What we are worth

It is tossed off so easily as if it was definitive, an all embracing understanding, "My house is worth half a million" or "My house is worth £90,000", if you happen to live in a northern blighted town. Then the cough and half-apology of "well it is only worth that if someone else is prepared to pay that much". As we begin our descent into the substrata of meaning, "Of course I cannot get any benefit from that worth until I die or buy a smaller cheaper place". None of this matters in any real sense, it is just flotsam of life, until you make the connections.

UKplc borrowed heavily on the basis of the future continuing rise in its property values. That borrowing, mainly in mortgage debts taken on, was used to fuel a spending bonanza, the like of which we have never seen this side of the WW's. We could borrow so heavily because, property, for the man in the street, houses, just keep getting more and more expensive, keeps growing in value. Aside from gold, property was the next copper-bottom bet. And a bet it always was. 


So what is a house worth? Certainly not just its replacement costs, the cost to rebuild it, other than in a very circuitous self-referencing way. Not even for its build cost plus the value of that scarce permission to build. Once a habitation permit exists, it exists and is very hard to take away. What it is worth, in essence, is the gut feel of what it is in comparison to other properties nearby and what other similar properties have sold for that are comparable. There, that is the worth of a house, a gut feel. Let us hostage all our futures on the basis of this. A gut feel sustained to some degree by a scarcity of perceived 'desirable' properties available. This perceived scarcity fuelling the rush to snatch what is going at whatever the cost, spiralling the costs ever up.
 
There are a few things in life you take as rock solid, hospital care for us when we are sick, policepersons are there to help not to harass you, within the four walls of your house you are safe and buildings last for ever. We grow up surrounded with buildings that have been there for all time. Building just do not fall down and are seldom demolished in our own experience. The buildings we put are now are nothing like the way they used to be constructed. Building in the past was craft based using easily obtainable materials and relied on accumulated experience of what worked with large amounts of built-in redundancies. Nowadays materials are honed to the least essential to achieve the required effect and we depend on calculation to prove that the structure will stand the test of the weather. Previously there was several overlapping redundancies of structure. Now we design for a life of thirty years, or if you are lucky enough to live in a Housing Association home then sixty years. That is all. A thirty years life is the design norm. It will almost certainly not fail in less but the structures integrity relies on many, many small components which may or may fail after thirty years. No one knows, we have not had a century of experience of modern building practices to know where the weak points are. We build a time limited product. Yet we value that same product on the basis that it has an indefinite life. We value houses by their location and not on the floor area provided nor an estimate of the remaining life expectancy or even the amount of repair or upgrading required. It is nonsense but that is the market we have and accept blithely as the norm.

When you live in a fantasy world, do you close your eyes, ignore the contra evidence, and carry on regardless? No of course not. You stop, take notice and start the search for some other path, that leads away from the present fantasy-land nonsense. With UKplc mortgaged up to the hilt in shortlife property with repayments based on a longlife, we have to change tack. Again no simple easy answers. Harking back to another post (Right to Plunder), first step remove freehold, only a long term lease is possible with a commuted sum to restore it back to fertile land. No one can 'own' our land. Secondly the Council Tax is based on per person floor area with a rebate for properties below a set norm and a tax on attached land, setting dependant, and again rebated for those below a norm. Such that City dweller would expect no land whilst out in the country some M2 of land would be a norm. Those two measures will push the market into greater visibility of square footage, land take, life cycle costs and together with the greening measures may take our housing away from the fantasy place it currently bloats in.

Animated Stupidity

Just an aside really, there was this item which drew attention to how UK animation studios where working under a severe disadvantage, compared to EU colleagues, as they receive no Government support. Here was a leading edge industry, with a worldwide repute, pushing forward vigorously the frontiers of IT exploitation, capable of growing careers for a wide range of skills from the creative edge all the way across to tradesmen. What is not to support? Well of course the chorus of me-to's when you are struggling to know where to lop yet another branch off a bloated overgrown unsustainable tree.

Then the incredible stupid short-sightedness struck me. Animation is used by a wide variety of sectors but one sector in particular, has a singularly large and voracious appetite for animation. Children's TV. Young impressionable minds, in this new ever on live-stream feed age, being fed material largely from another culture, the USofA. Material that permeates the language, roles models, ethics, racial, cultural, rich v poor every issue that weaves the fabric of the society that you are and what feel you belong to. This market then is the market our government see no role in supporting! Let market forces be the sole determiner of what TV diet our children are fed! Mind-numbing stupidity of the crassest order.

Justifiable Ends

It is not a frequent event when you stare at the TV, jaw dropped, in utter disbelief. It happened recently during the Andrew Marr Sunday interview with Condoleezza Rice. Without a blink, any hesitation, the least demur she said, stony faced to the camera, the US of A government used all possible legitimate and lawful means to 'treat' suspects held at Guantanamo Bay. Not a moments hesitation contemplating the paradox that as the US of A makes up its own rules, does not allow anyone else to hold it to account, it can make whatever rules it likes and therefore legitimatise any conceivable action. Clearly for the US of A government this readily included the indefinite incarceration of suspects (conceivably innocent) whilst subjecting them to a sustained, deliberate, destructive, dehumanisation programme. A programme specifically designed and calculated, in its use of sensory and social deprivation, denial of cause or hope of relief, with the intention to rob that individual of any sense of self-worth and identity. Rendering these objects, held under their jurisdiction, to the base animal form, stripped of any sense of human normality. In contrast a casual indifferent bullet to the back of the neck would seem, in comparison, almost humane.

A chink just to indicate, looking back, there was, in the full heat of that moment, an over-reaction, a lapse from the normal standards, then she might of saved the day for her and for the US of A, that she put herself out to represent. But no, she was defiant, there was no wrong doing! Just another proof that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts completely. Why our leaders lose all moral and ethical sensibilities as they reach the peaks of authority, I have no idea. What is clear is that by resorting to the tactics and the justifications of your enemy, you give up on your right to judge and inevitably subject yourself to others judgement. When our government subscribes to deception, entrapment, if not outright support and encouragement, in order to infiltrate political activists, as recently seen on Confessions of an Undercover Cop, then they too give up the moral high ground. They are no better than the 'extremists' they seek to control and contain. There are no shall I, shan't I positions, no middling degrees, either you stand by the moral standards you choose to run your life by or you don't. Our government is supposed to reflect the higher standards we all aspire to, not the gutter. They, our representatives, presumably were chosen because of their high moral viewpoints, viewpoints we can all share and applaud. Nothing ever justifies the abandonment of those standards, not by individuals filling out expense forms and certainly not by our government acting on our behalf. Okay, technically the police, but obviously working within the framework prescribed by government and of course, budget cuts will reflect on their ardour in achieving stated government goals, that is, the limiting of political activists freedom to stage events. It amounts really to the same thing.

When terrorist are in the gun sights then all ethical standards fly out of the window. The tight rope walk, when dealing with political activists, of keeping close to the line of public goodwill and support can be totally ignored. Our government, inquisitors in modern robes, loses all reason and see it right and fitting for middle of the night raids. Tearing 'suspects' from home, family support, shattering any career hopes and incarcerating them beyond contact for upto fourteen days at some one else's pleasure. Giving free reign to institutionalised racism, because who ever heard of a white middle-class englishman as a radical terrorists? These raids to root out and discover 'suspects' are based on no more than 'intelligence' which can be gossip, innuendo, grudges or simply mischance, wrong face at wrong time or place. These, our latter day witches hunts, places, as it ever has, the onus on the radical 'terrorists suspect'  to prove the impossible that they are not as named and shamed.

Amongst the hundreds of witches that were burnt, or drowned or worse, for the sake of society at large, no doubt there were one or two that actually tinkered in the black arts. Not every radical is a terrorist, not every terrorist carries out an act of terrorism. By descending into the gutter, demonising all terrorists, (see also my post, War on Terrorists ) and treating them with less than the respect due to any human, no matter what contrary creed, race, beliefs or professed objectives, we ourselves become terrorists against civilised society.

What, as a civilised society, we know full well is that in the end you have to sit down with your sworn enemy and make pragmatic arrangements to live alongside each other. It is so much easier to reach that concord when you have not vilified each other nor have not radicalised their followers by inhumane treatment under your hand. In the end we all have to talk to each other, so keep to your high morals and you have less to repent at your leisure.

Held to Account

In a way the antithesis of trust, being accountable to those we choose to move amongst. In a totalitarian state the only thing to keep us on the straight and narrow would be the fear of being caught out and the retribution which would be sure to follow. That is not a world I want to live in. So what other options are open to us? At this stage in our progress we live in a rootless, faceless society. You can move around in, about and out of town and not see anybody who recognises you. You can cross all of London feeling as a racial minority group with few of your fellow travellers sharing your ethnic clothing, habits, courtesies, dialect and clearly none of your life interests. Yesterday's fad the hoodie is now an irrelevance. There is no longer any need to hide your identity, other than from the ever prescent CCTV camera, your identity is completely safe lost in a sea of strangers. You can and do what you like, where you like and how you like without any restraint, guilt, retribution and not the least chance of a restraining hand from some nearby fellow citizen. You are a law unto your yourself only, and, unless you are very unlucky, no officaldom's heavy hand will come anywhere near you to put a stop to your self-indulgence.


Except of course we do not live on a desert island, and my freedom to move and live my life is dependant on your willingness to keep within the normal social bounds and, of course, visa versa, your freedom to act the goat is dependant on my willingness to tolerate your anti-social conduct. In an ideal world, but we have drifted quite a long way from that ideal world. I cannot physically restrain you as that would expose me to civil proceedings. I cannot verbally remonstrate with you as that may well precipitate a violent physical counter-action. There is no longer the remotest chance that I know anyone in your family that could intercede about your social mayhem as I dont know them and even if I did, youth is no longer responsive to close relative let alone parental restraint. 


It is a mad mad world we are in, but it is up to each of us to change it. To change it to the kind of world where we all feel more comfortable and safe. So, no golden bullet solution but a number of pointers.

First we have to give up the comfort blanket, stop expecting the State to step in to resolve all our issues of being people and living within a society of people. The State does not do finesse, it can only apply coarse over-reactive draconian measures, it simply cannot devise enough unambiguous rules to control how we interact with each other. We will suffocate in the attempt. No it really is down to us.


Secondly then, in this very diverse racially mixed society, how to begin to rebuild connections across all members of the societies (remember this is a matrix society) you move among? You and I have to get involved. So the Small Society. Here the State does very little. You and I have to get involved if anything is needed to make the community work. Anything from pavement repairs, street lights, litter clearance, emergency services, social support, you name it and anything you want then you have to be part of the process of agreeing and cooperating with it running to your satisfaction. No opt out, no longer is it the local authorities job, now it is your job to be involved else it wont happen. Scary.

Thirdly it has to be wide ranging to swamp the community with the need for action. As we all know there are always those stalwarts that step up to the plate and tackle those task for the benefit of all while the majority keep their heads down, content taking benefit, freely criticising but not offering that needed helping hand. If we are to ever escape for our past subservience to power and control from above, we all have to be prepared to play a part and to confront those shirkers. There are a raft of roles waiting to be filled, not everyone is a leader, or committee fodder, but there is role for everyone. Hence to confront the complacency of phoning for the person from the council to sort it out, we need to be inundated with task that do threaten our comfort, security and peace of mind.

Fourthly by people having to come out of their private contented shells to participate in the arrangement and organisation of the every day functioning of their social lives they meet and have to engage with other members of their community. This engagement creates a wider network of known people within the community and as a direct consequence accountability arises. You, and the members of your home group, can no longer pass faceless along the edges of society. You are full on in, known and accountable. You have to conform to your communities mores. 

  
Clearly not a one step panacea, a host of problems and difficulties at every turn, but, and a very big but, if we find this way to re-engage with each other then all the problems and difficulties are solvable. Whilst we a talking with each other there are solutions that will be found. Never can it be more true that the combined whole is so much greater than the sum of its individuals. This is the real core of society, not the application of authority and control from above.

In whom we trust

Trust is such an old-fashioned word, almost archaic. Those long ago bloody, life at risks days when trust was forged, days of kinsmen and even clans are long gone. Our society has grown ever more complex and sophisticated. Yet it is still predicated on that same old fashioned word, trust. Trust that has expanded out of the known limits of kinsmen into the known community that you live and grow up in and where you relate tangibly to those around you. You are known to them and they are not unknown to you, you and they can be placed, somewhere. 

So trust, every time to enter into a closed bus or train and share it with others you do it in trust that the others will not run amok, spit at you, shout obscenities in your face, steal from you, block your passage, push you off the seat so they can sit. You have cause to trust them. When you hand over your credit card at the garage you do so in trust that you will be charged only for that fuel you purchased and the litres shown actually is the same as went into your tank, they will not swipe your card and steal access to your assets and no one will record your private pin numbers you have to enter into their machine under the CCTV camera. You trust the shop assistant that the goods sold to you are fit for purpose, are new not some ones cast off rejects, will give good service relative to their cost and the change you are given is correct and in legal coinage. All done on trust, yes of course there are last resort safeguards., but for all those everyday transaction, you have almost implicit trust in those around. Not just transactions but every single day by day action that is interfaced by another person is founded on trust. When we shake hands, in that ritualised friendship offering, we trust the other person to respond in kind and keep within the parameters of our previous social encounters. Not to invade our personal space, not seek private information, to speak a language we can understand and respond to and not to freeload on the goodwill offered.

All our society connections then are rooted in a trust. Which, as an aside, promoted my concerns about, to burka or not, an abuse of our society by women wanting the freedoms offered but hiding behind their own societies relegation of women as male chattels. A trust derived from a known community and expanded our to our wider towns and cities where there still lingers on, some sense of community, belonging and accountability. You had to answer for your actions within the local community that sustained you. Until, that is this century as we enter into the Matrix Society where accountability and identity shows every sign of breaking down. We are now move anonymous in a multiracial, rootless, shifting population with no obligations of  loyalty to your kith and kin.

Further, this trust implicit in the society supporting us gets transferred onto the all those myriad machines and systems we have come to rely on. We have an expectation that they will do what they seem to offer to do, our usual critical faculties are put on hold and we take them at face value, as if there was a sentient being behind the interface. So in this new wireless always connected world what can you still trust and where should trust be permanently suspended, as if that was an human option? The online store looks the business yet is just a loner working out of a garage. The avatar makes all the right responses but who or what lies behind it? All those myriad facebook friends, how real, how connected are you or is Facebook.com just exploiting your vulnerability? 

We are now in a new age where the one thing we can no longer rely on is our instinct to trust. What lie before us is a desperately urgent need to re-examine how we relate and work with each other. For me the answer is clear, we have to rethink our sense of community and belonging, from the core up. A rethinking that I explore is so many of these posts. For you, what is your answer?