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When the money runs out

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Every year household debt gets a little bit bigger. Every year the UK national debt continues to rise.

We’re all borrowing from someone.

What will we do when the money runs out?

But can it, run out that is?

Money is a theoretical concept where we assign value to pieces of paper and coins and now numbers, so we can buy and sell and exchange services without having to cope with a vastly more complex bartering system.

Do any of us really understand where this money comes from? I’ve tried and it hurts my head to think about it!

In one theory of money creation, banks create money when people borrow. That money is then circulated, exchanged for goods and services and spread out.

In another theory, Kings and governments create money which they lend or give away in place of paying their debts.

However it happens, all money is created and only has whatever value people place on it.

Governments can always “print” more money. They’ve been doing it for the past decade with Quantitative Easing. The danger is that our perception of the value of money reduces the more of it there is. Hyper-inflation anyone?

In the UK we got a very practical demonstration of the ethereal nature of money after the BREXIT vote when the Pound plunged in value. Not because anything physical changed, just because worldwide perception of the future value of the UK economy lowered.

The real problem our economy faces is not that the money will run out, but that there will be a never ending supply, lowering our perception of money’s value and making what we thought we had worthless.

And that is one of the real dangers of debt. We keep borrowing until we’ve inadvertently created so much new money that even the money we don’t owe is worthless.

After every crisis and tragedy, people still carry on as before, heading out to work, making, creating, serving. Our economy is nothing without people who work. Whether or not BREXIT goes ahead, whoever wins the General Election next week, we, the people will continue to prove that our country still has economic value, that we are worth something, that we are creating something worth buying, services worth paying for.

When the money runs out, we will still be here. And if we need to, we can always create some more…

Flash Fiction Friday: The Lost Ring

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“That’s it, Mum. Your room’s finally tidied.”
“Thank you, love.”
Janet folded her arms and gazed round at her Mum’s bedroom. “I don’t know how you and Dad put up with that mess for so long.”
Her Mum put down her dusting cloth and stood beside her. “You just get busy. You know, chasing after you lot…”
“Which room’s next, then?”
“Wait a minute… Did you tidy up my dresser table?”
“Of course.”
“Where did you put my engagement ring?”
“It’s on your finger, Mum.” Janet smiled.
“No, not that one, the first one your Dad gave me. It was right here…”
“I didn’t see any ring there.”
“Well, it wasn’t a proper ring. He didn’t have one when he proposed. Just a can of ginger. I must have told you the story, how he pulled off the ring-pull and put it on my finger…”
“Oh.” Her smile faded.
“Did you see it?”
“I just thought it was rubbish. I put it in with the recycling…”
“Today’s recycling day…”
“I know…”
They both looked at the window.
“I’ll go!” She ran downstairs, in the distance she could hear the sound of bins being uncerimoniously dumped down, of a lorry engine revving.
The blue bin was still where she’d left it on the pavement. She hurried over and opened the lid, looked down at a dangerous mess of sharp tin lids, crushed plastic bottles and paper.
She remembered the ring pull. Remembered throwing it in with empty drinks cans left over from the previous night and carrying them outside. Cans that had had their ring pulls removed almost as a habit.
She carefully lifted objects out, watching for sharp edges. Wondering if the ring pull might have fallen down the side to the bottom of the tall bin.
She saw the bin lorry turn into their street. She could always wheel the bin back to the house…
All for a ring pull…! Was her Mum really that sentimental? Actually, yes, she probably was. Part of the reason the house was so full of stuff, she never liked to throw anything away.
She lifted a box out and… There! She saw it. Or was it?
She lifted out the ring pull and examined it. Was it the same one from the dresser? They all looked the same.
The bin lorry drew closer. Making a snap decision, she pocketed the ring pull and shoved the box back in the bin along with the rest of the recycling she’d extracted.
Back upstairs she forced a smile. “Found it, Mum!”
“Oh, well done you! Time for a cuppa, I think.”
“Sounds like a plan.” She carefully laid the ring pull on the dresser.
Later that evening she managed to get her Dad alone while he washed the dishes. “I think I might have thrown Mum’s engagement ring out today, you know the ring pull you gave her,” she told him in a quiet voice.
He gave her a strange look. “Does she know?”
“Well, I…”
He hushed her. “Just take another ring pull from a can. She’ll never know the difference.”
“But, Dad…”
“I don’t know how many times I’ve had to replace that thing…”

Copyright Mark Anderson Smith 2017 http://www.dragonlake.co.uk/
You may link to this post from http://www.dragonlake.co.uk/2017/06/flash-fiction-friday-the-lost-ring/ or share on a non-commercial website so long as the full copyright notice and this statement is included.

Ginger: Scot’s slang for soda pop

If you liked this story, or if you didn’t, let me know…

When the SQL twists and squirms

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What do you do when something just stops working for no apparent reason?

I’ve been developing an application for a client for the past few weeks, one that records answers to a set of questions. A couple of weeks ago I was asked to add a process to automatically set the answers to a default value if the question was not asked. It’s not standard practice, but sometimes the rule that the customer is always right has to be followed.

It was working fine. Tested okay. I moved on.

Today that process stopped working.

Just stopped. Dead. No error messages, it appeared to work okay as far as the code was concerned, but no answers were written to the database.

I should say I’m developing this using Microsoft Access and Excel. My favourite rapid application development suite.

Here’s an example of the original SQL code (dynamically generated when the process runs):
INSERT INTO tbl_Test_Answers ( FK_Test, FK_Answer, Test_Run, FK_EnteredBy, Date_Entered )
SELECT 4, tbl_Answers.PK_Answer, 1, 1, #25/05/2017 14:32:56#
FROM tbl_Answers INNER JOIN qry_Questions_Live ON tbl_Answers.FK_Question = qry_Questions_Live.PK_Questions
WHERE tbl_Answers.Answer='Test did not ask me this question' AND qry_Questions_Live.Question_Order>5

Now, I have a confession to make… The code didn’t just stop dead. No, as usually happens in situations like this, I’d made a change. Here’s the SQL code after I made those changes:
INSERT INTO tbl_Test_Answers ( FK_Test, FK_Answer, Test_Run, FK_EnteredBy, Date_Entered ) SELECT 10, tbl_Answers.PK_Answer, 1, 1, #29/05/2017 20:44:30# FROM tbl_Answers INNER JOIN qry_Questions_Live ON tbl_Answers.FK_Question = qry_Questions_Live.PK_Questions WHERE tbl_Answers.Answer Like '*Test did not ask me this question' AND qry_Questions_Live.Question_Order>5

Can you spot the difference?

Hopefully fairly obvious even if you’re not a SQL developer. Instead of =’Test did not ask me this question’ I’d changed the SQL to Like ‘*Test did not ask me this question’

This allows the code to look for variations like ‘1. Test did not ask me this question’ or ‘5. Test did not ask me this question’

Originally I’d not been told the answers could be numbered. Then I was, but it was inconsistent numbering so had to cope with variations. Fair enough. The Like command solves that and the * wildcard allows for variable length of text beforehand.

At least when running SQL directly on the database.

Not, apparently, when running via an ADODB connection from VBA…

Too many technical terms? Sorry… This isn’t supposed to be a technical blog.

Anyway. There are two wildcards you can use in SQL: * and %, but my understanding is that only * works in Access. I tried the % wildcard and it worked fine over VBA.

There’s a very useful explanation on Stackoverflow:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/719115/microsoft-jet-wildcards-asterisk-or-percentage-sign/720896#720896. Thanks to David-W-Fenton for pointing me at that.

Lessons learned?

When something was working and then breaks, it’s usually because something changed.

Just because something works in one environment doesn’t mean it will work in another. Always better to test.