a non affordable Expo...

now offering affordable luxury

"a warm welcome to the Highlands"

Do you remember the above photo of the main entrance to the Highland Housing Fair or Highland Housing Expo as it was renamed on its way to become a brilliant success? That's how it started, that's how it went on and that's how it ends: Expo's Funky Town in the bin:

Inverness Courier, 17-10-11: Luxury housing fair homes now selling as "affordable"

THREE of the prestigious houses built for Inverness’ controversial housing expo are being marketed as affordable homes as organisers try desperately to sell the 24 remaining properties before April.
The terraced houses, which feature Ikea kitchens, Neff appliances, ground source heat pumps and solar panels, are valued at £200,000 but are being marketed on an 80/20 shared equity basis, leaving the purchaser to find £160,000.
If the move proves successful, expo organiser Highland Housing Alliance is likely to try and sell more of the homes in this way.

I bet, once three more units are sold it will be then described as the greatest success in Scottish history of what once will have been a world's first and the globe's market leading event or some kind of other beloved exaggerations that have accompanied this disaster all along.

And how do you define "luxury", by the way?

Carpe diem!

More from the Inverness Courier:
Affordable Homes at 300,000? 
Expo homes in running for design awards 
Housing Expo to mount sales drive in bid to recoup 6m
-   (...just decide what headline you would like to give this one!)

the not so passive conference

on PassivHaus Standard and Methodology

organised by

  

and                 

Monday and Tuesday this week saw us participating in the third annual UK PassivHaus Conference in London. While it was held at what one must define as the most extreme opposite of a PassivHaus, The Barbican Conference Centre, the event and discussions per se offered lots of food for thought:

The logo of the Passiv Haus Institute
its website offers some challenges

Fabric first

It now seems to have become the general understanding that it makes more sense to design and thoroughly calculate a building's envelope to the possible highest specs, first and then think about how to provide what and, more importantly, how little energy will be needed to run it. In simple terms, before we think about building new power stations we should try to follow ways of not wasting energy.

The Barbican per se and the conference's presentations offered the chance to understand how to do better, much better and why we must learn from tradition and the mistakes we made in order to secure our future.

MVHR

Amazing how much time was spent questioning air quality provided by mechanical ventilation including heat recovery systems (MVHR) and/or the dubious threat to possibly die in an air tight house caused by lack of oxygen - well, may be I am exaggerating that last bit; but just a wee bit.

a simple schematic

Apart from the fact that traditional houses and those built to PH Standards do have in common that windows and believe it or not even doors are openable, why would fresh air through an open window be any cleaner or healthier than air mechanically filtered entering the same building in controlled volumes through purpose build ducts?

I should add that in my first house, a glazier's refurbished old workshop, I had an early version of an automated ventilation system including heat recovery installed in 1983. It was a French system and in order to follow that stupid routine of not liking what the French and/or Germans and/or English, always vice versa, do come up with (see further down) I should confess: even though it was French it worked fine.

Why did I install it then? Well, if you refurbish an old house and try to make it air tight in order to keep the warmth in - yes, we did discuss and try this in 1983 already - it makes perfect sense to swap moisture and used air for pre-warmed fresh air. Sorry, but that's basically S1 Physics, isn't it?

In S2, maybe, air tightness might be discussed, which mentioned in connection with selling a house might shrug innocent people off; so one of the presenters tried to replace the term by using draft-free environment; fine, however by definition air tightness includes draft freeness, while vice versa it is not the case. Hence, a more positive term remains to be found, but then we should hurry, please, as the customers might overtake the crawling process of inventing new descriptions for old realities.

Appropos Germany

It seems to be a hard nut for many to get over the fact that this PassivHaus Standard could have something to do with Germany, with those Germans. It is a fact, and as I had to live with it I know what I am writing about, that the German Government(s) were among the first, if not the first, to not only realise that energy might become a challenging issue but they have for very nearly thirty years consequently and constantly implemented ever tougher laws and bylaws of how to make constructions and appliances more energy efficient. No wonder the "others" now have to chew on the fact that most working and price worthy solutions, in this case for PH related products, components and technologies are offered by German companies. It is that simple.

By the way, listening to the cramped and constrained efforts of all officials trying to avoid any German ties with all kinds of PassivHaus issues was very close to being offensive; not so much in my eyes as a German living in the UK for a decade, now, I am used to such rubbish especially of those who at the same time indeed own Audis or a German kitchen, etc., but much more so in the heads and translations of German speaking visitors from the Continent. Britain allegedly stands for non discrimination acts and blames others of not sticking to the rules; well, here we are!

UK supply chain

One could say in a globalised world where most if not all of our daily consumer products are produced where they are made the cheapest, sometimes the most efficient, often the "dirtiest" way, this subject of an UK supply chain for PH components could not be of any relevance: may the best, i.e. the best working solution and value for money win.

Not so in this case: with generalised reference to import and transport cost the request for an UK supply chain for PH components e.g. windows is constantly mentioned, most probably by the same people that drive an Audi, a Mercedes, BMW or Toyota and buy Chinese toys, PCs and shoes! I will come back to the industry of automobiles further down.

Meanwhile, think about this: forget the advance in understanding the PH Standard and the advance in know how, training and experience from long years of actual application, it is a fact, the Continental market is huge. Most probably, the window manufacturers in question produce and deliver thousands of windows a day, mostly to very high specs, much higher than the average UK window, and on top of this they manufacture a  smaller, yet comparably substantial number to PH standards. Don't forget: in addition their means of production are high tech manufacturing robots which represent heavy long term investment, the companies' purchase power for raw materials is gigantic, per unit margins are kept to a minimum and transport to and from their facilities are their daily bread covering the Continent from Portugal to Russia and from Italy to Norway.

Now, who would think that any UK supplier can just pick up here and be competitive in a wee UK market that is still discussing the possible disadvantages of e.g. MVHR? Or whether or not recycling and waste water management should be part of the building regulations. I think that should be common sense and should not be used to dilute energy efficiency of any building envelope.

So that successful launch of that part of the UK supply chain remains to be seen. It seems a bit unlikely, as a true Scot would put it; I say, it is economically impossible: either the price or the windows' quality and variety will have to suffer unless protectionism or currency related influences would run the show

In this blog I often refer to China: I do not bash China, I might criticise China, but mainly I adore China for its flexibility, its will to succeed and for always doing their homework. But then, China very much frightens me; many could not care less, which frightens me even more.

Now, imagine China had felt it was too proud to just produce and copy what the market needed or wanted and then too proud to use the much better machinery and tools that they were often even given for free but then soon were able to import upon their own decision. Where would China be today?

No! I believe, the tactic should be quite the other way round. Get what is best value for money, wherever it comes from, learn, understand, teach, use, copy, adopt, adapt and improve! Like Fabric first, we should make a market for the most appropriate Standard: that is the way forward for any industry while the customer will be very grateful.

Customer

This species felt almost like not existing over those two days; from my personnel experience over the last five years attending shows and conferences all over the UK the customer has changed.

They have learned, they google two words and are flooded with information, they travel, they visit, they discuss, they all feel energy costs closing in on them, but in the end they also might drive a ... as I said, I will come back to that.

Real estate markets have changed; the idea that one's dwelling is a lucrative short term investment to climb up a money making ladder has become a very difficult one. While land to build on might be of pretty reliable value, a house that costs a fortune to run proves itself an unaffordable and unwanted burden. Driven to the extreme this could end up to where one will have to sell a house for its land's value minus demolishing and recycling cost. Think about that!

No, I did not leave the red line; a house build to PH Standard, certified, is futureproof. It will hardly loose its value as the standard sets a clear energy consumption figure: 15kW/m2a or even less. So anybody interested in one will know exactly what kind of quality he will get and what it will cost him year by year to come.

Futureproof Asset

With defining energy consumption levels, materials, technologies and tradesmanship are becoming part of this definition. One won't go without the other. Hence, the overall quality including life expectancy and durability are improved; indeed this is setting new standards were the customer or client will be able to compare like with like on the basis of a set energy consumption figure. King customer will love that. And really, once the mortgage companies will be prepared and willing to understand those differences they will finance traditional builds with a surcharge, only. 

miscellaneous

It was also very interesting to learn that there are differences in the door-blower test routines of the UK and Continental procedures; I will look into this much closer. I know from experience that we all need to be sceptical when confronted with too-good-to-be-true U-value calculations; whatever you compare, values, technologies or procedures, only, it should have a common base otherwise any discussion is a waste of time or simply humbug.

Automobile Industry

My first car was a 1967 MG B, spoke wheels, leather, chrome; then we loved British cars, the variety, the design, everything. German cars were boring, looked old and ugly.

What is left of that famous British car industry? Some brand names, now put on Indian, Chinese and again, I beg your pardon, German companies' makes - the rest is history. The industry did not follow what the market, the customers wanted and/or needed, it avoided investments for the sake of short-term share-holder values and called for the government when it failed.

Today the leading car manufacturers are either Asian or German manufactures. There is a severe chance that the British Construction Industry will be following the British Automobile Industry. Trying to protect one's market share by aiming at suppressing competition and innovation and neglecting customers' demands is a certain recipe for disaster.

By the way

when I don't blog, eat or sleep I work with HANSE HAUS (UK), a German off-site manufacturer of highly energy efficient components for all kinds of low energy houses, including, of course, PassivHaus certified turn-key Passive Houses. Here is the German website, here our English one.

Above a Passive House on our show area in Oberleichtersbach, Germany. Below a video, showing the eight essential hours of making a house thoroughly prepared by taking advantage of the latest off-site technology wind and watertight.

Should you miss the phrase "leading" or "best" or "first" in front of our name please don't worry, we know where we stand while we walk the walk!

Carpe diem!


#PassivHausUK: thank you and well done, hope to see you next year in a PHCC*

* PassivHaus Conference Centre

those were the times, ...

my friends, when we gave for children...

Now we give for banksters that speculate on hunger, decease and death.

Carpe diem

The Banksters' Planet

The network of corporate global control

an ETH, Zuerich, study

Abstract
The structure of the control network of transnational corporations affects global market competition
and financial stability. So far, only small national samples were studied and there was
no appropriate methodology to assess control globally. We present the first investigation of the
architecture of the international ownership network, along with the computation of the control
held by each global player. We find that transnational corporations form a giant bow-tie structure
and that a large portion of control flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions.
This core can be seen as an economic “super-entity” that raises new important issues both for
researchers and policy makers.

We all knew it, we know it, we are taught that money makes the world go around. 143 companies control 40% of what you see above, these are the first 50:

Table S1: Top 50 control-holders. Shareholders are ranked by network control (according to the
threshold model, TM). Column indicate country, NACE industrial sector code, actor’s position in
the bow-tie sections, cumulative network control. Notice that NACE code starting with 65,66,67
belong to the financial sector.
Rank Economic actor name Country

1 BARCLAYS PLC GB
2 CAPITAL GROUP COMPANIES INC, THE US
3 FMR CORP US4 AXA FR
5 STATE STREET CORPORATION US
6 JPMORGAN CHASE & CO. US
7 LEGAL & GENERAL GROUP PLC GB
8 VANGUARD GROUP, INC., THE US
9 UBS AG CH
10 MERRILL LYNCH & CO., INC. US
11 WELLINGTON MANAGEMENT CO. L.L.P. US
12 DEUTSCHE BANK AG DE
13 FRANKLIN RESOURCES, INC. US
14 CREDIT SUISSE GROUP CH
15 WALTON ENTERPRISES LLC US
16 BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON CORP. US
17 NATIXIS FR
18 GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP, INC., THE US
19 T. ROWE PRICE GROUP, INC. US
20 LEGG MASON, INC. US
21 MORGAN STANLEY US
22 MITSUBISHI UFJ FINANCIAL GROUP, INC. JP
23 NORTHERN TRUST CORPORATION US
24 SOCIÉTÉ GÉNÉRALE FR
25 BANK OF AMERICA CORPORATION US
26 LLOYDS TSB GROUP PLC GB
27 INVESCO PLC GB
28 ALLIANZ SE DE
29 TIAA US
30 OLD MUTUAL PUBLIC LIMITED COMPANY GB
31 AVIVA PLC GB
32 SCHRODERS PLC GB
33 DODGE & COX US
34 LEHMAN BROTHERS HOLDINGS, INC. US
35 SUN LIFE FINANCIAL, INC. CA
36 STANDARD LIFE PLC GB
37 CNCE FR
38 NOMURA HOLDINGS, INC. JP
39 THE DEPOSITORY TRUST COMPANY US
40 MASSACHUSETTS MUTUAL LIFE INSUR. US
41 ING GROEP N.V. NL
42 BRANDES INVESTMENT PARTNERS, L.P. US
43 UNICREDITO ITALIANO SPA IT
44 DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION OF JP JP
45 VERENIGING AEGON NL
46 BNP PARIBAS FR
47 AFFILIATED MANAGERS GROUP, INC. US
48 RESONA HOLDINGS, INC. JP
49 CAPITAL GROUP INTERNATIONAL, INC. US
50 CHINA PETROCHEMICAL GROUP CO. CN

In green GB companies, in blue US co-operations; the land of the major rating agencies.

Any questions?

Carpe diem!

DC's concept for a foundation...

of a wise builder?



PM DC, 1:44 into the above video:

...I know that you can't see it or feel it right now. But think of it like this: the new economy we are building it is like building a house; the most important part is the part you can't see: the foundations. Slowly but surely we are laying solid foundations for a stronger future. And the vital point is this: if you don't stick with it it won't work.

A lot of can'ts, Mr. Prime Minister, but I like your metaphor: it is like building a house, isn't it:

²⁴ “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵ The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. ²⁶ But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. ²⁷ The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

That's Matthew 7:24-27, known as "The Wise and Foolish Builders".

Yes, the foundation is very important; yet, in your speech it remains unclear what shall be build on this solid foundation: is it going to be a traditional construction, then, what would be new?

We need to tell the truth... you say, so is this new economy on what you describe as a solid foundation going to be like a Passiv Haus? Future-proof, healthy, comfortable and affordable?

I doubt it facing such basic but untackled problems like deficits and unemployment while I miss the strengthening or in some cases even rebuilding of the basic elements such like education, tuition, training, manufacturing and rational R&D into what will be the true elements of our future as well as setting any new standards for what you tell me I can't see or feel right now, Mr. Cameron.

All I see is more cuts and more debts or the same vice versa, trying to save banks, banksters, governments and incapacitated politicians just to preserve what can't be sustainable; is this all and again related to tradition or where and when will we see or feel any kind of learning effect coming in that will take us all forward?

Carpe diem!

CCS: ...and now, the end is near...!

BBC: Longannet carbon capture scheme scrapped

Again, there is this totally inappropriate idea of picking an industry, e.g. CCS or Electric Automobiles and then declaring the obscuring aim to become a so-called world market leader instead of doing ones homework, first and foremost; the end result reads as follows:

"If there was a completely unlimited resource then we may have been able to surmount the technical problems at Longannet," Mr Huhne said.

Scottish Power's coal-fired plant at Longannet had been the only remaining site in the UK government competition for the funding.

"However, almost four years after launching its funding competition, plans for CCS in the UK have descended into farce."

"It is vital that this money is not recycled into the Treasury but used for carbon capture and storage projects. 

£1,000million pumped carefully into the up-dating and up-grading of the British construction industry, its training and teaching facilities would do more; much more; without inventing the wheel again and without an unlimited resource, Mr Huhne.

Carpe diem!

Pretensioning the B(l)ow!

 UK's bubbling model...

The chart seen on www.querschuesse.de shows the UK's monthly trade balance in reference to food!

• August 2011: minus £1.436bn! 


• First eight months of 2011: minus £11.648bn!


• We are depending more on more on imports e.g. of meat, a minus of £3.601bn in 2011, alone!


• Same for such simple and relatively easy to produce dairy products! A minus of £1.391bn in 2011!


• Wheat and animal feed minus £1.382bn in 2011.


• Since 1995 we are net importers of oil with a dramatically falling output of North Sea oil.

Great Britain shows the classic bubble economy of a degenerated Anglo-Saxon model under permanent erosion of any kind of industrial output in relation to its GDP while running out of all kinds of resources; see oil and gas.

Along with the high import volume an ever increasing inflation is imported, the currency is weak even compared to US $ and the failing Euro.

Not my words, but a description of the UK's situation in the German blog above. Now, you might not like Germans, Germany or German cars, but what about the truth?

Inflation, even after tweaking all statistical possibilities, is up: 5.2%. In reference to food even +6.4%:

Another Catch-22 situation one should think as once Mr. King (Governor of the BoE) would decide to fight inflation by raising interest rates the government and the banks would have to declare bankruptcy; however, don't worry, inflation is the globally preferred idea to make debts look smaller.

As such inflation must grow faster...

as debts grow faster!

Don't mention the stability and value of the Pound, though!

"The UK fails to feed its population, Mr Neo and Mr. Lib "what are your answers?"


Carpe diem!

"The customer" was his success

Steve Jobs: where can we take the customer?

He is not even mentioning that share-holder-value rubbish! No wonder...

Carpe diem!

Mister King, what took you so long?

A mere three years later

...it seems our professed intelligent leaders finally understand what they might be up to, just three years after Lehmann and well 20 years into what is an unregulated bonanza of Globalism run into the ground by Mr. Neo and Mrs. Lib! What we all are up to, they still have no clue! Some examples?

So the Governor believes in more debts will quantitatively ease the banksters problems, well done Mr. King! Just picking out one sentence ...

In addition to countries like ourselves, like the United States, like some countries in Europe we need to re-balance our economy; we need to slow the amount of domestic spending and boost our trade position to see our exports be the source of growth so that we are relying less on borrowing from abroad than we have been.

This tastes like a 50 year old soda. Apart from the strange construction of the sentence where an introduction like in addition to... ourselves... we need to ... obviously sees him badly prepared and/or terribly nervous the rest is pure rubbish; wishfull thinking, daydreaming in a world that has definitely moved much faster than Mr. King's enlightenment will ever keep up with. His is closely followed by Mr. Osborne's...

... the bank of England has made an independent judgement, ...it [>QE 2] is... a response to the deterioration in the international economy and it is also a response to the severe strains in the Eurozone...
...it will keep interest rates down, it will help boost demand, and that will be a help for British families..."

The most peculiar sentence of Mr. Osborne you will hear is "...the British Government has earned credibility with plans to deal with Government debts...". Media, journalists, bloggers, wake up?

Yesterday, the theguardian explained QE, Quantitative Easing:

QE involves electronically creating money, which the Bank uses to buy assets – mainly government bonds, known as gilts – from investors in financial markets. That pushes down long-term interest rates – a bonus for the economy – and gives the banks more money to lend out. The Bank doesn't actually print banknotes, it just credits investors' accounts. Its governor, Mervyn King, hates the phrase "quantitative easing" and prefers to call it credit easing.

Well, give me a break! QE 1 in 2009 was limited to £200 billion with hardly a penny of that reaching Mr. Osborne's families. If it did anything it retarded the race into depression by a fraction which now three years later a ludicrous 1/3 of QE 1 won't, rather can't do!

Here is a totally different judgement:

Much closer to reality, to the truth, to what we are up to and how banks and banksters are interconnected. The really frightening fact - as you hear - is: we do not even have a plan!

But back to the Governor whose mainstream sauce got me started on this subject again; how can one get away with talking pure nonsense and at the same time being three years, more likely 20 years late?

What kind of miraculous ingredients will he and his friends have to come up with when cuts into domestic spending, among others severe cuts into education, teaching, training, health and general infrastructure shall boost a trading position that is long gone anyway? Gone to China and it is China that invests in education big style!

Export: something all the countries in debt spirals are fancying, they all pray for the export miracle to happen: but in an unsound parallel it is regarded a clever free-market must and a share-holder-value's boost to export all those jobs that are regarded as cheap, dirty, stupid and/or not lucrative enough. So who was it that now makes all the toys, PCs, shoes, T-shirts, phones, stereos, suits, all the china, many cars, soon more trains and airplanes and then all and anything? The answer is China!!

Export: that is why they all take part in the race for a weak currency. Obama would love to see a strong Euro, so downgrading anything in Europe is based on his and his mates' hope this might get the Europeans sorted and the Dollar finally down. And it's China again...piggybacked on the greenback while spending its mountains of  green paper on buying itself into all kinds of resources, from land to energy and beyond.

He who laughs last laughs best; he will definitely be a king.

And mainstream takes it all!

Carpe diem!

P.S.:

From Daniel Hannan's telegraph comment: