MPs' second homes? This is where the big money is.

For some reason my mother used to think that I should become an actuary. I didn't, but this is really fascinating stuff. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the Lothian Pension Fund actuarial valuation as at 31st March 2008!

Here's the Executive Summary:

The results are presented in this report and summarised below.

The Fund’s objective of holding sufficient assets to meet the estimated current cost of providing members’ past service benefits) was not met at the valuation date. The funding level was 85% (compared to 85% at 31 March 2005) and there was a funding shortfall of £524m.

Without anticipating an element of future equity out-performance, the ‘gilt-based’ funding level would be 65% at the valuation date, and there would be a shortfall of £1,579m. The Fund’s financial position at the valuation date is illustrated graphically in the chart below.

The employers’ average future service contribution rate as at 31 March 2008 (ignoring the past service shortfall) is 17.1% of pensionable pay. Assuming that a funding level of 100% is to be targeted over a period of 20 years, the common employers’ contribution rate is 22.5% of pensionable pay. These figures take advance credit from outperformance of the Fund’s assets relative to gilt yields on the valuation basis, as set out in the Funding Strategy Statement. Ignoring this credit for outperformance the funding position would be 64%, and the common contribution rate would be 42.0% of pay.

The actuary makes various assumptions. One is that mortality rates will probably improve - there'll be nae bevvying in the new Scotland. But on the other hand, "the increase in childhood obesity may result in a decline in longevity in future generations." Lose some; win some, as the actuary would put it.

So all of those local authority "non-jobs" that we read about in the press a week or so will ago actually cost the Lothian taxpayer 22.5% on top of the quoted salary. Plus employers' NI of course. The rate was 19% at the last valuation three years ago. But note also that the actuary assumes that the fund will make a future "outperformance" over the returns available from gilts. But should that not be achieved:

the common contribution rate would be 42.0% of pay. !!!

And this is all based on the fund valuation as at 31 March 2008. I see that the actuary says that employers' contribution rates would have to be 25.3% were he to use market data as at 13th February this year.

I conclude that the Lothian council taxpayer is screwed. Like the rest of the UK.

Call to disband all police forces in Scotland

That was the headline in the Herald today. Of course, that's not what they actually meant:

The head of Scotland's policing watchdog has called for a radical restructuring of the country's eight forces to create one single police service.

Who exactly is this "watchdog"? It turns out that he's nothing less than:

The former chief constable of Lothian and Borders Police

Isn't this typical of the state sector? Respond to legitimate concerns by appointing an insider as "watchdog". Far from amalgamating our police forces we should consider making them truly accountable to the public. That means electing Chief Constables. Note the plural.

St Patrick's Day

View on the way to work:

P1010246
Originally uploaded by David Farrer

View from the window:

P1010248
Originally uploaded by David Farrer

View on the way home:

P1010260
Originally uploaded by David Farrer

Centralised Britain

Or rather, not centralised!

One of my clients in Edinburgh is registered with Entrust, a government body that deals with landfill sites. The organisation doesn't have or use any such sites but probably did years ago. It doesn't cost anything and all we have to do is send in a "nil" return each year. Perhaps membership may be useful in the future.

Anyway, today we received the annual return together with a letter that says:

I write to you that following a strategic review of its operations, ENTRUST's Board has decided to relocate its offices from Acre House, Sale to Leamington Spa. In reaching this decision, the Board has considered the requirement for ENTRUST to more effectively serve the needs of its stakeholders and has taken into consideration a number of important factors, including:

Allowing ENTRUST to be more centrally located in the United Kingdom to provide an enhanced service to its stakeholders

But they're now less centrally located in the United Kingdom. The mid-point of the island of Great Britain is around Kendal in Cumbria. Including the offshore islands it's in Dumfriesshire. In Sale they were already in the South, now even more so. Private companies can locate wherever they want, but government organisations shouldn't be concentrated in the expensive southeast. No wonder folk up here vote SNP.

Useful Idiot of the Week

The award goes to Charles Cotton who is reacting to this news:

Large companies could be forced to reveal the pay gap between the salaries of male and female staff, under plans being considered by the Government.

It's clear that the next step will be compulsory changes in pay scales. And what does Mr Cotton have to say?

"There is a business case for ensuring all employees are paid fairly and equally according to their skills and contribution, not their gender or any other irrelevant attributes.

"But this case is likely to be harmed not helped by blunt legislative measures at a time when businesses are struggling to stay afloat."

If there's a "business case" for doing something then business people will do it anyway. Why should anyone else be involved? And are "blunt legislative measures" OK if the economy recovers. I note that Mr Cotton is a spokesman for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. My own company employs just one person - myself. I can't afford to employ a personnel manager. But the companies that can will generally be able to absorb the costs of these changes. Some small companies will be wiped out. Is that the plan?

The Royal Bank

Speaking at the Lib Dem conference, Vince Cable spoke about the Royal Bank crisis:

The collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland would have wiped out the budget of an independent Scotland, the deputy Liberal Democrat leader said.

Vince Cable said the RBS balance sheet was 15 times the size of Scotland's gross national product

Well, let's see. I recommend looking at Calum Cashley's response:

Vince Cable, old buffer of the Liberal Democrats and former Glasgow Labour councillor, has claimed that the RBS balance sheet was 15 times the size of Scotland's Gross National Product, implying that this makes Scotland too wee or too poor to be independent.

How does he know that? Owing to the complexities surrounding the estimation of GNP no official GNP estimates currently exist for Scotland (penultimate page). The best you can get is GVA - doesn't have the international earnings component of GNP - Scotland's was £98.5 billion in 2007, a per capita GVA for Scotland of 96% of the UK's. The oil industry had a GVA of £30 billion (not included in Scotland's total).

RBS's balance sheet was standing at £1.9 trillion at the end of 2007 - will be substantially less now - one fifteenth of which would be £126.67 billion, so to make Cable's calculation work you'd have to have £28 billion of overseas earnings for Scots (including Scottish companies) - or we can have our oil back, thanks. It's quite possible that Scots earned that much elsewhere in the world. Quite possible and totally unimportant. The UK GVA in 2007 was £700 billion short of the balance sheet value of RBS' assets - that means chuffle all either, all the money for the bank bail-out is borrowed, the UK can't afford this bail-out just as the US can't afford the money being stuffed into its banks.

I hope that Calum doesn't mind my copying so much of his post, but I'm rather fed up with the unthinking claim that an independent Scotland would necessarily be unable to support itself.

Now, I enjoy counterfactual history as much as anyone. Allow me to indulge.

Scenario A:

An RBS in an independent Scotland isn't allowed by the English authorities to take over NatWest. The Royal continues being a smallish conservative Scottish Bank and Fred the Shred leaves the Clydesdale and moves to London to perform his miracles down there.

Scenario B:

Somehow the Royal does buy NatWest and finds itself in a battle with Barclays to purchase ABN Amro. The English authorities are annoyed enough at the Royal being so big and put pressure on the Dutch to go with Barclays. A short while later it's Barclays that's going down the plughole - perhaps even under Sir Fred's leadership!

Scenario C:

The Scottish Government has appointed yours truly as Governor of the (Central) Bank of Scotland. I persuade Prime Minister Cashley that Scotland shouldn't have a Central Bank! A libertarian monetary policy is introduced. It is made quite clear in advance that the Scottish Government will not bail out any company, including banks. Depositors wisely spread their money around. Local savings banks are restarted and prosper. "Know Your Customer" means playing golf with them, not creating a database. More and more banks offer gold-backed notes. In such a climate it's unlikely that a Scottish-based bank would get bogged down in the bizarre world of derivatives and credit default swaps. But let's suppose that somehow the Royal has done just that and goes pear-shaped. What then?

What happens then is that Prime Minister Cashley says: "Nothing to do with us, Gov" and "Not a penny from the Scottish taxpayer. You ken noo..." The world's financial community is shocked and Scotland is traduced in the international press.

But two years down the track things are different. England and the USA have poured trillions into bailing out their fractional reserve banks and all to no effect. Their public finances are in ruins. And Scotland? Well we're sitting pretty. Everyone now sees that it was the others who were out of step, not us. The Scottish financial regime is seen as the soundest in the world and we all live happily ever after.

See you leftie!

It's good to see Za-Nu Lab being hoist with its own petard:

I don't speak Glaswegian: Labour chief in racism row after 'Can you translate that' remark to Scottish activist

Will Russia invade Scotland?

Jeff Nyquist's latest piece is interesting:

The Russian intelligence services have long tracked economic, financial and demographic changes in the United States. Russian analysts know that certain trends lead to political crisis. Such trends include ethnic balkanization, an ideological split in the ruling class, rising indebtedness, economic collapse, and declining moral standards. A country like the United States is ripe for civil war. If this should happen, foreign powers would intervene and the country would be split along geographical lines: California and the West would fall under Chinese control, Texas and the south would go to Mexico, and Russia would lay claim to Alaska. “It would be reasonable for Russia to lay claim to Alaska,” says Panarin. “It was part of the Russian empire for a long time.”

Those symptoms seem remarkably familiar to us in Britain, do they not?

Ethnic balkanisation is going to be a huge problem in the UK. And I'm thinking of Bradford, not Bannockburn. The economic and moral problems are just as significant here as in the US. I am certainly not the only blogger who fears civil war in this country. It's not at all clear who would win a battle fought between the state and the people. Or rather between the tax-consumers and the taxpayers. Scotland would not be able to sit that one out.

Although I do have some sympathy with the cause of Scottish independence I find the SNP's old-time anti-NATO stance to be worrying. The Freedom and Whisky master plan remains valid. These islands need to be defended collectively against foreign aggressors. It's very naive to think that for us all wars are in the past. If the Russians take Alaska, why not Aberdeen? And we don't even have Sarah Palin...

Liberalism

Neil Craig writes about the "Liberal" Democrat conference:

Taken all in all the LibDems Conference get their funding overwhelmingly from the state, some via middlemen. This perhaps explains why all of the motions under discussion involve more regulation, government spending &/or taxes & none of them endorse anything the founders of liberalism would have recognised as such.

The trouble is that it's not only the "Liberals" who are illiberal, that's true of all of the mainstream parties here in Scotland. The same's the case almost everywhere else of course. Except, that is, on the Internet. It's like a parallel universe out there. Politicians, newspaper journalists and television presenters are running around like headless chickens with no clue as to how to deal with the economic crisis. But the truth is out there.

Things are quite different from the recession of the 1970's, which coincided with my discovery of libertarianism and Austrian School economics. Back then one had to be extraordinarily lucky to come across the likes of Mises, Hayek and Rothbard. Now correct explanations of why the crisis arose are just a few clicks away. But still the establishment doesn't get it. Or perhaps doesn't want to. I wonder if we're going to see one of those paradigm shifts after which everyone will be claiming to have known what was going on all along.

The Rule of Law and how to protect it

The Belmont Club is my favourite blog. It is far better written and more informative than almost anything in the "Mainstream Media".

"Mainstream"? For how long?

I've been reading a fascinating thread on the outcomes that may be expected from the recent socialist takeover of the United States. The Belmont Club is written by Richard Fernandez, a veteran of the Philippine struggles against tyranny.

He writes:

The mistake most amateurs make when faced with a crisis that may involve violence, etc is to become obsessed with underground activity, illegal actions, etc. Bringing down even a dictator is 95% legal organizing and 5% clandestine work. The reason for this is that most people are too scared or unwilling to break the law and rightly so. So the most effective resistance to tyranny happens when you take the law at its word and demand your rights. Eventually a real tyrant must either yield or show his true colors. We used this ploy time and again to force the crisis. It’s always a lose-lose for the dictator; and an aggregate win for the rebels. I must say though, that the fact that you are acting legally doesn’t mean you are risk-free. If things get bad, there’s really no distinction between acting legally and acting clandestinely because the dictator doesn’t split hairs.

But returning to 21st century America, the only advice I can give is to maximally use the liberties allowed under the law and the Constitution. There’s a lot of space there and I believe it has hardly been used. From the courts, to local politics, to media campaigns, to civil disobedience — there are lots of levers yet to be pulled. I think it would be immoral for anyone to go all apocalyptic on the Republic and take to the hills like some kind of militia group, besides being impractical, because there are lots of things that have yet to be pushed to their fullest legal extent. But there’s another reason for exhausting all the remedies under the Constitution. Afterward.

It will be a hollow to gain a political victory at the cost of destroying the framework you were trying to preserve. One day there will be another party, another political movement, another set of views in Washington. And on that day you want the Constitution whole and inviolate; because that scrap of parchment represents a hard won set of rules which by common consent defines legitimacy.

We are in the path of the storm. Men of goodwill should get involved; they should prepare to pay some price for their involvement. But for the moment, it’s all hands on deck and none below.

Richard is correct. As much as we may want to "string 'em all up" (and justifiably so), we've still got other opportunities available.

As Mr Fernandez says:

take the law at its word and demand your rights

And so, much as I too want to "string 'em all up", I'll be voting in the next General Election. For me it's simple. See who's most likely to defeat Gordon's stooge and vote accordingly.

The Rule of Law - who needs that?

Let's imagine that you're a Cabinet Minister of a country that depends on international trade and finance to pay the taxes that keep it going. Or rather, to pay the taxes that keep your own party going. The one thing that you'd be most careful about was your country's reputation as a bastion of the rule of law.

Step forward Harriet Harman:

"Sir Fred should not be counting on being £650,000 a year better off as a result of this because it is not going to happen," she told BBC1's Andrew Marr show.

"The Prime Minister has said it is not acceptable and therefore it will not be accepted. It might be enforceable in a court of law this contract but it's not enforceable in the court of public opinion and that's where the Government steps in."

I repeat:

It might be enforceable in a court of law this contract but it's not enforceable in the court of public opinion and that's where the Government steps in

This is anarchy, some will say.

Not so. Under proper anarchy we would see the rule of law being rigorously enforced.

Of course Sir Fred has been a prat. Of course the directors of RBS should have reined him in. Of course RBS should have been allowed to go bust. But the law says that he's entitled to his pension, and that's that. God help us all if Harperson becomes Prime Minister.

Rand was right

I really don't care too much whether Ayn Rand was or wasn't a brilliant literary stylist. What matters is that she showed millions of people why freedom is right.

The world is in a mess today because too many people haven't read Rand.

Ma

Charlotte Elizabeth Farrer , always known as Betty.

Widow of David, mother of David, Carol and Susan, grandmother of Robin and Jenny, great grandmother of Ted.

Born 10th February 1922.

Passed away peacefully 25th February 2009.

RIP

Wealth of the nation

I'm having trouble linking to the precise quote in today's Scotsman but columnist Hamish Macdonnell wrote this:

But it does illustrate a wider point, and that is the core economic and political issue of who is best placed to decide how money is spent - the government or the people.

Oh dear. Can anyone really think that?

The core issue in politics may well be about who spends the wealth - the producers or the looters. But the core issue in economics is how is wealth created in the first place. That comes prior to how it is spent. And if too much of it is spent by the looters there soon won't be any wealth left.

Freedom and Whisky in the New York Times!

See here:

Headlines Around the Web

What's This?

Freedom and Whisky

February 15, 2009

Libertarianism and immigration

Film lives!

I recently dug out my old Nikon F80 and discovered that it contained a film that was 18 months old! Film still works, especially for wide-angle shots.

See here for the set:

Glasgow - West End
Originally uploaded by David Farrer

Libertarianism and immigration

It's obvious, is it not, that libertarians favour the free movement of people just as we favour the free movement of goods?

No, it's not.

As explained by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, there's a great difference between the free movement of goods and the free movement of people. Goods have a willing sender and a willing buyer. That's not the case with people. Libertarians do favour immigration controls: by the owner of each piece of property.

I see today that the Labour party is saying that under independence:

Passport controls would be introduced at Gretna and Berwick to restrict the movement of people into England if Scotland voted for independence, the Westminster government has warned.

Perhaps so, but this also implies that the movement of people from England into Scotland would be also restricted.

Once every piece of property is in the hands of its rightful owner we'll see just who is allowed to move where. But, in the meantime, I don't think that's it at all obvious that Scotland would necessarily be worse off than England in the event of border controls being introduced by governments.

The "Aspirational" Liberal Democrats

The cost of a day pass on Lothian Buses has gone up by 20%. Not to worry, the Lib Dems had an "aspirational" plan to stop this.

National Bankruptcy

On the Daily Mail's UK website last week I read this:

A quarter of all council tax is going to meet the soaring cost of the gold-plated pensions of town hall workers, it was revealed yesterday.

Taxpayer subsidies for the pensions of local authority staff topped £5billion last year, according to figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government.

But on the front page of the Scottish Daily Mail I read this:

The soaring cost of Scotland's town hall workers' gold-plated pension schemes now swallows a third of all council tax bills.

So in England it's a quarter and here in Scotland one third.

And we shouldn't just be looking at these high pension contributions. No, it's basic salaries too:

The pay gap between public- and private-sector workers in Scotland is five times bigger than for the UK as a whole, according to figures from National Statistics.

State earnings in Scotland are also considerably higher than across the UK as a whole. The average wage of a public-sector worker in Scotland has soared to £26,297 — £3,607 more than the typical salary of a private-sector employee.

This compares with average public-sector pay in the rest of the UK of £21,413, just £698 higher than the typical salary paid by a private firm.

And there's more.

The Lothian Pension Fund's contribution rate for employers is currently 18.9% on top of salary. From April this year the rate goes up to 20.8%. In 2010/11 it'll be 22.8% and in 2011/12, 24.9%. That's right, just about a quarter of basic salary will be added as a pension contribution in a couple of years time. So they're going to cost us around 2% extra each year even if they get no pay rises.

Interest rates...

...are now at minus 15.45%.

Granny mugging bastards.

Travellin' man

Lib Dem Andrew Reeves has been using public transport.

OK, quite an impressive schedule, and I confess that I too enjoy trips like that.

Early last year I went by train from Edinburgh to Glasgow and then got some kind of day pass that led me to Helensburgh, Hamilton and goodness knows where in between. I went into a fairly rough pub in Hamilton for my lunchtime pint. For some reason I was the only customer reading the Financial Times... The locals were looking at the Sun and Record. What I really remember about that pub is reading about the RBS rights issue and thinking that it might be worth a punt. Perhaps I had more than one pint and no investment followed. Thank God for Hamilton.

Of course in the old days I'd have thought travelling by train to be a bit wimpish. I recall attending an all-night party in Belsize Park and then going for a drive at eight the next morning. I ended up in Oban...

Brian Monteith on the Scottish pound

Is here:

Conservatives deserve better than the latest wheeze from the party leadership that is neither clever nor helpful.

At a time when the economic news in Britain has been going from bad to worse in very quick order one has to hope that the party that philosophically believes in the capitalist system, warts and all, might try to offer some explanation of why we are now entering the worst recession since the great depression of the 1930s and how free enterprise still offers the best hope for the future.

Unfortunately the best idea coming from the Scottish Conservatives has been for the party’s sole member at Westminster, David Mundell, to offer the hope that Scottish banknotes will be made legal tender across the whole of the UK. How that is expected to help pay someone’s mortgage in Biggar - or anywhere else in Scotland where no problem of using the notes exists - is a question the party leadership have obviously not thought to ask.

The Clydesdale MP hopes that his Private Member’s Bill will do the trick, although the irony of his timing is clearly lost on him. At the moment when the reputation of the Royal Bank and the Bank of Scotland could hardly be lower in Britain he announces a plan to force people to use their paper notes. The idea has clearly not been market tested – and would be unlikely to find favour with the many potential Tory voters in the rest of the UK that have seen their life savings and pensions based upon Scottish bank shares go down the toilet.

Had Scottish pound notes been real money then everyone would have rushed to hold Bank of England or Clydesdale banknotes - offloading those of the Royal Bank and Bank of Scotland that would have been considered to be near worthless. The result would have been a run on the two Scottish banks far worse than we have already seen forcing them both to be fully nationalised within a day.

I’m sure bringing home this economic reality was not what David Mundell intended.

The Conservative MP was happy to pose with Alex Salmond with a big Scottish bank note for the media. Again the irony was lost on this one man Conservative think tank. Alex Salmond not only supports the break-up of Great Britain he also supports the Euro becoming the Scottish currency and has recently been talking up that idea in Barcelona. Having a Euro would of course mean no Scottish banknotes, certainly none as we now know them saying the Scottish banks’ names on them. We would have Euros some of which might have thistles on them - but they would be Euros not Scottish pounds – authorised in Frankfurt to suit the German economy, not in Edinburgh and London to suit a British economy in which Scots play a disproportionately large role.

I’m sure giving aid and comfort to Alex Salmond’s goal of replacing the pound with the Euro was not what David Mundell intended.

But it gets worse, for when I consider what would happen if Scottish banknotes were made legal tender I find it hard to accept that the policy has been thought through beyond the initial photocalls and favourable headlines in the Scottish papers - for such a law is only likely to lead to the banknotes’ demise. Here’s why.

The three ‘Scottish’ banks - the Clydesdale (owned by the National Australia Bank), the Royal Bank of Scotland (now owned by the British Government) and the Bank of Scotland (now owned by the English Lloyds TSB Bank) - have the continuing ‘right’ to print their own banknotes so long as they are backed up by holding an equivalent amount in Bank of England notes.

The Scottish banks have to pay for this right, through the printing, transport and administration costs of the exercise, but for the moment are willing to swallow the overhead because it is worth it in marketing terms – and they are able to make money out of it.

Political and economic commentator Peter Jones explained it well in an intuitive article published in The Scotsman of 8 February last year. I only wish David Mundell had read it for Jones explained that: “Scottish bankers being clever types, they spotted that the value of their note issue was calculated on its value at the close of business on a Saturday. So they figured if they put the necessary deposits into the Bank of England on a Friday and took them out on Monday, the letter, if not the spirit of the law, would be complied with. Why do this? Because when their money is in the BoE, no interest can be earned on it, but for the other four days it can be deposited in an interest-bearing account, thus earning money for the note-issuing bank.”

The profit has been calculated to be £65 million for the Clydesdale alone – with far bigger sums for the two other Scottish banks.

If the Bank of England is forced to accept Scottish notes as legal tender surely we can expect it to demand that for the protection of everyone using them the notes are ALWAYS covered by the Scottish banks holding the equivalent value of the central bank’s own money.

With no profits to offset against them the production and administration costs would become a burden. So, while the Scottish notes would technically become legal tender they might be withdrawn from circulation when the Scottish banks find they can no longer afford them. True there is a marketing value to having the notes – but these are hard times and the pressure to find cost savings will be severe.

But don’t take my word for it, here’s what one senior Executive from a Scottish Bank told me when I asked about the policy: “If we force the issue on legal tender then the Treasury will simply demand that we lodge money with Bank of England at all times and it will then be cheaper to use bank of England notes rather than print our own. Scottish notes will simply disappear.”

I’m sure being responsible for the death of Scottish banknotes was not what David Mundell intended.

It’s known as the law of unintended consequences and it happens when policies are not completely thought through. But Alex Salmond thought it through – he could see where it will lead – towards more nationalist votes as the Conservatives put another nail in the Union’s coffin.

Sean Gabb on Gollygate

Should the BBC have sacked Carol Thatcher because she said in a private conversation that someone looked like a golliwog? No, says Sean Gabb, Director of the Libertarian Alliance. Jo Brand was investigated by the police for allegedly inciting criminal acts on BBC 1 against her political opponents. Carol Thatcher used a word. One gets the sack, the other the BBC's unconditional support. But, then, Jo Brand is part of the New Labour Establishment. Carol Thatcher is the daughter of a Prime Minister who still makes the ruling class shudder.

Also worth mentioning: Jo Brand is alleged to have incided criminal acts against members of the British National Party, and she is a declared supporter of the Labour Party. The Libertarian Alliance has no time for any form of collectivism, racial or otherwise. Even so, we note that the British National Party is *not* led by unindicted war criminals who have enthusiastically joined in the murder of half a million civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, who have abolished ancient civil liberties and turned the police force into a governing party militia, and who have taxed and regulated and inflated this country to the verge of collapse.

We also note that, while Margaret Thatcher's name is continually blackened by the pro-Labour BBC, she did none of these things either.

The BBC is a leading part of the ideological state apparatus that sustains the present ruling class. What it has done to Carol Thatcher is wholly in keeping with its real purpose.

A government advised by the Libertarian Alliance would abolish the BBC on its first day in office, dismiss all its employees, disclaim all its copyrights, and end all state regulation whatever of the airwaves.

Sean Gabb can be heard making some of these points on BBC Radio:

http://www.libertarian.co.uk/multimedia/2009-02-04-sig-thatcher.mp

Why things are screwed - Part 2

But it's not just the public sector.

At a different client on Wednesday last week I received a letter from a supplier saying that we owed them £74. Wednesday is the day I'm in and the day cheques get written. But of course I'm not going to write out a cheque just because someone's asking for money. I sent the supplier an e-mail explaining that we hadn't received an invoice and please send us one. There was no reply on that day.

This Wednesday I'm back in and there is a reply. Please can I supply our account number? Now, I've been around finance for a long time and if someone sends me an e-mail that identifies the customer and asks for a copy invoice it'll be out the door instantly. I once sent someone from London to Bradford to pick up a million pound cheque and then rush back down and take it to Lloyds Bank head office in the City. It's a long story but business is all about getting paid.

Back to this week. I send a reply giving our account number. A couple of hours later I get another e-mail telling me that they couldn't send me the invoice because I'm not recognised as an "admin user" of their system. I passed this information on to one of the directors who will no doubt get the invoice, perhaps for payment next week.

Incidentally, another invoice was received from these people this Wednesday. It came by post and was opened by the receptionist along with the rest of the mail and put into my in-tray. The receptionist isn't an "admin user" either but that invoice will get paid on time.