Tuesday 8 July 2008

Raytracing revisited

I wrote about raytracing in my first article on this blog. At the time I believed Intel went for raytracing in their new discrete graphics part.
I was rethinking the issue and now I believe I was wrong. There's just no sense in creating a device that is so incompatible with existing devices that making it compatible would take such a huge effort.
Instead I am now pretty sure that their part will be just like ATI's or NVidia's. Hopefully faster, to create some new competition, but otherwise just about the same.

What I was forgetting at the time (writing the Intel raytracing article) was that all current generation graphics cards are also very powerful floating point processors. NVidia just recently enabled physics acceleration in their drivers and it wasn't long before somebody ported that to ATI cards. Custom floating point calculations have become a reality on today's graphics cards.

So where does this leave us with raytracing possibilities?

With all the FP power modern graphics cards offer it won't be long before somebody makes another raytraced Quake3, like these guys did. Only this time the calculations will be performed on a graphics card instead of 20 AMD XP 1800 processors. With an XP 1800 managing about 2 GFLOPS, a graphics card with potentially 1 TFLOPS should easily render the same scene at least as fast as that cluster of 20 XPs. Especially since raytracing lends itself nicely to batch processing.

So now we just need three things:
1. Some really general purpose APIs for utilizing the graphics card's processing power from all three major graphics card providers
2. A good raytracing API, something like Direct3D, capable of working with those card APIs (OpenRT reprogram?)
3. An enthusiast to rewrite the Quake 3 engine again

Slowly, but surely there will be more and more serious projects coming out untill finally there will be a commercial game.
By then, the cards themselves will also feature some genuine raytracing acceleration...

Thursday 26 June 2008

Car propulsion

In Europe average daily commute distance is less than 15 km. Even if we add another 20 for after work shopping, recreation and similar activities, we can still calculate that few cars have to go further than 50km on a typical day.
Internal combustion engines our cars have are known to perform the worst in these conditions. The engine is cold and there's a lot of acceleration and braking in the rush-hour congestion. Not to mention that the engine itself is never operating at it's optimal RPM.
This causes excessive oil consumption and pollution. Wouldn't it be a lot simpler if our cars had electric engines with just enough batteries to last some 50 km, coupled with a nice turbine to generate power when the batteries got depleted?
This way one could go to work, come back home and recharge the batteries in a standard power outlet. Longer trips would be sufficiently covered by the turbine and to top things off, the batteries could just as easily be partly charged by photovoltaic cells popped on the roof and hood of the car.
Instant halving of oil consumption, not to mention pollution...

Now wouldn't that be something?

Sunday 15 June 2008

On energy

A couple of weeks ago a most common event occurred. Something most people experienced at their homes at least once in their lives.
A valve started leaking. If I understood correctly, it was even supposed to do that, just not as fast. A kind of pressure valve I suppose. Of course, the culprit needed replacing. But since this particular valve was in a reactor of a nuclear plant, the event had to be reported to the respective authorities. The ordinary event turned into a ruckus because someone forgot to strike out a single word on the event report form. The word said: exercise.
Now, let's suppose for a moment that the event was an exercise. Somebody would have decided to train the personnell of the plant on valve malfunction. An odd exercise to be sure since the procedures dictate to stop the plant in such a case and that is certainly not a cheap thing to do with nuclear plants.
As it turns out, the leak was not an exercise and the plant had to shut down the reactor in order to replace the valve. One week, very expensive. But that's not the point.
Either way, exercise or not, the reactor was shut down. So in this particular case the final outcome was the same, regardless of the famous word being striken out. But the outcry of institutions, politicians and envirogroups alike was like we just experienced a meltdown ten times bigger than that of Chernobyl. Go figure.
There are a total of 197 nuclear plants in Europe with an additional 13 under construction. The Slovenian one is neither the biggers nor the smallest. I am pretty certain events like this happen on a weekly basis. Possibly not even being reported due to their insignificance. I may be wrong, but it doesn't matter, does it? The mistake was made while filing a report, not with the procedure that had to be performed in case of such an event. I'm sure every of these 197 plants has well trained personnell and plenty of redundancy so that such minor faults could never grow to real disasters. Chernobyl most certainly left an impression in form of fail-safes, redundant sensors, strict and clear procedures not to mention all the things I have no idea about.

This just shows how punily we react to a simple mistake. We are talking, after all, about the cleanest energy source known to mankind although, granted, it is also potentially the most dangerous. All while Europe's dependence on energy import is becoming alarmingly high. We already have two hundred plants, all operating safely and with less environment impact than any other energy source we have. Yet constructing a new plant seems similar to deploying a nuclear bomb judging by the reactions of various environmentalists. Nobody seems to be screaming when a new river dam is being built despite the fact that such a dam destroys an entire valley, brings tons of fog to nearby settlements, not to mention the possibility that any dam too may fail, causing quite a disaster doing so.

On the other hand I hear that Chinese have started building their plants en masse. They are even exporting the technology to neighbouring nations. They recognise the danger of being too energy dependent and are doing their best to avoid such dependence. Their plan is to bring as many as 30 new plants online in the next 15 years. While that surely isn't enough for such a power-hungry economy, they certainly are doing something about it.

So with cold fusion still at least 20 years away and with Europe's dependence growing to no end, I really think Europe's leaders should rethink their strategy. I'm not saying nuclear is the only way to go, but is sure seems like a good enough interim measure.

Meanwhile, radioactives and respective technology are my bet for mid-term financial investments.

Monday 3 March 2008

Zakaj pri nas sploh ni zabavno hoditi na volišče

Osebno menim, da je smiselno, da grem volit, pa če je to za lokalne, državne, predsedniške volitve ali pa za še naslednji nepotreben referendum.
Ne vem, morda bi imel slabo vest, ko država zapravi 2,5 mio € za volitve, potem pa nikogar ni na volišče... Morda pa vseeno upam, da bo moj glas povzročil nekaj dobrega, ali pa vsaj manj slabega...
Kakršen koli že razlog, jaz na volišče grem praktično vedno. Če se prav spomnim, sem enkrat izpustil en referendum, ker se mi je zdel pa res že tako neumen, da iz čiste zlobe nisem šel.

Letošnje leto bo leto parlamentarnih volitev. Kakšno veselje!!! Nekateri si iz čiste prevzetnosti napovedujejo največjo zmago v zgodovini naše ljube državice, drugi tiho upajo, da si bodo povrnili vsaj nekaj nekdanje slave. Spet tretji iščejo najprimernejšo žrtev, ki jim bo omogočila politično preživetje ter po možnosti spet pomembne položaje, na katerih bodo uživali v dobrinah, ki jih prinese davkoplačevalski denar.

Ampak to ni razlog, da sem se lotil tegale pisanja. Če sem morda prvi dve rundi volitev še verjel, da volim neko resnično opcijo, sem danes prepričan brez najmanjše sence dvoma, da je popolnoma vseeno, za koga bom volil. Čeprav so se nekateri trudili malo bolj, drugi malo manj, imamo danes v naši državici še vedno stanje, ko je bolj pomembno, da gre stvar v "moj žep", kot pa da bi se trezno odločil za dejansko najboljšega ponudnika. V medijih zelo popularne tujke na to temo namenoma izpuščam. Govorim seveda o žepih naših vrlih funkcionarjev in njihovih "priležnic" (v tisočerih oblikah, ki jih ta beseda premore). Da se ne bomo napačno razumeli: niso vsi pokvarjeni do kosti pa še nazaj. Samo velika večina. Če bi se vsi ti veseljaki odločili, da bodo za pet let prenehali skrbeti samo za svoje žepe ter resnično začeli delati za dobro države, podjetja, svoje ustanove, ipd., sem prepričan, da bi bil slovenski BDP v teh istih petih letih zagotovo vsaj dvakratnik današnjega, spotoma pa bi se še znebili precejšnjega dela socialnih težav, ki nas danes težijo, v prihodnosti pa nas bodo še bolj. Pet let gospodje in gospe. Morda bi bilo vredno razmisliti, saj ste si že dovolj nagrabili. Aja, pozabljam: nikoli ni dovolj...

Uf, spet sem povsem zašel s poti. Zakaj torej mislim, da je popolnoma vseeno, za koga volim?
Prišel sem do spoznanja, da so se naši vrli politiki sicer razbili na različne stranke, stopili na nasprotne bregove, ampak svojega načina mišljenja pa niso zamenjali. Le prišli smo do stanja, ko je zmagoviti "opciji" postalo težko sestaviti dobro delujoč aparat, ker ima pač na voljo precej manjše število dobrih kadrov, kot pa včasih, ko nam je vladala ena stranka. Vsi drugi, ki na volitvah ne dobijo največjega dela kolača so potisnjeni v kot, iz katerega samo še prestrašeno bevskajo v "grdega volka", ki grozi, da jih bo pojedel, na tak ali drugačen način. Ja, tudi tisti, ki se pretvarjajo, da so šli v "koalicijo". Ne me basat!
Eh, včasih je nasprotna opcija šla na Goli otok, danes pa bevska v parlamentu. Kaj natančno se je torej spremenilo? Naj me kdo spomni, lepo prosim.

Naši vrli velmožje se boste počasi morali naučiti, da ni vse, kar naredi vlada, zanič, kot tudi ni vse, kar predlaga opozicija, zanič. Predvsem pa bi bil morda počasi čas, da se začnete zares truditi za državo, kateri vladate. Ne pa, da gledam dva, morda tri ministre, ki se res trudijo, pa jih najprej zatolčejo že lastni kolegi v vladi, nato parlament, malo še sindikati, če pa vse to ne zaleže, se pa razpiše še en idiotski referendum. Prosim, da prenehate žaliti mojo inteligenco. Lepo. Z malo smetane na vrhu? Sladkane smetane?

In če morda nadaljujem v istem duhu, zakaj hudiča se vedno vsi sklicujete na konstruktivnost (no, pa sem bil prisiljen uporabiti tujko)? Če pa je potem ne premorete niti za eno trohico? Bevsk, bevsk. Vključno z "zmagovalcem", samo da ta dela "groar, groar". No, pred volitvami se običajno violine zamenjajo, pa glavni joka, kako so ga vsi ovirali, ostali pa mu medtem mečejo opeke v glavo. Kako bi se smejal, če ne bi bilo vse skupaj žalostno. Ne, saj "žalostno" ni prava beseda, ampak se trenutno boljše, bolj ostre ne spomnim. In tega je bilo sedaj že koliko, 5 ponovitev?

Dejansko bi nekoč rad na našem političnem prizorišču videl igralce, ki bodo dejansko pomagali ustvarjati boljše življenje za vse nas. Saj ni treba, da so na volitvah absolutni zmagovalci, samo malo pomagajo naj, namesto ustaljenega bevskanja. No, če dobro pomislim, ena taka skupina morda celo obstaja, tako, površno pogledano. Ampak pri njih mi pa program ni všeč.

In kje je zdaj tu demokracija, če tako ali tako volim enake med enakimi? Sploh mislim, da je ta izraz povsem neustrezen za našo politično ureditev. Mi nimamo demokracije. Imamo strankokracijo, kar pa je precej drugače. Kdaj smo že nazadnje šli pod vaško lipo roke dvigovat?

Kje sem že ostal? Ah, saj res: letos mi res ne bo zabavno iti na volišče...

Monday 4 February 2008

The dreaded 0x8004011D Outlook error status (solution)

I just recently got this error message from my Outlook 2007 (version doesn't matter). The error came out of the blue, I used Outlook without any problems on friday, but when I came to work on monday, it wouldn't connect any more. Great! What a fine way to start a work week.
Anyway, I searched all around the net for solution to this problem and the problems that followed this one with none of the search hits revealing much information about solutions, so I decided to write up my experience and possible steps to solve the issues.

Read on to learn how to fix "Error 0x8004011D server not available" problem:

Ok, so this seems to be some sort of glitch in Outlook <--> Exchange server connection where a particular client will loose all chances of connecting successfully to the server while all other clients continue to work normally. Well, the ratio of working / non-working clients can vary a lot even to the point where no client can connect, but then you can be sure the problem is on the server :). Note that multiple versions of Exchange server and Outlook client are affected so the suggested steps might help you even if you're not using the same versions as I do. While browsing through the search hits, I even found cases with Office XP having this problem.

The possible solutions that I found on the internet are:
1) Run Office setup with "Repair" option
This option is supposed to fix broken registry entries thus solving your problems.
2) Install the latest service pack for Office
Well, I cant really justify this one, but a new service pack was just available so I thought I might give it a try. Without success of course.
3) Restart the exchange services / server
Even the best software sometimes looses it and restarting can help...
Of course, only your company sysop can perform this one.

4) Run the following utilities on the exchange server (for all data files):
eseutil /p for repair
eseutil /d defrag
isinteg -s servername -test alltests

Same as above, you'll have to ask nicely :D
This one is meant to fix possible defects in the database restoring it to usable state.

5) Create a new Outlook profile (this one finally worked for me)
If your profile registry settings are so borked that neither of the first two options helps, you'll have to create a new profile thus creating a completely new set of settings which should help. I hope you didn't reply to too many mails while waiting for the problem to go away. I managed to gather some 50 of them, so I'll also add some information about how to transfer your uncommitted work to the new profile.



OK, these are just about all the possible solutions I was able to find on solving this fine "feature". But when I went for option 5, it still took me a couple of hours to get it right so I thing it's only fair to tell you what you need to be mindful of:

1) At first you were probably just hoping for the problem to go away so you just kept using the account in offline mode generating dosens of e-mails, new calendar entries, tasks, etc...
First, you need to back this up somewhere. I just used my archive folders for that, manually moving the items affected into some (separately created) folders. I used the built-in export functions for calendar and task items. Jou can create a new .pst file or use an existing one, as you like. Just make sure you back up whatever you did since you lost connection.

2) Now you have to make a new profile. I first attempted to create an additional profile to try the functionality, but had plenty of problems with that. Here's why:
It seems that the "Mail" control panel applet in certain scenarios likes to create a new offline folder file. Such scenario could be for example you selecting a custom offline folder file location in the advanced settings of the profile creation dialog. However, this might cause some additional trouble: When attempting to connect to Exchange server for the first time, you will be greeted with a message saying "unable to open your default e-mail folders. You must connect to your Microsoft Exchange Server computer with the current profile before you can synchronize your folders with your offline folder". When this happens, you're so out of luck. The only option for you is to delete all the Mail profiles and then create a brand new one. Using the same settings of course. Oh well....

3) After creating the new profile and successfully logging into the server for the first time, wait a bit for the files to synchronize with the server.

4) Restore the data you previously backed up from your defective profile

Instead of writing up a proper closing, I'll just say this: Hope this little guide helps and if it does, please feel free to click one of the fine shopping tips to the right -->  :-)

Wednesday 30 January 2008

Serves me right

After posting the first few articles, I decided it was time for me to let my friends know of my blog. So I sent out an e-mail to a few select people. Among these people was also a real journalist whom I greatly respect for his knowledge. He was actually the only person I sent the mail to that is not my close friend as such, but I did think some of the things that I wrote might interest him.
That said, I got a reply from him fast (as usual), which was (at first) quite hard to understand for me. This is what it said (references to real people and company removed):
Nice, really. If (my online paper) were to go away after (my boss) leaves for good, and we all start up a new site, write me. :) If you want a place to rant, I would be glad to post your stuff.

That said, don't mention the new site to anyone yet please.
As I said, I'm not a native english speaker, and I also don't interpret indirect statements like this one very well, so it took quite a while for me to decide that the first paragraph of the reply was actually sarcastic. Of course, there's quite a high possibility that I (again) totally misinterpreted what he actually meant, but that's not why I'm writing this post.
What made me think and decide to write this post was the ranting part of the first paragraph.
I already know that my writing style looks mostly like ranting. But the trouble is, I'm not actually ranting when I write my articles, mails or whatever it may be. The only article in this blog that might be an actual rant was the Vista one and even while writing that I really didn't feel any negative emotions.
I'd like to think that my posts might be better classified as constructive criticism, rather than rants. To make things clearer: rant = a post where the writer complains about something and vents his / her negative emotions about the subject while doing so. Constructive criticism = writing where the writer exposes some lacking details and tries to suggest a better path to solve the problems. This is my interpretation of these two terms which might be entirely incorrect. I actually never looked up "rant" in a dictionary. Maybe it's time I should... :D OK, so I just did; took me about 5 secs. Seems "rant" needs not be all negative, just passionate. But in the end it results in rambling which would suggest that (if I really do rant) the quality / value of my posts is close to zero. I'd like to think that's not the case.
That said, I started this blog also to gradually learn to improve my writing style to look more optimistic. I AM an optimist, always trying to improve the world around me. As futile as my attempts may be I will not give up on that. That also makes me a hopeless idealist, doesn't it? Sometimes people also do things that are just plain right instead of doing only those that are more profitable (short term). If I can sway one person to make such a decision once, the purpose of this blog will be fulfilled.

The only thing for me to do here is to try make my posts actually look optimistic and full of positive energy. But this will not be an easy thing for me to do. I just wish the learning curve wasn't too steep :D

Sunday 20 January 2008

Prodaja Telekoma - zgodba o uspehu ali neumnosti

Za začetek morda rahlo filozofsko vprašanje v zvezi s prodajami državnih lastniških deležev v podjetjih: osebno menim, da država nima ustavne pravice lastiti si kakršnega koli deleža v katerem koli slovenskem podjetju. Vsi ti deleži so namreč ostanek socialističnega "vse je naše (ljudsko)". Torej lastnina vsakega slovenskega državljana posebej. Ne glede na starost. Ja, vrednosti certifikatov, določene glede na starost državljana, so bile nekaj najbolj nezaslišano nepoštenega, kar sem doživel. Ampak vseeno - takratna vlada je vsaj del državnega premoženja vrnila ljudstvu v obliki konkretnih lastniških deležev, kar je, recimo, pohvale vredno.
No, da dokončam z začeto poanto: državna uprava po mojem mnenju nima pravice razpolagati z nobenim deležem v nobenem podjetju, razen seveda v tistih, katerih deleži so bili dejansko kupljeni od ustanovitve republike Slovenije naprej.

Ker pa državna uprava vseeno razpolaga s temi lastniškimi deleži, bi si drznil ponuditi rahlo drugačno razmišljanje o prodajah državnega premoženja.
Pri prodaji državnega deleža v NKBM se je pokazalo, da pri zanimivi ceni lahko državljani Slovenije iz obtoka umaknejo znatno količino denarja. Če se pravilno spomnim, je bilo tega denarja okoli 750 mio €, za ponujen delež, vreden 150 mio €. Po uvrstitvi delnic na borzo pa se je ob vseh menjavah lastništva obrnilo verjetno še nekajkrat toliko denarja.
Obstranska pripomba: kljub vsem kritikam finančnega ministra za slabo izbrano ceno delnice, se vsaj jaz s tako izbrano ceno kar strinjam. Pozitivni učinki, čeprav nekateri le kratkoročni, so segali od novoletnega darila države državljanom (delnice so bile dejansko vredne tudi do 50% več), začasno oživitvijo trgovanja ljubljanske borze, itd, itd. Edini problem tukaj je, da so bili vsi ti pozitivni učinki le za tiste, ki so vplačali ali že imajo vložke v vrednostne papirje, to pa žal nikakor
niso socialno najšibkejši. Vendar s takimi operacijami pač njim ne moremo pomagati, ne?

Sedaj pa na Telekom: vlada RS se je torej očitno odločila, da bo prodala svoj delež v tem podjetju. To je sicer pravilna odločitev, saj država res ne bi smela imeti znatnih deležev v nobenem podjetju. Vendar pa me močno moti način, kako se je naša vlada lotila prodaje deleža v tem podjetju.
Najprej kratko mnenje o telekomu kot podjetju: osebno menim, da bi vlada morala pred izvedbo kakršne koli prodaje, podjetje razbiti najmanj na SiOL, Mobitel ter Telekom kot operater fiksne telefonije. Stanje, kakršno je sedaj še vedno povzroča prevelike konkurenčne nepravilnosti v slovenskem trgu telekomunikacij. Urad za varstvo konkurence, kar se mene tiče, na tem področju ni vreden svojega imena. In ni bil vreden svojega imena praktično odkar sta nastala Mobitel in SiOL. Zna pa komplicirati zadeve tam, kjer jih ni treba...


Uf, dolg uvod... Skrajni čas, da se končno lotim naslovne teme.
Prodati ali ne prodati - to niti ni vprašanje. Vendar pa naša državna uprava napačno razmišlja o tej prodaji. Če nekaj imaš, je najlažje to preprosto prodati. V blagajno pade nekaj cekinov, prihodnost podjetja pa je prepuščena novemu lastniku. Sem videl že kar nekaj primerov, ko je novi lastnik dejansko ukinil nakupljeno podjetje oziroma je obdržal kvečjemu proizvodne kapacitete, znanje pa ga sploh ni zanimalo. Glede na ceno delovne sile pri nas je samo vprašanje časa, kdaj bodo tudi proizvodne kapacitete postale predrage in bomo izgubili še tista uboga delovna mesta.
Raje razmišljajmo, kako bi naredili, da bi taka podjetja postala igralci, ki bi se jih današnji potencialni kupci bali. Tudi to je namreč mogoče. Telekom je danes vreden cca 2,2 mrd €. 49% delež, ki ga država prodaja torej znaša dobro milijardo €. Tudi to je samo del vsega denarja, ki se je obrnil pri prodaji NKBM.
Moj predlog je torej, da se s prodajo državnega deleža morda še malo počaka. Namesto tega naj podjetje razpiše dokapitalizacijo v višini 1 - 2 mrd €. Primarno pa bi moral biti vir za to dokapitalizacijo fizične osebe. Zakaj?
Ker bi ta dokapitalizacija omogočila, da bi se Telekom Slovenije znatno razširil z nakupom kontrolnih deležev v drugih podjetjih v sosednjih državah. To bi zagotovilo dolgoročno stabilno rast podjetja z znatnim povečanjem dobičkov, ki bi ob ustrezni strategiji omogočali nove in nove prevzeme ter vlaganja v nova podjetja v regiji. Takšna strategija, pravilno predstavljena, bi iz slovenskih vlagateljev zagotovo pridobila potrebna sredstva.
Drugi, trenutno še bolj popularen efekt pa bi bil v dejstvu, da bi iz trga izginila znatna količina denarja. 2 mrd € za gospodarstvo kot je slovensko pomeni kar nekaj, menim, da bi se zaradi "izginotja" tega denarja znatno zmanjšali inflacijski pritiski.
Če pa se je vlada odločila, da nujno hoče prodati tudi svoj delež, potem naj to pač stori po izvedbi dokapitalizacije. V Evropski skupnosti je dovolj interesentov za nakup takega deleža, tudi če ne bi bil več kontrolni.
Dve muhi na en mah.
Ali pa tudi ne...

Friday 4 January 2008

Kaj bo ostalo pa za nas mlade?

Danes sem pri Dnevniku poslušal oziroma gledal prispevek, kako namerava naše pravosodno ministrstvo sprejeti zakon, s katerim bodo povrnili del škode ljudem, ki jih je med drugo svetovno vojno prizadel okupator.
Krasno, naša država spet popravlja krivice, storjene "trpeči" generaciji. Prosim, ne me napačno razumet. Vse spoštovanje borcem za našo svobodo ter povojni generaciji za obnovo naše domovine. Njihove zasluge so nesporno velike, kot je velika krivda sodelujočih z okupatorjem. S tem člankom nikakor nimam namena spodkopavati teh dejstev.
Vendar bi vseeno želel poudariti nekaj dejstev. Najprej o nekaterih ugodnostih, ki jih je navedena generacija že uživala:
1. Zagotovljeno delovno mesto za vsakogar, ki želi delati. Brez nevarnosti za izgubo tega delovnega mesta.
2. To isto delovno mesto brez kakršnih koli pritiskov. Večina je lahko delala točno toliko, kot so želeli. Nič čudnega, da je na koncu plansko gospodarstvo pogorelo...
3. "Brezplačna" finančna injekcija v obliki posojila z nizko fiksno obrestno mero v časih hiperinflacije.
4. Možnost zgodnje upokojitve. Danes je v državi 540.000 upokojencev, mnogi od njih so šli v ta status že pred svojim 50. letom starosti. Česa vsega naša država ne bi naredila, da bi zmanjšala brezposelnost...

Na drugi strani imamo 790.000 delovno aktivnih ljudi. In vsega skupaj 2 milijona prebivalcev. Vsak zaposleni torej mora (super grobo izračunano) vzdrževati 0,68 upokojenca oziroma 2,53 ljudi. Med temi 2,53 je seveda tudi sam, njegovi otroci, upokojenci, nezaposleni, itd. Pri tem pa sploh ne upoštevam, da ima negospodarstvo, torej prav tako vzdrževani ljudje, precejšen delež (cca. 200.000). Nič čudnega, da so naše plače obremenjene preko vseh meja, potem pa na vse skupaj pridejo še takse, trošarine in DDV. Tako čez prst pogledano je na koncu vsak zaposleni obdavčen približno 80%. No, tisti z najnižjimi dohodki kakih 20% manj, ampak vseeno. Noro!

Vendar tudi to ni razlog, da danes pišem ta članek. Moja jeza je usmerjena na zelo preprosto enačbo:
FVoa = PMT [((1 + i)n - 1) / i]
No, enačba sama niti ni kriva, kriv je njen rezultat ter napovedi, da bodo naše pokojnine zanemarljive. To je namreč enačba za prihodnjo vrednost anuitet. Torej, če vplačuješ PMT denarja pri obrestni meri "i" "n" obdobij, boš na koncu imel toliko in toliko denarja. Pa naredimo en preprost izračun za povprečno slovensko bruto plačo 1200€ in predvideno delovno dobo 40 let, ki pa se je v zadnjih letih tako ali tako še podaljšala. Vsaka bruto plača je obremenjena s 15,5% prispevkom za pokojnino (to je samo davek iz plače, potem pa se temu doda še davek na plačo, ki ga plača delodajalec, vendar tega ne bomo upoštevali, ker naj ga leta 2010 ne bi bilo več). Znesek obremenitve mesečne plače torej znaša 186€, letno torej 2232€. Recimo, da lahko z uporabo vzajemnih skladov dosežemo povprečno letno stopnjo donosa 6%. Vzajemni sklad s tako nizko stopnjo je že kar težko najti, vendar recimo, da večino tega denarja varčujemo v "bolj varnih" skladih, ki imajo nekoliko nižjo donosnost.
Rezultat enačbe za 40 let varčevanja torej znaša:
345.428€ = 2232€ [((1,06)40 - 1) / 0,06]
Torej ugotovimo, da bi pri današnji obremenitvi plače in delovni dobi 40 let na koncu
imeli privarčevanih 345.500€. Pri enaki obrestni meri bi to potem zneslo skoraj 21.000€ obresti na leto in torej 1.800€ obresti na mesec. S tem, da se glavnica ne bi niti zmanjševala, kar je velika prednost pred pokojnino, ki ob smrti zapade.

Upam, da smo sedaj malo bližje mojem razlogu za ta članek. Jasno, da je pravično in logično, da delovno aktivni ljudje podpiramo upokojence in ostale. Prav tako je pomembna odprava starih krivic.
Po drugi strani pa en preprost izračun pokaže, da si tudi mi mladi zaslužimo nekaj več. Kot oče dveh otrok lahko povem, da mi država ne pomaga kaj preveč niti pri vzdrževanju in vzgoji teh otrok, kot mi tudi ni pomagala pri nakupu skromnega stanovanja, v katerem moja družina živi.

Morda bi bilo prav, da se kdo spomni tudi na nas. V nasprotnem primeru čez kako generacijo ali dve ne bo več dovolj delovno aktivnih ljudi, da bi lahko podpirali nas, ki bomo takrat "uživali" pokojnino.