to recall by their electors.

Blame the SNP government for not demanding the right to borrow and spend Scotland’s own deficit but rather settling for the borrowing crumbs by signing up to a bad-deal, austerity Fiscal Framework Agreement with the UK Tory government.

I believe that last year’s 8% of GDP was the ideal size of fiscal deficit and reducing the deficit down to 7% this year is, in my opinion, a retrograde step for Scots and a further unwelcome embezzlement of our national savings by the bankers.

In my humble opinion, it’s not an “improvement” for anyone except the fiscal conservative puppets of the banksters who have waltzed away with £1.1bn more of Scots savings than they did last year.

The banksters have stolen £1.1 billion more from Scots than they did last year. That’s only an “improvement” if you are a bankster or one of their puppets.

SNP Secretary for Finance and the Economy Derek “Pigsty” Mackay is not an economist. The SNP government don’t have any economists worthy of the name advising Mackay. Certainly Andrew Wilson of the SNP’s “Growth” (actually Recession) Commission Report is clueless about such matters.

So the press might as well have asked someone at random from the Aberdeen AUOB “march for independence” last Saturday for the answers about the fiscal deficit than to ask Mackay or expect him to know the answer to that or to any other difficult question.

Re: Economic analysis warns of slow growth in Scotland

Peter Dow — Fri, 02 Aug 2019 11:43:59 -0000

What else when the SNP government have connived with the UK to sabotage growth by agreeing a bad deal Fiscal Framework Agreement which denies the normal power of government to borrow from its own central bank to invest for growth and prosperity?

The SNP is misled by hypocrites like Sturgeon, Swinney and Mackay who claim politically they "want" independence but in government sign up to whatever pocket-money derisory borrowing powers the UK will hand them down like crumbs from the master's table. Which is more disgusting - the SNP who beg like dogs or the UK Tories who throw bones to the SNP?

The worst of it is all the economic advisers and think tanks in Scotland who don't call Sturgeon and her cabinet out as clueless fools. Some of them at least have economics degrees yet remain silent about the lack of Scottish government borrowing powers and the failure of the SNP and other MSPs at Holyrood to fight for borrowing powers fit for a parliament - macro-economic borrowing powers - the power to borrow a significant percentage of Scottish GDP, interest free, from the Scottish government's central bank, which for the £ Sterling is the Bank of England.

I'd settle for 8% of GDP, £14 billion a year - demand that or else set up a new Scottish currency and Scottish central bank and borrow from that.

The advisers and think tanks will rummage around looking for something new but economically peripheral to say - as reported here - but point blank refuse to nail the SNP government for their original sin - agreeing with the UK to not have proper borrowing powers.

Re: 52 cases of malaria reported in Scotland

Peter Dow — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 16:34:17 -0000

Let's use the newly discovered gene drive method to exterminate every disease-vector malaria species.

It's been demonstrated in the lab but field trials are urgently needed and should not be delayed one day more.

Now. NOW!

Re: Benefits devolution to Scotland ‘highly risk’ to budget

Peter Dow — Thu, 06 Jun 2019 18:22:26 -0000

More disgraceful tip-toeing around the pro-austerity, borrowing-denying, growth-crushing, anti-Scottish, bad deal Fiscal Framework Agreement from the discredited Scottish Fiscal Commission whose entire staff ought to be fired if this is the best they can do.

Not only should Susan Rice be dismissed as Chair of the Scottish Fiscal Commission but her failure of duty in this important office is such that only her immediate arrest as a threat to national economic security will get her out the door quickly enough.

The fiscal framework is not only "a matter for parliament". It is a matter of the gravest concern for all Scots whose economy is being wrecked and sabotaged by Holyrood treachery in agreeing such a poisoned chalice as the UK's offer of a Fiscal Framework Agreement from Hell to match the UK's satanic refusal to offer appropriate macro-economic borrowing powers - say 8% of Scottish GDP - £14 billion per year, interest free, with no repayments and no total debt limit.

The MSPs deserve to be castigated for their foolish naivety in surrendering the borrowing powers of the Scottish government, in refusing to mobilise the nation for an all out campaign to secure borrowing powers, whether in £ Sterling from the UK or by establishing a new Scottish currency and Scottish central bank.

In case I have not made myself clear, I do not "agree" with the Fiscal Framework Agreement; I vehemently DISAGREE with it.

Re: Scotland could raise taxes to plug £1bn funding black hole

Peter Dow — Fri, 31 May 2019 13:42:52 -0000

The Scottish Fiscal Commission has failed in its duty to warn of the economic damage being done by the (anti-Scottish) Fiscal Framework Agreement between the Scottish and UK governments to deny the normal borrowing powers of a government to Scotland, to Holyrood and to the Scottish government.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission has been established by the SNP to provide a civil-service smokescreen to hide the SNP's appalling act of treachery in agreeing to surrender the Scottish government's borrowing powers without a political struggle, without even a disagreement.

So to speak, the SNP have walked the Scottish economy into the gas chambers without so much as a hostile glance at the guards.

Susan Rice as the chair of the Scottish Fiscal Commission has a duty to find a way to lay the most serious charges of fiscal and economic treachery against the SNP government.

Rice has failed her duty and let Sturgeon, Mackay and company off the hook again and again. She must resign or be arrested.

Re: What will happen to the Eurozone when Mario Draghi steps down?

Peter Dow — Tue, 28 May 2019 04:56:36 -0000

Science and Politics website -
https://tinyurl.com/PeterDo...

Re: What will happen to the Eurozone when Mario Draghi steps down?

Peter Dow — Tue, 28 May 2019 04:55:45 -0000

Draghi deserves no credit whatsoever for his severe failure in office ever to lead the required fundamental reform of the EU's and Eurozone's flawed "Stability and Growth Pact", to increase the fiscally conservative 3% GDP borrowing cap to allow for more EU member country government borrowing.

For example, increasing the borrowing cap to 8% of GDP would allow for an additional €500 billion per year of EU member government borrowing for investment.

Looser EU fiscal policy would drive a commensurate tightening of European Central Bank monetary policy ending the era of zero and negative interest rates and the requirement for Quantitative Easing.

If simply explaining economics to the EU was sufficient, the EU would have replaced the incompetent Draghi who would have never been allowed to serve out his term as ECB President.

If the EU and Eurozone is to be economically successful then someone competent, like me, should be elected or appointed to manage the EU's economic and monetary policies.

Peter Dow,
Science and Politics, Aberdeen

Re: Pursuing a distinctive path for Scotland

Peter Dow — Thu, 11 Apr 2019 14:09:10 -0000

There no "distinction" in Forbes typically SNP surrender of the Scottish government's fiscal borrowing powers to Westminster via the bad deal Fiscal Framework Agreement which the SNP have agreed with the UK Tory government.

So Forbes is another SNP clone who turns a blind eye and deaf ear to complaints that £ billions per year of Scots' net private savings are still borrowed as usual, not by the Scottish government to invest in Scotland as they should but -
* by the UK government to fund investment in England and
* by the Bank of England to fund its loose monetary policy, lending or paying money to the City of London financial institutions, to pay for bankers' bloated salaries and bonuses to live a high life of luxury and debauchery - with Scots' savings.

Clearly, the financially brunette Forbes is just as clueless as the rest of the SNP ministerial puppets of the UK Treasury.

Re: Brunei adverts scrapped from London tube amid growing backlash

Peter Dow — Wed, 03 Apr 2019 14:22:42 -0000

In Scotland, Aberdeen University has said that it will review an honorary degree bestowed on the sultan in 1995 as “a matter of urgency.”

That's not the only terrible human-rights violating mistake which the mismanagement of Aberdeen University made in 1995 and which needs to be urgently reviewed and reversed.

Aberdeen University mismanagement also violated my human rights to freedom of expression and my right not to be discriminated against for my political activities in whistle-blowing against university mismanagement decisions to exclude me from the campus after refusing me any opportunity to resit my exams for the postgraduate Master of Science in Information Technology (Medical Physics) which I had studied for in the session 1990/91.

The university mismanagement hired lawyers to obtain illegal and unjustified court orders -
* from Aberdeen Sheriff Court to exclude me from the campus
* from the Court of Session in Edinburgh to gag me from publishing leaflets anywhere in Scotland whistle-blowing about university mismanagement
- both court orders coming with an abusive and illegal threat to jail me for "contempt of court" if I disobeyed these human-rights violating orders.

It was the courts concerned which had contempt for the law and contempt for my human rights.

The University of Aberdeen has been consistently mismanaged since the early 1990s to this day - never once reviewing all the bad human-rights violating decisions which previous mismanagement had taken.

The University of Aberdeen should be taken into administration by the Scottish government and I would be happy to serve as the Scottish government appointed Principal or Chancellor of Aberdeen University to right the wrongs done to all.

Re: Kiwi women don headscarves in solidarity with Muslim victims

Peter Dow — Fri, 22 Mar 2019 10:43:41 -0000

The UK, government and opposition, supported the appointment of Jens Stoltenberg as NATO Secretary General, after he as Norwegian Prime Minister failed to safeguard the people of Norway against the terrorist attack in 2011 at Utoya, and the Norwegian courts passed a very lenient sentence on the terrorist, allowing him to posture as a role model for the Christchurch terrorist.

The kingdoms are corrupting promoting weak, spineless, ineffective Labour leaders who will allow their citizens, members of their own political party such as Jo Cox MP and the Labour youth massacred at Utoya, to be slaughtered like lambs with no appropriate punishments imposed.

How did they deal with the far right terrorist Nazis at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials?

Did they get off with a slapped wrist and a contract to inspire others or did they hang and pay for their heinous crimes with their lives to serve as a warning from history.

The left has lost its backbone and for proof of that we only need to look at "Oh dear" Jeremy Corbyn.

The People’s Flag is deepest red,
It shrouded oft our martyred dead,
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,
Their hearts’ blood dyed its every fold.

Then raise the scarlet standard high.
Beneath its shade we’ll live and die,
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We’ll keep the red flag flying here.

With head uncovered swear we all
To bear it onward till we fall;
Come dungeons dark or gallows grim,
This song shall be our parting hymn.

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Re: Scotland forging its own fiscal future through tax changes

Peter Dow — Thu, 21 Mar 2019 14:25:03 -0000

I wonder if anyone at the Public Finance Live Scotland conference will raise the critical issue of the bad deal Fiscal Framework Agreement which the Scottish government foolishly signed up to, imposing borrowing limits where are derisory for a government?

Or will the attendees turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to my complaints about the Scottish government's lack of proper central bank borrowing powers which condemn Holyrood as a pocket-money parliament without the normal macro-economic borrowing powers of a government to manage its economy?

Not so much "Scotland forging its own fiscal future" as having it robbed blind under the noses of our clueless politicians.

Re: Watchdog urges Scottish councils to make ‘fundamental changes’ to meet shifting demands

Peter Dow — Thu, 21 Mar 2019 14:06:06 -0000

the Scottish Government’s budget contracted due to tax policy and the performance of the economy as a whole

Incomplete and misleading.

The Scottish budget can also contract (or not increase much) due to lower (or not significantly higher) borrowing.

The Accounts Commission, along with the Scottish Fiscal Commission and the Scottish government's economic advisers have a deep-rooted prejudice assuming that the Scottish government will never win new powers to borrow £billions every year from its central bank to fund a significant fiscal deficit and much higher public spending.

In my opinion, such prejudice is unprofessional and unacceptable so I would call for the resignation or dismissal of Graham Sharp as chair of the Accounts Commission.
---

Re: Scotland councils ‘facing greater fiscal pressure’

Peter Dow — Thu, 21 Mar 2019 14:03:51 -0000

the Scottish Government’s budget contracted due to tax policy and the performance of the economy as a whole

Incomplete and misleading.

The Scottish budget can also contract (or not increase much) due to lower (or not significantly higher) borrowing.

In my opinion, such prejudice is unprofessional and unacceptable so I would call for the resignation or dismissal of Graham Sharp as chair of the Accounts Commission.

Re: Higher income tax rate frozen in Scotland

Peter Dow — Wed, 20 Feb 2019 18:14:03 -0000

Secondly, monetary national debt.

Scotland's primary interest will be what is to be done with the Scottish £ Sterling banknotes, issued by Scottish banks with the permission of the Bank of England and in use by Scots today.

In option (1) - a currency union - no doubt that the status quo would prevail.

In options (2) - a new Scottish currency - and (3) - keep the £ but lose the power to borrow £s - although in the first instance it would be up to the Scottish banks and the Bank of England as the central bank of the £ Sterling which had issued those Scottish £ banknotes to continue to honour them, the Scottish government would have every political incentive to honour those banknotes too.

What precisely happens in each and every scenario we cannot say for sure. However the option (3) does not look like a happy option in terms of the Scottish government being able to fund its fiscal deficit nor being able to honour in full the value of Scottish £ Sterling banknotes should the Bank of England renege from its commitment so to do.

Re: Higher income tax rate frozen in Scotland

Peter Dow — Wed, 20 Feb 2019 18:13:17 -0000

There are two broad reasonable currency options for an independent Scotland (and one unreasonable option).

(1) Keep the £, agreeing a currency union deal with the rest of the UK, which would grant powers to borrow from the Bank of England (or branch office of the Sterling central bank relocated to Scotland - same difference) in order to fund the fiscal deficit.

(2) Establish a new Scottish currency and Scottish central bank and borrow from that to fund the deficit.

(3) The unreasonable option is that proposed by the SNP's "Growth" commission - keep the £ but lose the power to borrow £s from the Bank of England in the absence of a good currency union deal - and therefore have no sure way to fund any fiscal deficit whatsoever.

So we come to the question of the UK's national debt.

Firstly, government bonds, all issued in Sterling by the UK and redeemable in a heartbeat by the Bank of England, which can print new money to do so.

In option (1) the Scottish government will yearly be ADDING to the Sterling national debt, not "paying it off". Any paying off of debt would be done by the Bank of England as and when it is appropriate to do so, for the usual reasons of moderating inflation / deflation.

In options (2) and (3), the Scottish government is no longer adding to the Sterling national debt but it cannot pay off any of the UK national debts either because it has no powers to issue Sterling, because Scotland will have surrendered management of Sterling to the rest of the UK.

Re: Higher income tax rate frozen in Scotland

Peter Dow — Wed, 20 Feb 2019 18:12:03 -0000

Quantitative Easing is when the Bank of England prints £100s of billions of new money, for example, to buy back the UK's own government bonds, with the aim of topping up the quantity of money in circulation to replace the lost quantity caused by net private savings which threaten deflation and a recession if nothing was done.

Neither QE - nor other loose monetary polices, such as very low interest rates - are inflationary in an environment of modest or declining fiscal deficits and significant net private savings.

QE effectively monetises huge quantities of the UK's national debt - converts bond debts which require interest payments - into money which doesn't. Money itself is a form of interest-free national debt - debts owed to the bearers of the banknotes.

I will note in passing that QE is an inefficient way of creating new money. The Treasury civil service of the government has better plans for the UK's own money than the Bank of England has - better to budget new money via an increased fiscal deficit on the NHS, pensions, welfare, local authorities, defence etc. than to throw loose money at the banksters to fund their bankers bonuses and high lives of luxury and debauchery.

However Treasury officials have to bite their tongue, YES Minister style, and implement the policies of the government of the day to "cut the deficit" for political reasons.

Re: Higher income tax rate frozen in Scotland

Peter Dow — Wed, 20 Feb 2019 18:11:01 -0000

I would like to take this opportunity to widen out the discussion to consider the public finance options for Scottish independence.

Anticipating the negotiations of the terms of a £ Sterling currency union, the Scottish government should not expect to pay any interest in respect of its government borrowing from the Bank of England to fund its fiscal deficit.

Of course the UK pays interest on government bonds which are bought by third parties. The sum total of such constitute that part of the UK's national debt upon which interest is payable.

However, the borrowing between the UK government and the Bank of England does not involve a third party. One can quibble about whether the Bank of England is actually even a 2nd party, and not merely a branch of government, of the civil service.

Just as when you take money from your own wallet, you have no requirement to pay interest to your wallet, likewise the UK government has no requirement to pay interest to the Bank of England for the money it needs for its fiscal deficit.

It is then a matter for the Bank of England to source the money and admittedly, one way of doing so could be to issue new government bonds for sale on the financial markets.

Equally, the Bank of England can issue new money.

Whilst it is possible in theory to pass laws which require governments to borrow indirectly from its own central bank, via third parties, this is simply a hoop which a parliament is making the government jump through for political reasons.

Such legislation cannot disguise the master / servant relationship between a government and its central bank and it doesn't do anything except allow for a middle man to extract a massive profit for himself as the government moves its own money from its central bank to its spending accounts.

Re: Higher income tax rate frozen in Scotland

Peter Dow — Wed, 20 Feb 2019 18:04:58 -0000

I must warn again of the missed opportunity to re-frame Holyrood's fiscal settlement both to cut taxes and increase spending.

MSPs and Scots generally still turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to my warnings as Scots' net private savings - £billions every year - are reissued by the Bank of England and handed out to the UK's highest earners - the banksters who run the City of London financial institutions.

£ billions are being lost to the Holyrood budget all because MSPs lack the wisdom to disagree with the bad deal Fiscal Framework Agreement which Sturgeon signed with the UK, a very bad deal for Scotland which deprives the Scottish government of the normal borrowing powers of a government.

Instead of restoring cuts, increasing spending and cutting taxes simultaneously - so easy to do with the proper borrowing powers - the pocket-money Mickey-Mouse Holyrood MSPs impose cuts, tax hikes and austerity, thereby stagnating the Scottish economy.

London banksters rob MSPs like taking candy from a baby.

Meanwhile MSPs squabble over the crumbs as the banksters tip-toe off with the £10 billion per year cake that is rightfully Scots' net private savings.

Such a parcel of rogues in a nation.