Tighten your belt, so more heavy stuff with another of my central themes coming up.
Looking back, the expectations when my mother was born was that she would grow up, work, marry, have children and die in the same village. In the immediate surrounds of that village there would be some half dozen families she was related to and there would be several more families that had direct connections to her own family. Then came two WW's.
Contrast that with a child born today in a city. The expectation now is that the child would have serial parents and half siblings, would move locations, if not cities, several times before leaving schooling, would live on their own at a distant university and then moving on to take up a series of careers based any where around the world, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Buenes Aires or Montreal. In their home city it is unlikely they would have any direct kin, would have only fleeting visit with blood relatives and only have connections within their own network of contacts.
This is the difference a hundred years makes. Social structure has changed dramatically but the way we relate to it has not kept pace. An urgent review of how we interact and relate to each other is long over due.
Contrary to all the hype and talking up, what keeps us on the straight and narrow is not ever more government surveillance, checks and controls. No, what keeps us, the vast majority, on the straight and narrow is the fear of being caught and found out about by our peers and the social ostracisation that would surely follow.
In these amorphous cities we now live in there is no need to exercise self-restraint, we move anonymous amongst crowds of strangers that have scarce connection to the city or even the country and certainly not to us, so anything can go, and does.
This is coupled with the absence of any revere for authority. Once, your life's fortunes or opportunities and that equally of your families were strongly influenced by those having authority over you, whether bosses, clergy, local bigwig, the local policeman or councillors. Get into their bad books and your path would be made hard if not blocked. That has all been swept away, we are free agents, beholdened to no-one and free to choose as we please without consequence, or so it would seem.
Can't put back the clock, and who would want to, but we do have to make re-adjustments if we are to avoid that totalitarian state.
It is a large leap, but strangely enough, we need to replace centralised government and national authorities with local governance. Not the parody of local government we have now, where the locals talk but the financial, legal and delivery framework is all dictated and controlled by central government. It matters little what 'local politics' may decide, central government have all the reins to ensure their chosen way will prevail. Not conducive to meaningful local politics able to make a difference and to be accountable to those that put them there.
We have to get to a position where local people make local decisions and have budgetary and deliverance responsibility on how services are to be provided to their fellows. To make meaningful decisions as to whether services are centrally supplied or locally sourced. Such a system, to be a real system, has to contemplate failure, local decisions get it wrong, finances spiral out of control or services provided fall below acceptable minimum standards. Some central direction is still essential, to interpret the minimum compliant application of an EU directive, to promulgate 'best practice' or to establish norms of costs or acceptable standards. The expectation is that the provision of community services from say Norfolk, Midlands, South West or London would be noticeably different and would actually reflect the different local character and locations. No longer would cosmopolitan London civil servants apply their middle-class values uniformly across the country. Rural would be a different life-style to city, manufacturing areas different in feel to start-up office parks.
To re-awaken our people, they have to know that decisions that will impact on their life-style expectations are made locally and they have to get involved if they want the 'right' decisions for them made for the future comfort of their family. That people in re-locating encounter different levels of service and support expectations is inescapable and may well be desirable.
Saturday 12 December 2009
Saturday 5 December 2009
Saunter to Totalitarianism
Now for some heavy going. This lies central to my thinking.
Anything that happens and the chorus erupts, the government should do this or there should a law against that. At an alarming rate of increase we are accelerating into a Totalitarian society where the States intention is to control and contain the limits of each individuals actions and lives.
There is an alternative, possibly scary, that would enrich our life experience. We each, every one of us, accepts that we are fully responsible our own actions and are personally responsible for any foreseeable deleterious effects on others around us and acknowledge a liability to make amends to any that suffer as a consequence of our actions.
The appeal of Totalitarianism is diffuse and pervasive. We are hard-wired to defer to recognised authority. Behind it we become distanced from any decision or action, as we are not in direct line of control, others do it on our behalf. We can avoid all the awkward face to face situations of push and take resolution of disagreement if not conflict, leaving it to 'them'. Should those in control restrict or limit our own actions, then that is fair enough as we are all controlled by the same universal rules equally. Until of course your own peace or profit is threatened when an individual solution will be demanded. There is the rub, we as individuals are so very diverse and creative in finding wriggle out escape routes for any one rule meant to contain us. With each successful wriggle yet another line of rules or restriction or conferring away of more power has to be enforced. Yet the shout of 'I am different and require special consideration' just gets louder and louder. I believe any Totalitarian solution is ultimately doomed because those that seek to impose will always be out-numbered by those seeking to evade. There is not one single consensus position that can hold the self-interests all it attempts to bind.
So the alternate proposal is scrap all laws and replace them all with one simple law that applies to each and every individual, entity or association. Each one is responsible and liable to all others that knowingly might be adversely affected or inconvenienced by any planned action. Idealistic? Yes. Simplistic? Yes absurdly so but it does gives a window into an alternate way of managing ourselves.
We take responsibility for our own actions and have to look and have regard for those around us that might be aggrieved or adversely affected by the action. This does not mean you can only exercise an action when no one is disadvantaged, that is an impossibility, there will always be someone worse off as a consequence. What it does mean is that you have to have due regard and give weighted consideration to its effects on others, knowing that your peers will be judging if you get it wrong.
So get out of the ivory tower and take stock of those you live amongst as to what standards they think applies in today's society. Self regulation is so much more flexible, efficient, self-correcting, rapid response to changing circumstances than laws and rules bound in statutes.
Anything that happens and the chorus erupts, the government should do this or there should a law against that. At an alarming rate of increase we are accelerating into a Totalitarian society where the States intention is to control and contain the limits of each individuals actions and lives.
There is an alternative, possibly scary, that would enrich our life experience. We each, every one of us, accepts that we are fully responsible our own actions and are personally responsible for any foreseeable deleterious effects on others around us and acknowledge a liability to make amends to any that suffer as a consequence of our actions.
The appeal of Totalitarianism is diffuse and pervasive. We are hard-wired to defer to recognised authority. Behind it we become distanced from any decision or action, as we are not in direct line of control, others do it on our behalf. We can avoid all the awkward face to face situations of push and take resolution of disagreement if not conflict, leaving it to 'them'. Should those in control restrict or limit our own actions, then that is fair enough as we are all controlled by the same universal rules equally. Until of course your own peace or profit is threatened when an individual solution will be demanded. There is the rub, we as individuals are so very diverse and creative in finding wriggle out escape routes for any one rule meant to contain us. With each successful wriggle yet another line of rules or restriction or conferring away of more power has to be enforced. Yet the shout of 'I am different and require special consideration' just gets louder and louder. I believe any Totalitarian solution is ultimately doomed because those that seek to impose will always be out-numbered by those seeking to evade. There is not one single consensus position that can hold the self-interests all it attempts to bind.
So the alternate proposal is scrap all laws and replace them all with one simple law that applies to each and every individual, entity or association. Each one is responsible and liable to all others that knowingly might be adversely affected or inconvenienced by any planned action. Idealistic? Yes. Simplistic? Yes absurdly so but it does gives a window into an alternate way of managing ourselves.
We take responsibility for our own actions and have to look and have regard for those around us that might be aggrieved or adversely affected by the action. This does not mean you can only exercise an action when no one is disadvantaged, that is an impossibility, there will always be someone worse off as a consequence. What it does mean is that you have to have due regard and give weighted consideration to its effects on others, knowing that your peers will be judging if you get it wrong.
So get out of the ivory tower and take stock of those you live amongst as to what standards they think applies in today's society. Self regulation is so much more flexible, efficient, self-correcting, rapid response to changing circumstances than laws and rules bound in statutes.
Wednesday 2 December 2009
Right to Plunder
Time to roll up the sleeves and get serious.
Our attitude to this Planet has to change, it is not an infinite resource that can be plundered at will and used as a stock-pile to make money out of. We know enough now to understand it is limited and our greed is, or already has, taken us to the point where the end of the earth's resources can be counted.
Already we are talking of running out of oil but that is just a for instance. Whichever way you look there are just too many of us all wanting our share in these limited resources. Gas, rare metals, water, fish, unless it is renewable, it is under threat and has to be in doubt.
So we are not just talking about the buried minerals nor just the flora and fauna that feeds on the surface of our planet but the atmosphere we breath and depend on to create our climate. All is finite, limited and under threat from our continued abuse of our globe. Too many of us expecting more than our share. We have to change tacks. Time for us to accept that we are mere custodians of this planet we live on and we have a responsibility and obligation to our sons and daughters that will inherit the Earth we pass onto them.
It is for us to make sure the Earth we pass on is in no worse a condition than the Earth we inherited. We don't own it we are just temporary custodians.
In principle, if we take something out of our planet that will not replenish itself, if we spoil part of the planets infrastructure that cannot repair itself then we have to make amends to the future generations. If we take out from the planet a resource that will need time to recoup or we spoil virgin soil, these are not free commodities, they have to be paid for, upfront before the event, not a reluctant minimal gesture after the event and after the profits have been taken. Want to take a non-renewable, fine but first pay the full costs of reinstatement to as was beforehand. Even the renewables replacement will have to be paid for first. So pay for the cost of conserving stocks and attendant enforcement before you take your 'free' fish.
Nothing is perfect, so we don't know the full implications of a spoilt or lost resource 50 years down the line but we can best guess the implications as of now. Nor can we fully monetise all the implications but again we can best guess, taking a median position between extremes and all out in the public peer-reviewed. That's a better starting point than the present free-for-all. This conversion into money for the act of spoiling some aspect of our planet for future generations is not a government get out of jail free card. The money has to be ploughed straight back into a relevant conservation or remedial project. To make some amends for the mess we are currently living with. We have to take serious now this planet we live and on start to look after it in a meaningful way.
This principle spreads wider and relates not just to the planet, its biosphere, flora and fauna but also to the accumulated history of man's activities on the earth. The rich mosaic of artifacts we inherited needs to be conserved for future generations, for it explains what we are. Not every single scrap that has history marked on it, but those that are lodged as relevant and significant to the place, time or progression. Most of our vast accumulation of detritus from the past will fail the test suggested leaving some room to move forward.
If a property passes the test and is relevant and significant, then those features and their setting deemed so must be preserved, repaired and a new apt use found, with all costs carried by the custodian owner or forfeit their claim. Once every avenue has been explored and there are no viable options, only then can the owner opt for demolition or significant change. As a pre-requisite the owner to pay up-front for a complete 3D and physical archive of those deemed features and settings, reclaimation of all re-usable materials and payment for future proofed archiving of such records, in consideration of the history lost to later generations.
Just to loop back to an earlier post, to turn green soil into a building plot is not a free right that can be issued by the government. It belongs to our future and the least is an up-front payment to remove all evidence of mans intervention and return the soil back to its prior condition. As above such money not trickling into government coffers but put into immediate use to rescue land or a building in peril.
Nothing is for free and an appropriate contribution to the loss for future generations must be made before commercial gain can be taken.
Our attitude to this Planet has to change, it is not an infinite resource that can be plundered at will and used as a stock-pile to make money out of. We know enough now to understand it is limited and our greed is, or already has, taken us to the point where the end of the earth's resources can be counted.
Already we are talking of running out of oil but that is just a for instance. Whichever way you look there are just too many of us all wanting our share in these limited resources. Gas, rare metals, water, fish, unless it is renewable, it is under threat and has to be in doubt.
So we are not just talking about the buried minerals nor just the flora and fauna that feeds on the surface of our planet but the atmosphere we breath and depend on to create our climate. All is finite, limited and under threat from our continued abuse of our globe. Too many of us expecting more than our share. We have to change tacks. Time for us to accept that we are mere custodians of this planet we live on and we have a responsibility and obligation to our sons and daughters that will inherit the Earth we pass onto them.
It is for us to make sure the Earth we pass on is in no worse a condition than the Earth we inherited. We don't own it we are just temporary custodians.
In principle, if we take something out of our planet that will not replenish itself, if we spoil part of the planets infrastructure that cannot repair itself then we have to make amends to the future generations. If we take out from the planet a resource that will need time to recoup or we spoil virgin soil, these are not free commodities, they have to be paid for, upfront before the event, not a reluctant minimal gesture after the event and after the profits have been taken. Want to take a non-renewable, fine but first pay the full costs of reinstatement to as was beforehand. Even the renewables replacement will have to be paid for first. So pay for the cost of conserving stocks and attendant enforcement before you take your 'free' fish.
Nothing is perfect, so we don't know the full implications of a spoilt or lost resource 50 years down the line but we can best guess the implications as of now. Nor can we fully monetise all the implications but again we can best guess, taking a median position between extremes and all out in the public peer-reviewed. That's a better starting point than the present free-for-all. This conversion into money for the act of spoiling some aspect of our planet for future generations is not a government get out of jail free card. The money has to be ploughed straight back into a relevant conservation or remedial project. To make some amends for the mess we are currently living with. We have to take serious now this planet we live and on start to look after it in a meaningful way.
This principle spreads wider and relates not just to the planet, its biosphere, flora and fauna but also to the accumulated history of man's activities on the earth. The rich mosaic of artifacts we inherited needs to be conserved for future generations, for it explains what we are. Not every single scrap that has history marked on it, but those that are lodged as relevant and significant to the place, time or progression. Most of our vast accumulation of detritus from the past will fail the test suggested leaving some room to move forward.
If a property passes the test and is relevant and significant, then those features and their setting deemed so must be preserved, repaired and a new apt use found, with all costs carried by the custodian owner or forfeit their claim. Once every avenue has been explored and there are no viable options, only then can the owner opt for demolition or significant change. As a pre-requisite the owner to pay up-front for a complete 3D and physical archive of those deemed features and settings, reclaimation of all re-usable materials and payment for future proofed archiving of such records, in consideration of the history lost to later generations.
Just to loop back to an earlier post, to turn green soil into a building plot is not a free right that can be issued by the government. It belongs to our future and the least is an up-front payment to remove all evidence of mans intervention and return the soil back to its prior condition. As above such money not trickling into government coffers but put into immediate use to rescue land or a building in peril.
Nothing is for free and an appropriate contribution to the loss for future generations must be made before commercial gain can be taken.
Thursday 26 November 2009
Joint Enterprise
Cannot but comment on Panorama's 'Joint Enterprise' piece that highlighted the Police's enthusiastic use of a 300 year old law where a by-stander member of a group is as liable for a murder as the person carrying out the murder. Beyond the headline, it went on to imply that it might be necessary to prove that an individual was a member of a group and the group was known to that individual to be prone to violence, before the event.
It is self-evidently a nonsense law. A member of a group may very well be an accomplice to an event but that is a world apart from being treated as equally guilty to the actual persons that inflicted harm likely to cause death or injury. To stand by, watch and not intervene is a crime, yes, but not comparable and equal to actually crossing the line and actually inflicting injury. There is a huge difference between thoughts which may, or may not, encompass intent and the actual physical realisation. Who knows what might stay the hand of intent before its enactment? Who really knows what intent was in mind or whether there was some other innocent explanation for being with the only gang around?
It is deeply worrying that the Police have distanced themselves from the Society they are charged with policing. It used to be that they were of the society, were members of it and mixed freely within it.
That they can revert to an obsolete law, ignore the blatant injustice explicit within it and promote it as a way to successfully target street crime shows all too clearly the distance they have placed between themselves and the society they set out to control.
Have they lost all sight of the mechanics of deprived areas, have they no comprehension of youth culture or the absence of choice for those without means?
This willingness to use a manifestly unfair law that defies the common man's comprehension can only result in further alienation of all those not born middle-class, white and from a nice area.
It is self-evidently a nonsense law. A member of a group may very well be an accomplice to an event but that is a world apart from being treated as equally guilty to the actual persons that inflicted harm likely to cause death or injury. To stand by, watch and not intervene is a crime, yes, but not comparable and equal to actually crossing the line and actually inflicting injury. There is a huge difference between thoughts which may, or may not, encompass intent and the actual physical realisation. Who knows what might stay the hand of intent before its enactment? Who really knows what intent was in mind or whether there was some other innocent explanation for being with the only gang around?
It is deeply worrying that the Police have distanced themselves from the Society they are charged with policing. It used to be that they were of the society, were members of it and mixed freely within it.
That they can revert to an obsolete law, ignore the blatant injustice explicit within it and promote it as a way to successfully target street crime shows all too clearly the distance they have placed between themselves and the society they set out to control.
Have they lost all sight of the mechanics of deprived areas, have they no comprehension of youth culture or the absence of choice for those without means?
This willingness to use a manifestly unfair law that defies the common man's comprehension can only result in further alienation of all those not born middle-class, white and from a nice area.
Harry Brown
Reassured by the great British public, 66% thought it almost fantastic, we went to see Harry Brown. A very bleak film. Fine, bleak is good, some of the toughest social issues lurk in these dark corners.
Expectations running high, we lurch through one ludicrous implausible plot shift to another as one hackneyed cliché after another, after another is trotted out. There are occasional hints of originality with a fresh take but these, after the initial languid absorbing scene setting opening, never develop or find any legs. Instead it accelerates into cheap kicks with gratuitous drug taking, violence and violence against women. Whatever creative drive it started out with was quickly used up and there were no reserve Plan B's to call on. Even the final crescendo of violence cannot be left as a climatic end with three, in teach yourself detail, dead and two in doubt, but, has to whimper off into a limp-wristed apology of a soppy nonsensical soft landing.
Oh Micheal Caine, that you gave authority to and your great performance should have been wasted on such unmitigated dross.
Expectations running high, we lurch through one ludicrous implausible plot shift to another as one hackneyed cliché after another, after another is trotted out. There are occasional hints of originality with a fresh take but these, after the initial languid absorbing scene setting opening, never develop or find any legs. Instead it accelerates into cheap kicks with gratuitous drug taking, violence and violence against women. Whatever creative drive it started out with was quickly used up and there were no reserve Plan B's to call on. Even the final crescendo of violence cannot be left as a climatic end with three, in teach yourself detail, dead and two in doubt, but, has to whimper off into a limp-wristed apology of a soppy nonsensical soft landing.
Oh Micheal Caine, that you gave authority to and your great performance should have been wasted on such unmitigated dross.
Monday 23 November 2009
More Balls for BBC
Whilst I have it to mind. The justification of the BBC licence fee is simply that it is an exemplar for the entertainment, enlightenment and enrichment capable of delivery by the broadcast media.
Though it has to ensure it reaches its target audiences the BBC should be above populism and viewer ratings. The commercial stations are much better placed to satisfy the ratings war, meet focus groups thoughts and be capable of demonstrating wide viewer acceptance.
The BBC should be about creatively reaching out, showing and exploiting what the new media outlets and dissemination might be capable of.
Unfortunately its seems the BBC is currently obsessed with navel gazing, suckering up to its paymaster and kowtowing to approving committee's positions of least objection.
What they have to get back to, to survive, are strong creative minds able to withstand flack but charged with a zeal to achieve and spread their vision of the new world we have sauntered into. Above all be prepared to address adults in adult terms on adult subjects, without dumbing down or deference to minority positions.
Though it has to ensure it reaches its target audiences the BBC should be above populism and viewer ratings. The commercial stations are much better placed to satisfy the ratings war, meet focus groups thoughts and be capable of demonstrating wide viewer acceptance.
The BBC should be about creatively reaching out, showing and exploiting what the new media outlets and dissemination might be capable of.
Unfortunately its seems the BBC is currently obsessed with navel gazing, suckering up to its paymaster and kowtowing to approving committee's positions of least objection.
What they have to get back to, to survive, are strong creative minds able to withstand flack but charged with a zeal to achieve and spread their vision of the new world we have sauntered into. Above all be prepared to address adults in adult terms on adult subjects, without dumbing down or deference to minority positions.
Tuesday 17 November 2009
Strictly BBC
We are told repeatedly in Strictly Come Dancing that the public vote counts but we never get to hear a single word of how many votes are cast or for whom. Is it by just one vote or ten thousand? We are never told.
It is clear that telephone polls are very big revenue earners and make significant contributions to production costs. This year having reduced the telephone poll period from 24 hours to just some 20 minutes, what difference has this made in the number of telephone votes logged? We don't know. We don't know whether just a small handful of voters decide the outcome or whether the whole nation is hooked and votes or just hangs there unable to get through in the small window of time. We don't know whether just a few celebrities get all the votes or whether the votes are well spread, whether a celebrities popularity changes over the weeks or there is a hardcore of supporters. We are told nothing, not the the total of valid votes, not the percentage spread, nothing, except keep making your calls cause they really are important!
Now of course it would be hideously embarrassing to be the only celebrity that never got a single vote, but they have agreed to enter a 'competition' and that's what happens in competitions, one comes first and one ends up last.
This is the crux of it, it presented as a competition, it is repeatedly presented as a competition where the viewers telephone votes count and makes a difference. It breaks viewers trust not to offer any feedback at any level and to not give credence to the message that your vote really makes a difference.
In the feedback vacuum, cynicism will flourish that it is only about revenue generation, that it is all pre-orchestrated by the production team and that the judges work to pre-planned scripts will fester and grow.
BBC, be worthy of your viewers trust.
It is clear that telephone polls are very big revenue earners and make significant contributions to production costs. This year having reduced the telephone poll period from 24 hours to just some 20 minutes, what difference has this made in the number of telephone votes logged? We don't know. We don't know whether just a small handful of voters decide the outcome or whether the whole nation is hooked and votes or just hangs there unable to get through in the small window of time. We don't know whether just a few celebrities get all the votes or whether the votes are well spread, whether a celebrities popularity changes over the weeks or there is a hardcore of supporters. We are told nothing, not the the total of valid votes, not the percentage spread, nothing, except keep making your calls cause they really are important!
Now of course it would be hideously embarrassing to be the only celebrity that never got a single vote, but they have agreed to enter a 'competition' and that's what happens in competitions, one comes first and one ends up last.
This is the crux of it, it presented as a competition, it is repeatedly presented as a competition where the viewers telephone votes count and makes a difference. It breaks viewers trust not to offer any feedback at any level and to not give credence to the message that your vote really makes a difference.
In the feedback vacuum, cynicism will flourish that it is only about revenue generation, that it is all pre-orchestrated by the production team and that the judges work to pre-planned scripts will fester and grow.
BBC, be worthy of your viewers trust.
Wednesday 11 November 2009
Tax, salaries and rewards
Money, we all need it, some more than most. So whilst we are talking about £45M winners its time to think and draw four strands together.
Thread 1
Success has to be rewarded and we all need aspirational dreams, dreams that can take us out of the drudgery of every day life and gives us the hope of escape. At what point does a salary or bonus become unacceptable, £1M or £2M or £5M what about £10M how about £50M pa, so excessive as to be condemned by everyone as too ludicrous to contemplate?
We want rewards, we need to dream but where to draw a line, a line which supports a cohesive society and where those without are tolerant of those with an excess. No one wants a polarised society, even the most rich need those without to provide for and give support to their beyond dreams lifestyles and those without have to have the hope that they too can get rich or else they will abandon hope and just take what they don't have.
So, how many second homes, how many luxury yachts, how many private planes, how many private islands, how many years without toil are necessary to justify, adequate reward? When one man (eg Bill Gates) has greater wealth and freedom to dispose of it without scrutiny than a Nation State then we are in a very sick place.
Setting aside the historical origins that gave rise to inherited wealth, another subject for discussion later, reward used to be related to value. Those that worked extra hard, those who took risk, those that had exceptional skills, they were rewarded proportionately. Nowadays a footballer or a 'celebrity' with media ranking can claim silly monies whilst the A&E nurse, the scientist with ten years research, the craftsman with a life long skill, the soldier, the Brain Surgeon are paid, in relative terms piffling amounts. No fair rewards here. Our core values have been turned topsy-turvy by international financial backgammon, betting on south-sea bubbles of huge proportions. How do we get a reality check?
Thread 2
The theory goes that in a free market, supply and demand will level out salaries, so the most numerous tasks with large numbers of people able to carry them out will be paid least and the tasks where there are few specialists persons able to carry them out will become the best paid. So why aren't we inundated with would be footballers, stock market traders and TV presenters and why are science teachers in such short supply? It is not, probably never has been, a free market. For many good reasons, pay restraints and thresholds or freezes, union or public service comparability, market norms and a host of other well intentioned interventions have removed the self-correcting mechanisms that were supposed to work. We ineptly fix salary levels bolstered by claims of fair pay. Plus 'funny money' generated by share values or media ratings have totally distorted beyond any rationale, the right price for the job. We need a re-think.
Thread 3The stroke of genius was PAYE! The huge working underbelly of society was locked into a system that scrupulously, ruthlessly and efficiently took money at source and paid it to the state. There was no escape, if you were salaried, as most were. A large income without effort was guaranteed to the State, leaving it time to go the merry-go-round with those not on PAYE stopping off one tax avoidance bolt hole before stopping off the next in an never-ending cycle. Those with payed little tax, those without paid in full.
Times are changing, those in employment, those receiving regular full salaries are ever diminishing proportions of society. Employed work as a main source of State tax revenue has to be re-thought. Even VAT, the tax on already taxed income, is due a re-think when goods can be sourced with ease from around the world. National boundaries are fast becoming meaningless.
Thread 4
We must stop apologising for having lost our Empire, for having been brought to our knees by USofA, for having been a colonising nation for once having been a world player.
We are a great tolerant and inclusive nation, densely populated from richly diverse origins and offering a wealth of talent and commercial opportunities. Those that want to live amongst us are most welcomed but must pay their way, those that invest with us are will be shielded from payment proportionate to the degree and length of their investment and those that want to just sell into our market are welcomed but will have to negotiate an access to our market relative to the profits taken out of it.
We must learn to have confidence in ourselves as a Nation and to capitalise on the benefits of being such a great trading opportunity for the world. The free-booters can live elsewhere, we can manage just fine without them. Those that do have a rare ability or bring special honed skills or expertise and generate income or investment in the Nations future shall be rewarded proportionately above their fellows at the expense of those that generate large incomes for a narrow sector of society by using few skills or investment in our future.
Thread 1
Success has to be rewarded and we all need aspirational dreams, dreams that can take us out of the drudgery of every day life and gives us the hope of escape. At what point does a salary or bonus become unacceptable, £1M or £2M or £5M what about £10M how about £50M pa, so excessive as to be condemned by everyone as too ludicrous to contemplate?
We want rewards, we need to dream but where to draw a line, a line which supports a cohesive society and where those without are tolerant of those with an excess. No one wants a polarised society, even the most rich need those without to provide for and give support to their beyond dreams lifestyles and those without have to have the hope that they too can get rich or else they will abandon hope and just take what they don't have.
So, how many second homes, how many luxury yachts, how many private planes, how many private islands, how many years without toil are necessary to justify, adequate reward? When one man (eg Bill Gates) has greater wealth and freedom to dispose of it without scrutiny than a Nation State then we are in a very sick place.
Setting aside the historical origins that gave rise to inherited wealth, another subject for discussion later, reward used to be related to value. Those that worked extra hard, those who took risk, those that had exceptional skills, they were rewarded proportionately. Nowadays a footballer or a 'celebrity' with media ranking can claim silly monies whilst the A&E nurse, the scientist with ten years research, the craftsman with a life long skill, the soldier, the Brain Surgeon are paid, in relative terms piffling amounts. No fair rewards here. Our core values have been turned topsy-turvy by international financial backgammon, betting on south-sea bubbles of huge proportions. How do we get a reality check?
Thread 2
The theory goes that in a free market, supply and demand will level out salaries, so the most numerous tasks with large numbers of people able to carry them out will be paid least and the tasks where there are few specialists persons able to carry them out will become the best paid. So why aren't we inundated with would be footballers, stock market traders and TV presenters and why are science teachers in such short supply? It is not, probably never has been, a free market. For many good reasons, pay restraints and thresholds or freezes, union or public service comparability, market norms and a host of other well intentioned interventions have removed the self-correcting mechanisms that were supposed to work. We ineptly fix salary levels bolstered by claims of fair pay. Plus 'funny money' generated by share values or media ratings have totally distorted beyond any rationale, the right price for the job. We need a re-think.
Thread 3The stroke of genius was PAYE! The huge working underbelly of society was locked into a system that scrupulously, ruthlessly and efficiently took money at source and paid it to the state. There was no escape, if you were salaried, as most were. A large income without effort was guaranteed to the State, leaving it time to go the merry-go-round with those not on PAYE stopping off one tax avoidance bolt hole before stopping off the next in an never-ending cycle. Those with payed little tax, those without paid in full.
Times are changing, those in employment, those receiving regular full salaries are ever diminishing proportions of society. Employed work as a main source of State tax revenue has to be re-thought. Even VAT, the tax on already taxed income, is due a re-think when goods can be sourced with ease from around the world. National boundaries are fast becoming meaningless.
Thread 4
We must stop apologising for having lost our Empire, for having been brought to our knees by USofA, for having been a colonising nation for once having been a world player.
We are a great tolerant and inclusive nation, densely populated from richly diverse origins and offering a wealth of talent and commercial opportunities. Those that want to live amongst us are most welcomed but must pay their way, those that invest with us are will be shielded from payment proportionate to the degree and length of their investment and those that want to just sell into our market are welcomed but will have to negotiate an access to our market relative to the profits taken out of it.
We must learn to have confidence in ourselves as a Nation and to capitalise on the benefits of being such a great trading opportunity for the world. The free-booters can live elsewhere, we can manage just fine without them. Those that do have a rare ability or bring special honed skills or expertise and generate income or investment in the Nations future shall be rewarded proportionately above their fellows at the expense of those that generate large incomes for a narrow sector of society by using few skills or investment in our future.
Friday 6 November 2009
Power v State
Revolt or Evolve. Got to thinking about decision-making and power and how those with power use it to retain it and defend off all else that threaten it.
The basic proposition in a free society is that we forego our individual freedoms to some large degree as long as me me and my networked me by and large get a fair deal and benefit, even to the point where I will give up my personal advancement or even my life.
Alternate is, if the deal is renegade on then I will fully exercise my free will irrespective of any collective good, anarchy.
There does seem now to be a dangerous third way, we just withdraw inwards, enjoy what we have got and blank out all events around us, until or unless our future hopes are threatened. Those with the control then are totally unrestrained.
The opposite to a free society is a subjugated people where they are instructed in what when and how to react and where punishment is meted out, without the need for justification, for any deemed infringements.
Our reality is that we do live in a subjugated society but one that it is shrouded in a mist of allusions to freedom, until of course a freedom is dared to be claimed. Over time this grey fog shifts from very free to very constrained, currently we are rushing towards a very constrained and subjugated society where voices for freedom and liberties are shouted down.
So we have to ask, the peoples voice, does it really matter or make any difference?
The basic proposition in a free society is that we forego our individual freedoms to some large degree as long as me me and my networked me by and large get a fair deal and benefit, even to the point where I will give up my personal advancement or even my life.
Alternate is, if the deal is renegade on then I will fully exercise my free will irrespective of any collective good, anarchy.
There does seem now to be a dangerous third way, we just withdraw inwards, enjoy what we have got and blank out all events around us, until or unless our future hopes are threatened. Those with the control then are totally unrestrained.
The opposite to a free society is a subjugated people where they are instructed in what when and how to react and where punishment is meted out, without the need for justification, for any deemed infringements.
Our reality is that we do live in a subjugated society but one that it is shrouded in a mist of allusions to freedom, until of course a freedom is dared to be claimed. Over time this grey fog shifts from very free to very constrained, currently we are rushing towards a very constrained and subjugated society where voices for freedom and liberties are shouted down.
So we have to ask, the peoples voice, does it really matter or make any difference?
Thursday 5 November 2009
short sighted government
With some pride at their achievement the government announces that bankers bonuses for 'our' Banks are to be banned for the next three years. Big deal.
Any bet our self-seeking bankers will defer making any profits for the next three years and then wham, back on the gravy train.
So short, short sighted.
No bonuses until the bankers have repaid all the state's 'get out of jail' money, except for an interim bonus, when half the money is returned to the State, based on the interest saved. Final bonus based on saved interest assuming a 15 year payback timescale but deferred depending on a further three years of profit.
Any bet our self-seeking bankers will defer making any profits for the next three years and then wham, back on the gravy train.
So short, short sighted.
No bonuses until the bankers have repaid all the state's 'get out of jail' money, except for an interim bonus, when half the money is returned to the State, based on the interest saved. Final bonus based on saved interest assuming a 15 year payback timescale but deferred depending on a further three years of profit.
Mission statement
Wide ranging ramblings covering food, the political state and planning. Focused on the south-west of England, but not exclusively, with a remit to rant on anything that gets me going.
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