Debts

It is "natural" to not have any debts. For example whole my life I am trying to live without any loans, if I want something, I just wait until I have the money for it and then I buy it.

But it looks like nowadays we all live (in so called Western civilization) in huge debt. The governments have debts, the people have debts. For example in Czech Republic the governernment have already debt 1,5 trillion CZK (or 1 500 billion CZK) and the Czech families have debts around 1 000 billion CZK. So altogether it is quite A LOT of money.

So there was this discussion about mortgages and I had to laugh. Because I was saying that I cannot imagine that to own a flat I would be paying someone half of my salary for 50 years and then die and still hope that during the 50 years I would have my job all the time... not to mention that you could not afford any vacation, kids, cars, etc, you would just be paying the mortgage.

And one funny fella replied, that if the debt situation is gonna be only worse, it looks like that in 20 years or something there will be HUGE BANKRUPT not only of people but also of governments, and that those who had money would have nothing, and same, the pople who have debts would have nothing also :o). Well I do not know what is the outcome of the state bankrupt and if you have a loan at that time, I only remember, that when my grandma was young, she told me she had some money in the 50s and the other day its value was nothing - like from 100 000 CZK they gave her 1600 CZK of "new" crowns...

Future of e-books

Well, dont know if it is possible - but probably it could be no problem - after reading one of Haruki Murakami's novel I was wondering, that it could be bit better if on your reading device you could hear the "sounds". This particular novel was full of references to classical music, the heroes of the book were listening the pieces, etc. Or when the hero was at the sea shore, the sound of the sea could be good as well.

Well probably it would need eye-camera to know when to start playing which sound, but I think it could be fun. (well of course, when the hero said that he listened to a quartet five times, I doubt that you will have to listen the music for 150 minutes and then you could move forward, but at least bits of the music would be nice).

Latest thoughts on...

... 1) even in the tropical weather (around 33 degrees Celcius) there is really cold feel coming from the depths of the Petschek Palace, looks like the Palace is cursed by the nazis...

...2) marriage - we were on a vacation in the mountains on this big cottage where various families were and there was this older guy (his kids were talking Dutch, but he was Czech) and me and my wife we had anniversary of our marriage so I had my suit on and we went to a fancy restaurant. And this guy was asking me where are we going, so I told him so. And the next day in the morning he asked me if my wife liked the dinner and I replied that yes and on this he told me: "Pleased woman means happy marriage."

...3) insults of the teachers and politicians - I do not know if this is just Czech speciality, but we have saying:
Who cannot do anything, he teaches.
Who cannot teach, he teaches other teachers.
Who cannot teach other teacher, he is politician.
Bit insulting for the teachers (they are really under-rated in here, their salaries suck, so maybe that is the reason why the whole education system sucks...)

Weird attitute of insurance companies to culture and knowledge

Well I went to the insurance company and I had quite interesting conversation there.

The lady there was asking me if I have television, how much it is, if I have computer, etc etc. Lets say that all the electronic devices were worth aprox 2000 euros and I had to give them photos and serial numbers, etc.

And then I asked her about my library, what would happen in case of fire? Because I have around 1000 books and through the time I have to say that it has costed me more than 10 000 euros. And she told me, that they only make insurance for "special" books, and I have to have a certificate by third side, which claims some kind of "historical" values of this kind of book and then I can insure each book... crazy, I do not have such kind of books with historical value, so I was quite consufed.

It is totally OK to insure modern television, but with library you just have to have special historical books. Replacing television is very easy, but replacing books, which are out of print is kind of a difficult task, if you are proud of your book collection...

Well, looks like we live if times which do not value books, but only television...

What a wonderful world

Obama has signed a law, that US can now have even bigger debt, As a result, they are magically now out of the possibility to go bankrupt... well, I dont know, but for me, they are now only in even bigger debt... what is quite scary is the time curve of the whole debt, that 90 percent of it happened in past two decades... why? What has changed so much in the past two decades? Or is it like that up until 1990 the enemy Nr. 1 was Russia and now the enemy Nr. 1 is the debt?

No business organization could work like this...