2012

With the ending of one year and the beginning of another there is always a rush to predict what will happen over the next year. I won't be making any. All I will say is that it will be a busy and interesting year with County and Town Council elections in May and the changes they will bring. There will also be an extra election for us (anoraks) to look forward to in November with the introduction of Police and Crime Commissioners. Any bets on who will be boss in Dyfed-Powys?

BT announce faster broadband

The BBC reported yesterday that Kidwelly will be amongst 33 rural communities (including Burry Port) that will receive faster broadband by summer 2012. This is good news for the town and might help local businesses looking to promote and expand online.

Nadolig Llawen

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Refuse collection during Christmas

Please note that there will be no refuse collection on Monday 26th of December, refuse will be collected on Tuesday 27th . There will be NO change to NEW YEAR refuse collections, collection on Monday 2nd of January as normal.

Improvement at Kidwelly Railway Station

Path to Platform 2

You will know that I have been working for improvements to be made at the railway station. It has been left in an exceptionally poor state for decades. During the summer the 1st Kidwelly Scouts and Arriva Trains Wales unveiled their landscaping project that was financed by the Welsh Government. I am now pleased to report that Network Rail (who own the station) have layed a new, smooth tarmac surface on the access path to Platform 2 (the Carmarthen-bound platform). They have also upgraded the fencing between the path and the railway line. These improvements should make it easier for the disabled, parents with pushchairs and passengers with luggage to get on and off the platform. No more dragging suitcases over puddles.

In other good news, Network Rail have submitted a plan to Carmarthenshire County Council to replace the Loughor Viaduct. The new bridge, which will be part-financed by the Welsh Government will enable the re-doubling of the railway line between Llanelli and Swansea. This will enable more services to run between Swansea and Carmarthen and will hopefully lead to more services calling at Kidwelly.

Olympic torch relay to travel via Kidwelly

The Olympic torch relay will travel through Kidwelly on Sunday 27th May on it's route between Swansea and Aberystwyth. More information here.

Drink Bonds

Having trouble understanding the cause of the financial crisis?

Helen is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit.

She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed
alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar.

To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that
allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.

Helen keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting
the customers' loans).

Word gets around about Helen's "drink now, pay later" marketing
strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into
Helen's bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in
Detroit

By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands,
Helen gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially
increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages.

Consequently, Helen's gross sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that
these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases
Helen's borrowing limit.

He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the
unemployed alcoholics as collateral!!!

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to
make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINK
BONDS.

These "securities" then are bundled and traded on international
securities markets.

Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold
to them as "AAA Secured Bonds" really are debts of unemployed
alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb!!!, and
the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the
nation's leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk
manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to
demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Helen's bar.
He so informs Helen.

Helen then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being
unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts.

Since Helen cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into
bankruptcy. The bar closes and Helen's 11 employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, DRINK BOND prices drop by 90%.

The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and
prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic
activity in the community.

The suppliers of Helen's bar had granted her generous payment
extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the BOND
securities.

They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and
with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.

Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a
family business that had endured for three generations, her beer
supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the
local plant and lays off 150 workers.

Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their
respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion
dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government.

The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied
on employed, middle-class, nondrinkers who have never been in Helen's
bar.

Now do you understand?