Asiabugle - Reality not PC by Sam Worthington

Is there any alternative to free enterprise that is genuinely better?

2012-02-07T18:52:00.001+08:00

The growing tirade against bankers, bonuses and executive pay is raising questions about the preference of free market versus something else. Janet Daley wrote a telling piece about the end of communism on Sunday. And I know a bit becauseI spent 7 years in Eastern Europe from 1990. There were saving graces in communismin that everybody had a job and, generally speaking, a housing unit complete with heat and water- of course after that there was little else - no choice in the shops, most people did not have a telephone at home, a few had a car and that was almost certainly a Trabant or Lada, there was plenty of nasty cheap booze, and the holiday option of choice was Lake Balaton. They were still using 50’s & 60’s technology as there had been no investment in new machinery and plant.

But the interesting point was the politics of the first few years after democracy was restored - the first election inevitably saw a right wing government pledging free markets and all the promise that seemingly went with that as an impoverished people looked enviously at the wealth of the West. But the next election invariable saw the communist leaders back in power -rebranded in some way - promising some kind of return to the now perceived utopian bliss of the Soviet days when housing and energy were cheap and everybody had a job (and of course that was never going to happen). That was mainly because the over 40’s in particular found it hard to live in the free market era with spiralling costs and a collapsing job market - or maybe more correctly people employed had to actually do something and those surplus to requirement were no longer needed. The under 40’s were in a much better world - new multinationals wanted to recruit locally and they took on the brightest and paid a decent wage. There was also abreed of new entrepreneurs all too often opportunist spivs who drove a Merc and wore flashy clothes. Many did not last long as the realities of the free market was not quite as simplistic as they thought - not to mention the fact the Merc and the flashy clothes came before the business. However a few even succeeded -not always by fair means - and got a newer and bigger Merc. But for many the early days of capitalism were very tough and I am sure many harped back to the days when they had shelter and food and decided freedom was too high a price to pay.

We seem to be drifting towards a socialist state: Europe is barely a free market Mecca these days. There is more and more regulation and as in communist regimes the fat cats are the bureaucrats - the good partyman (or woman) who is rewarded with a management job. In a political hierarchy as the ladder is climbed ‘who you know’ is always more important than competence. But are we (as a country) becoming any more efficient and wealthier in this brave new semi socialist world - the answer has to be we are not. We have not yet given everybody a job: instead we have welfare dependency. Like communists we are bust: and show little sign of being able to crawl away from our ever increasing pile of debt. The solution - the bureaucrats have ordained - is austerity which is reducing living standards in most of Europe: but in our mad socialists world they are at the same time reining in the free market with more and more rules and regulations.

However there seem to be two genre of business that are doing well - the new tech businesses, including the commerce, and the multinationals. And the reason that they are doing well is they are the only free marketers left. The regulators have not yet worked out how to regulate the tech world - inevitable they are desperately thinking of ways. On the other side multinationals are able to select the best environment for them to manufacture in and or pay tax in: if they don’t like the rules they can simply walk away to a more business friendly environment: that also allows them to blackmail governments with threats of moving if there is something they don’tlike. Contrast that to a dedicated local company where the full force of regulation and taxation is applied - they are forced to work with one hand tied behind their back.

Of course the finally irony is the most communist of countries - China - is the new industrial behemoth. This is because it has allowed virtually unregulated enterprise to flourish and, in a land devoid of social largesse, taxation is minimal.

As I have blogged before the problem is we need wealth creation - without that we are simply going to go broke and when that happens all the social largesse will go - look at Greece: that could happen to any country in Europe!

Fat cat salaries stick in everybody’s craw -jealousy is an inevitable vice - but anything other than a voluntary change may make the people feel better but it really will be cutting their throat to spite their face.

There is no real alternative to the goodold fashioned profit motive, That is why most people get up in the morning and go to work; that is why so many people want to come to this country and take our social largesse - we may resent them but if we are stupid enough to let them in and they have enough nous to get on their bikes here then it might be a good idea to recognise that they are simply working the free market.

Are there any good taxes?

2012-01-27T11:09:00.002+08:00

There is a simple answer to the question are there any good taxes? It is NO!

But that does not mean that taxes are not inevitable and some will need to be paid to keep communities secure and manage key services from rubbish to justice. But the idea there is good tax, as being floated by some politicians, is rubbish.

The problem is politicians and bureaucrats too often see their job as spenders of money. Why? That is not their job: their job is to administer our public affairs as inexpensively and equitably as possible. It is not to look for new ways to spend your money. But as I read about new initiatives to find new taxes I can only conclude that our politicians are deluded in what they think their job is.

I thought about this long and hard when I wrote the Aquitaine Trilogy. The concept was to create a new society and thus a new way of governing. What I believe is essential is to keep voters as close as possible to the spenders and for them to have some sanctions on those spenders.The most obvious is to vote them out of power. But the problem is that more and more it is bureaucrats and not the politicians who are in charge: but they largely remain faceless.

My solutions were varied. I restricted central government spending to that which was essential, transferring most local functions to the local area council who had to raise the money they spent themselves. So they had an ability to raise all forms of tax including income tax, but such tax was to a maximum level of both personal income and GDP. There was a specific policy of not paying money between departments and sectors of government. Whatever the argument about one collecting point for all one type of tax - income tax, sales tax etcetera -I do not believe there is a real saving when the money is then transferred round the system. It was also specified that an area did not have to provide a particular service - say health or schools - it had to see those services were available at a sensible price, or in some cases free. Central government provided regional hospitals of excellence and universities as well as major infrastructure and a national police force but not local police. Thus an area council could say privatise everything and offer very low taxes, whereas a next door area could offer higher taxes and more free services. The final kicker for the areas was that new areas could be formed by popular consensus - so a big area could lose a chunk of its area - and communities on the edge of an area could transfer to the next if they so desired. Needless to say such changes could not happen every few months however the point was that local councils had real power as well as real responsibility and they could easily lose part of their fiefdom if they did badly. That is genuine power to the people and runs totally against all modern trends where central governments are claiming more and more power - in the US there is a growing rift between the states and Washington, and in Europe it is worse where an unelected bureaucratic autocracy is ordering around the sovereign states. This is the reason the people have lost faith in politicians.

Another point was that central government taxes were if possible linked to what they did - instead of going into a nebulous pool to be paid out as the government decided. For instance road tax was spent on roads and the health fund on health - this means voters get to understand what government services really cost. It would be nice to be know what say health really cost even if an opt out is not an option.

The final point about the Aquitaine administration is the civil servants were in charge with two parliaments acting as supervisors and controllers. The civil service brief was simple - to keep the ship of state on a safe course without violent deviation. The politicians could suggest a new course and if the other house agreed that course had to be followed, or the civil servants could simple accept the recommendation in the first place. Of course the heads of various departments were required to report direct to both houses and could attend and take part in debates as relevant.

The point that was engrained was do not tax unless essential; do not spend if you can avoid it. Certainly nobody in those circumstances would be suggesting there was good tax - yes tax is inevitable but it is not good and it never should be good.

A moratorium on all new taxes and ways of collecting money from the public might be a good way of getting governments pointed in the right direction: reducing spending not looking for ways to finance excess. Now more than ever we need to live within our means.

Responsible capitalism - we had it once.

2012-01-20T08:36:00.001+08:00

The current buzz word in politics is greed. The greedy bankers and their bonuses, the greedy executives and their pay, the greedy corporations who don’t pay enough tax: they are all getting their share of bashing. In the next sentence there is talk of stimulating small businesses and getting new enterprises going - I don’t like to say it too loud but the main motivation for entrepreneurs is greed: they want more than the next guy. And certainly don’t mention the greedy MPs and their expenses...! But I will ignore that but get back to responsible capitalism.

Governments have done so much over the years to destroy responsible capitalists. A classic is family businesses which have all but been eliminated by estate duty and other tax problems. They were usually very much part of the community and helped within it. Also business has been positively discouraged from getting involved in welfare - state bureaucrats believing they were better at it. Every old town has alms house that were built by local communities - often the principal employer. Factories often employed doctors and had clinics for their workers. In Japan factories have full welfare services for their workers but the liberal minded do not like that- it is seen as patronising and entrapping workers.

And that is problem once the socialist ‘I know best principals' get engrained. There are so many little places the state has started regulating; applying a set of arbitrary rules that make giving so much harder. A recent issue was about the right to use grounds for games and recreation - land owners often allowed a field to be so used and in most cases their main concern was simple to keep the ground as it was but suddenly the state is stepping in and trying to claim the land, and there are more and more issues of liability which mean the land owner has to have expensive third party insurance - inevitably the owners get nervous and withdraw the right to use the land. This is a small example but it is often felt, by those with money, that no act of generosity goes unpunished.

But what is responsible capitalism - I am not sure anybody really knows. There have always been people making muc muc money. In the UK the mill owners of Victorian era were pilloried but they bought huge wealth to the north central region of England. I know more than a few people who have become significantly rich often starting with very little and we celebrate those people - Branson, Sugar et al. are a few bigger examples. What seems to be the complaint is about the people who run, as opposed to setup, big businesses: as though ongoing management is simple.

The modern multinational corporation inevitably is interested only in one thing - profit. It is difficult to have a friendly face when the boss is a long haul flight away, and the ultimate master a diverse group of international shareholders - with the largest being funds set up with the sole purpose of making money. And dare I point out those funds are where most pension money goes.

I suspect the real problem is more that as we have drifted aimlessly from a great manufacturing power to a service led economy we have lost the high paid job. I live in an expat community in Asia wherethere are plenty of high earning Brits and thirty years ago their work would have been in the UK: now they have to travel. The UK is full of plodders doing very ordinary work with a small elite of high earners who are senior managers or high level traders - the people I have met recently are mainly engineers of one form or another as well as divers, accountants, training pilots and even headmasters. Norman Tebbit famously said it “Get on your bike!” Sadly that now means going to Asia or the Middle East - well anywhere but the UK and Europe.And as to those high salaries as I pointed out in another blog nobody condemns sportsmen’s salaries and some of those look even more obscene than bankers. Of course the trouble is exacerbated by legislation that has meant these salaries are now published. However people who get high salaries pay tax and spend the money in the UK - it is not as though the money magically disappears abroad as it would do if say all the big city traders located to a friendlier tax regime.

But a politician’s logic is not relevant when banging a populist drum.

To me the real issue is incompetent government who never understood the too big to fail problem when it came to banks. In fact successive governments have allowed the multi nationals to own more and more of the UK industry. Put simple when it comes to industry the government are no longer in control. They can huff and they can puff but if they threaten to blow the house down by pursuing nasty capitalists they will simple disappear to another domicile. On top of that pinning down national companies with more rules just makes them less competitive in a globalised world.

Responsible capitalism is when the profits of capitalism find their way back into the system where they were created and get invested and spent locally because in the end a banker earning millions is good for the UK as long as he stays in the UK. So maybe responsible capitalism requires a responsible government that encourages high earners to stay and spend in country.

Life goes on - but what if.....

2012-01-18T11:37:00.001+08:00

I have been around for a long time - I am not far away from God’s allocated number of years. Over my life I have seen many crises come and go. I lived through the cold war when we were all a button push away from extinction - or so we were told. I remember a man with nasal voice telling me the pound in my pocket had not been devalued - it had been and since it has been devalued even more. A nice man on the telly said what Henry Higgins has been telling us for years - that in Hampshire hurricanes hardly ever happen - well I was there when one uprooted boat moorings, trees and sheds. But the great thing was that life went on - disasters have hit the world - 10,000s have been wiped out in seconds but the next day we wake up and lo and behold the sun comes up in the East; and slowly but surely it gets into the psyche -life goes on.

But what is more important is how life goes on - we in the West have had a cushy time since the last world war. Of course that war was not so good for a large number of people but now fewer and fewer of our number remember the realities of that era so as a society we fear little and the government looks after us if we have no money so life not only goes on but we have food and shelter.

And that is the problem for those who see rocks, if not a reef and an iceberg ahead. The Concordia sinking is ironic in that not only was it an enormous ship that appeared unsinkable but it was also almost exactly 100 years ago that another enormous unsinkable ship proved it was very sinkable and frighteningly the next thing that happened was Europe was engulfed in a brutal war and whilst the cost in infrastructure was reasonably minimal (out of the war zones) the financial cost was massive but not nearly as horrible as the cost in prime young men. Then that awful war led to an even more evil and brutal war twenty years later that destroyed and impoverished most of Europe.

Of course we then got up, shook ourselves and got on and rebuilt the place - life goes on. But for a few years it was a very hard life for most and extremely unpleasant for some - to add to a large number who did not make it. But we were a very different people in 1939 - hardship was much more of a norm, there was no social security to speak of so we had to be self sufficient. But today we are nowhere near that: most of us would not know how to live rough: despite all those telly programs where the survival expert conveniently finds a dead sheep.

But when I look at the world today with a jaundiced eye I see potential for grief in far too many places. However you dress it up our economy is weak primarily because we have systematically let it go: closing factories because it was uneconomic when compared to others who use a labour force earning less than a tenth of ours and work in conditions which would ensure those factories would be instantly closed by regulators here. We have never been so regulated yet we have a large pool of people who are living on welfare - which we are paying for - who have no intention of working in the system. Then the Euro crisis is threatening to knock ten percent off our GDP. Even an illiterate should be able to work out that if that happened the government already running a massive deficit, and with a rapidly expanding debt to GDP ratio, would not be able to cope. Nobody wants to think about that. I won’t even mention the spiralling cost of a free health service. Would Europe suddenly be impoverished as Greece now is? It looks like it could be: even the ultra efficient Germans would find it hard with all their customers skint and Chinese would be far from happy as their factories grind to a halt and unemployment goes up. Such autocratic regimes in the past have found military expansion a surefire way of keeping the population under control. And there are plenty of potential flashpoints in Asia - Spratleys, Taiwan, Korea etc.

On the military front we at least look safe enough - but are we? Iran looks as if it might defy all logic and try and take on the world on in the straits of Hormuz. But that is far enough away one thinks but in travel terms the Balkans was further way in 1914. Such a war could quickly empower others - Falkland’s looks like such a potential flashspot. And domestic terrorism has been little more than pin pricks to date - unpleasant yes, lethal for some yes but in real terms pin pricks (and yes I including the attack on the twin towers) but would another Gulf war finally make Islamic terrorism something other than a massive inconvenience when we fly?

Needless to say many will say I am scaremongering - and I know that. But the trouble is nobody thinks about what if - a bit like the Euro when it was cobbled together the what ifs were swept away however they are now back to haunt the world. I am sure the sun will come up in the East tomorrow morning but will we still welcome it in our cushy homes and safe environment?Because I fear today we are totally unprepared for the hardships that could appear in seconds and crush us as effectively as a tsunami.

What really is the job of government?

2012-01-12T13:07:00.004+08:00

Such a simple question but one which is loaded with ifs and buts. Especially as it has now been blurred into issues of social responsibility - i.e. it is wrong to let the poor people suffer - with all the implicit meanings of that word. But the real trouble today is the whole government thing is so vast and complex we have no idea what is really happening. So I will assume that instead of being a vast complex country we were but a small isolated town: then what would be job of the town leaders.

The first and foremost thought would be security - the town needs to be a safe place to live and work and free from outside interference. So to that end the town needs a police force to keep control in the town and the same or another force to keep the town secure. As a citizen a reasonable fee for those services would be happily paid - of course if there is no outside threat and little trouble in the town citizens may cut back on their protection forces and regret it if suddenly a band of nasties appear. But that at least could be debated and discussed.

However what else would the citizens think it is fair to pay for? Presumably if there was a river a bridge would be needed, rubbish would need to removed (or at least some control over it) and what about planning? And then there are sewers and drains. And as the town got more sophisticated who supplies the electric and the telephone service - or maybe more importantly who pays up front for expensive services? And is the job of government to see such services exist or to provide them? If nobody has the money then the money may need to be borrowed, and that brings me neatly to where do people keep their money, and how do they pay large amounts, who provides a loan when somebody wants to buy a house, or start a business? Then should not the town make certain the keeper of the money neither recklessly invests the money, nor simple takes it and runs.

And when it gets to regulations; market standards (weights and measures) were an early arrival in medieval towns so people understood what they were buying and it was good for the town for the market to be known to be honest. And it would be a real mess if every house had different types of electric plug, or people could park when they like, where they like.

So the idea the government should keep out of everything is impractical but the big debate is what exactly should it be involved in? In the US health care is the current big one, and as the cost of health care spirals upwards, because people live longer and treatments get more and more sophisticated, the kind of no limit system in place in Europe is looking less and less sustainable on one side whilst any attempt to rein in on services will never be acceptable to voters.

But what about all the social welfare costs from unemployment pay to social housing. I am sure Beveridge is spinning in his grave when he looks at the welfare culture he has inadvertently created in the UK. In mediaeval towns such matters were left to charity; normally in the form of the church.

Pensions should be an easy one if everybody is encouraged - coerced - to make pension contributions throughout their working life and those contributions are used to build a pensions pot - unfortunately that has not happened so now the state is lumbered with pension commitments which it has effectively been paid for but has made no provision for - crass bad management in other words.

Move on to the arts and culture, what about heritage protection - should the government really be protecting historical monuments?

There is talk about some kind of cap on government expenditure as say a percentage of GDP - and such an idea appears to be eminently sensible given that the basic failure of the Soviet Union was because it went bust as expenditure was outstripping income (don’t mention Greece!). Such a cap would certainly concentrate government’s minds on what they can and cannot spend money on. But that could backfire horribly as different coloured administrations may have different priorities thus switching resources at a whim- almost certainly creating uncertainty and unnecessary costs.

In The Constitution, the second book of theAquitaine Trilogy, this issue is addressed and the solution proposed - and enshrined in the constitution - was to prioritise government expenditure. This would mean that the government has to fully fund the most important items and if it ran out of money the lower items would simply not be funded.

I say this because clearly what we need today is a debate about exactly what the government should and should not fund. And maybe the best place to start such a debate is by what priority you consign to each area of government expenditure. And it would indeed be interesting to get voters opinions on say the arts against social housing, or education against health- in Aquitaine it was education first.

And maybe the biggest problem is as our level of wealth seems to be on the decline - mainly dare I say due to bad government - being poorer will mean we can spend less. That is why it is essential that western government gets real. Although eventually, as long as we remain democracies, the voters will have their say - but I doubt they will support many of the populist agendas that are so essential to modern weak governments.

Do we really need a nanny state?

2012-01-01T08:57:00.002+08:00

The rise and rise of the nanny state - as government interference in our rights to do what we want is called - is a hot topic especially among us older guys who remember the freewheeling country of the sixties. It was absurdly different then with no breathalyzer, few speed limits and a laissez-faire attitude all round. I was reading the comments on an article about the idea that alcohol will have a minimum price to stop alcoholism and they were universally abusive of the idea. A view I rather shared and decided to write this blog but that then made me think about the matter more logically.

I live in a country where many of the so called evils banned in the UK are ignored. It is not uncommon to see a motorcycle careering down the road with three likely lads on the back screaming, drunk and with no lights on. Needless to say the inevitable happens time and time again - but nobody cares -the bodies if still alive are thrown in the back of public bus and taken to a hospital that may or may not try and repair them depending upon whether they think they will be paid or not. Of course even the biggest critics of the nanny state knocking back countless beers before riding home on their own motorbike sit muttering about the police doing nothing with one breath and then ripping into the UK nanny state with the next.

But I was thinking about it more practically and motor bikes are good place to start. Thailand has horrible reputation when it comes to motor bikes and tourists. Many hire a small bike - often having never ridden one before - then ride them with drink taken and of course we know the result. And the point is now made clear in most travel insurance policies which are invalidated if injuries are caused by a motor bike accident. And most people agree that is a fair proviso.

So as the government supplies our health insurance it maybe has the right to rule on what we can and cannot do. And I suppose if you follow the logic of that argument anything that is seen to increase government risk is in their interest. Of course the counter would be that we cannot opt out and say take up a policy that does not dictate how we behave. And another argument that I would make - but I doubt a politician would- is if we shorten our lives then the government saves when we die early - and all the argument about the cost of dying is irrelevant because it just happens earlier rather than later.

But the drink issue is one close to my heart because as an ex landlord I am horrified at what has been allowed to happen in town centres and in UK pubs. Basically the police have abdicated responsibility and PC legislation has neutered the traditional enforcers of pub behaviour - the landlord and his friends. In the good old days if somebody was drunk and stupid they were told to behave and or go home. It is (as far as I am aware) still an offence to sell alcohol to a drunk. But of course that can cause problems as no drunk will ever admit to being drunk so the miscreant inevitably needs removing and in PC Britain the next thing that happens is the movers not the problem are on a charge. So the police and landlords have been neutered and we wonder why we have drunks wandering our streets behaving badly. The trouble is getting drunk has become a joke and unruly behaviour is tolerated. Thirty years ago it was not - so we drank and behaved and we did not drink less far from it: but we seldom binged - it was more a daily event. But we behaved and now my view is if badly behaved drunks were either thrown in jail - to cool off -or helped on their way by tough landlords - in which case it maybe more than a hangover that hurts in the morning - the problems would be resolved. And no need for nanny to be involved at all.

And the more I look at interfering rules in the UK the more I wonder whether it is not the rules themselves that are causing the problem. The adage of the reasonable man seems to have been forgotten. The reasonable man behaved sensibly and if he did not then what happened was his fault and nobody else’s - now we have rules against such heinous crimes as jumping into a swimming pool, taking the child home on a child seat on a bicycle and allowing children to blow up balloons. But life is about risk: you have to make many instant decisions when you drive a car, cross the road, board a train or simply to decide to getup in the morning. And of course in getting up you expose yourself to risk of injury in the house - falling down the stairs - and all those dangerous things you do when you leave that house. If you follow the logic of petty rules then nobody should get up and we should all lie in bed being fed through a tube which we are plugged into at birth.

So maybe Mr. Government you should let the reasonable man do what he assesses is safe and yes reasonable - and any way you are not an insurance company but the keeper of our money.

The power of religion - do we need it?

2011-12-27T14:58:00.004+08:00

Fashionable liberals decry religion as do the communists but even at the peak of Soviet power the church survived. And the Chinese are still worried about it. Ataturk when he created the new Turkey- after the end of the Ottoman Empire - broke the power of the Islamic Church a move which he believed was essential in order to move on. There is little doubt religion has been enormously important in shaping the World which is largely broken up by religious groupings. But if history tells us one thing it is religions do not mix - a minority grouping maybe tolerated but they need to stay out of politics.

But religion today is seen as awfully out of date with pork bans, contraception bans and the veil but those rules made great sense when you look back in time - bad pork was dangerous, life expectancy and infant mortality where high and the veil discouraged lasciviousness in small communities - and I often think offices might be a better place if it was used today! What religion has failed to do is move on and its power has been abused time and time again - once people believe in something as strong as a God somebody who is apparently close to the deity - like a priest- can manipulate his congregation and then it is only a small step to worldly rather than heavenly affairs so - from Medieval Popes to modern day Ayatollahs - God has been used to wield powers I suspect he did not give, nor intend.

But all this begs the question of do we need religion, or maybe is there a God at all?

I read a good article the other day that basically said that believing in God and the afterlife was a win win position because as one’s life is ending it would be a very miserable ending if you believed that is it. But believe in God and heaven means departing the mortal part of this world is not all bad: in fact if life here is particularly hard it may look like a much better option. And in the end if there is no after life - well you will not know but at least you died happier.

And whilst I accept religion has been divisive it has also been important, if not vital, in the structuring of moral codes and social standards. Most countries still have a faith at the core of their system: in the UK and Commonwealth the monarch is not only the head of state but the ‘defender of the faith,’ and that is not uncommon among other monarchs. Presidents and other heads of state and administrators are usually sworn in with reference to God. The simple answer is that mortals come and go but God stays on forever and in the end it is not a bad idea to hold your head of state responsible to somebody and God is a person he or she cannot get at!

But beyond that is there real purpose and indeed need for religion in modern society?

It was that thought that I pondered on when writing the Aquitaine Trilogy which was a about the rise of a new society starting with the survivors of a holocaust (Nuclear because it was the most effective and easy) who not only had to manage themselves but growing groups of other survivors coming to them for help, so a community was quickly built. It needed leadership and that was established; then in the longer term it needed a way of governing a community that was emerging into a new state. That allowed me to look back at our society and governance today and decide how I would change it. But writing a story always becomes a living thing in the mind of the writer and early on I realised the initial survivors needed unifying and needed to be given hope - so a semi religious ceremony was held on the first Sunday. It was lead by an actor, not a priest, and it drew on the actors and others knowledge of prayers and instead of hymns they sung popular songs. They were chosen to be emotive they began with ‘Let it be, then ‘Imagine’ and finally ‘Wonderful World.” The whole service started with Hamlet’s great soliloquy. Little to do with God but still very emotional and what the survivors needed. From there the actor took on priest like duties mainly burying the dead and helping the dying and there were plenty of both. Most people would agree in those circumstances a good priest provides a worthwhile function. From then on he and others developed a new religion -The peoples of the Earth - and the concept was (if indeed religion can have a concept and branding) to take in all other religions and draw from them creating a new unified religion or faith. So the Peoples of the Earth worshiped God’s gift - the planet earth. They took the position that God’s people had rejected the words of his prophets, ignored God’s son and spurned God’s messenger but now they had a final chance and they had to look after God’s gift- our wonderful planet. Not only is a religion popular for those people who believe in God, and in times of desperation the number rises exponentially, but it was desirable as it provided moral fabric to society and a rock on which to anchor ethics and train young people - it also was by design environmentally friendly and would hopefully stop the new civilisation from raping and pillaging the Earth again.

So my unequivocal answer to does modern society need religion and or faith is yes - we need something bigger to hold us to task than a set of man made laws which we can manipulate and be changed at a whim.

Aquitaine Trilogy and other books are listed here

The World at the end of 2011 - a perspective.

2011-12-24T10:07:00.002+08:00

The world today does not look a safe place. The speed with which nasty things can happen has made everybody vulnerable and nasty weapons like nukes, biological and chemical double all those risks. We must now add to the fact that the predominate World leading powers over the last millennium are losing power due to political and economic weakness. The simple answer - which nobody likes - is that somebody big and nasty with a big stick that they are prepared to use, is not all bad for the vast majority of the World - providing, of course, the stick is wielded with a modicum of justification.

The idea that there is human rights and justice in the world is limited to a small part of it - the West - and that is also a big maybe where money is often more important than right.

When you look elsewhere the Middle East is in turmoil and looks like staying that way and there is little anybody can do about it. In an ironic sort of way a Sunni Shiite war may keep the extremism at home as opposed to attacking the West.

Iran will almost certainly get a nuke or two and really apart from a having a messy potential war the best the West can do is point several nukes at Iran and make it clear that if Iran fires one it will get 10 back - it worked in the cold war! Elsewhere hope for Democracy of the Arab spring is likely to merge seamlessly into theocracy which will eventually seriously endanger the West - something we should have understood before we got all excited about democracy in the Arab spring. The fact is Islamic extremism is on the rise and we are one of the main targets for it - and the breeding ground of that extremism is the Middle East through to Pakistan.

On the sub continent the standoff between Pakistan and India is always on the edge and maybe they have their own little cold war - but a united theocracy from Pakistan to Iran including Afghanistan would do India no favours; even if the odds of everybody getting on side are remote. And India does have a big bad neighbour to the North.

There are a few flash spots in Asia but at least the various Islamic terrorist organisations look weak and disorganised even if they are in several SE Asian countries. China claiming the Spratley Islands is a situation that could easily get out of control - especially if the US’s big stick looked weak. Korea never looks stable as long as there is the North South divide and a war there could quickly go nuclear - again Uncle Sam is a stabiliser.

How much of a threat China really poses is a mute point. Probably in the short term not much but possibly the most dangerous situation would arise if there was an internal economic slowdown and growing urban unemployment. An authoritarian regime may see military adventure as a panacea not only allowing an increase in the numbers in uniform but the jingoism would also be unifying. China’s relentless demand for mineral wealth might also create tensions especially if the West became starved of such products. However the Chinese are self centred and we should be aware they will do what is good for China and nobody else - why should they not. In the longer term they have the potential to be the next world superpower - a position they would not mind holding.

China’s neighbour to the north - Russia - should pose no threat to anybody and left alone one would hope that slowly it may recover from the ravages of communism. But I for one distrust Putin and his grand plans. Russia has always been run by strong men - from the Tsars onwards and despite being a vast country, with massive reserves and virtually empty lands, has always looked enviously West. I think we ignore Russia and its potential threats at our peril. Of course its expansionist eyes may fall on the unstable regimes of Central Asia - and that instability together with a predominantly Muslim background could well create a running sore that could cause trouble elsewhere and maybe link with the unstable Middle East.

Africa is Africa and has never really recovered from being decolonised with indecent haste. It poses little threat to the world except a growing Chinese influence -re-colonisation? - may mean the West loses influence there. South Africa is a big country and a blow up there - through racial tensions - could reverberate around the world. And the Horn of Africa with its piracy and Muslim extremism is also a difficulty. The continuing piracy demonstrates how weak the West is when it tries to be nice. We swept the pirates from the seas over a hundred and fifty years ago by a ruthless process of elimination - we could do it again given the right political will.

Central America is flexing its muscles and believes it should have a bigger voice in world affairs, and as its economic power grows there is little doubt that voice will be heard more and more. A powerful South America would be good counterbalance to the rise and rise of Asia. For the UK though there is a unique threat in relation to the Falkland Islands which is inhabited by a British community but claimed by Argentina. The dispute is seemingly heating up as Argentina pursues its claim though new South American bodies, I believe the UK should put increased defence resources into the islands - making it clear they will be fully defended.

The only real threat I see for the UK other than the Falklands is from Islamic extremism. And on that front I believe foreign policy should interlink with an internal matter. Whilst I am sure 99% of members of Islam who settle in the UK are not, and never will be, extremists we have to accept that a small number are and with the ascendancy of extremism should we really be letting in more Islamists?

The world can change dramatically overnight and a new threat, or the ramping up of another, can always be there when we wake up tomorrow.

This is my view on the World and its threats at the end of 2011. I clearly do not have the resources available to others and thus my views are gleaned from my knowledge of the World as well as media sources.

Public awareness does not help the EU cause.

2011-12-16T11:46:00.001+08:00

For years the European Union may have a been a hot subject for many politically aware Britons but for most it was a subject for which they knew little and frankly cared less - eat your heart out Nigel Farage et al. In fact it was a plus to many in that when driving on the continent the currency was the same -no more non stop drives across Belgium so you could avoid Belgian Francs. They may be fed up with all the silly rules we now have but they did not connect them with the EU - and most of those that affect individuals have more to do with PC idiots in parliament than Brussels. But the events of the last 12 months have been drip feeding the British public on EU problems and slowly but surely the EU has crept into the British psyche: and all this culminated with the news of Cameron’s veto that was devoured by the news media. Suddenly the GBP (Great British Public) has awaken and realised it has been led up the proverbial and does not like what it sees.

I suspect this has changed the dynamics of British politics.

There are two issue that politicians need to address - the first one is how does it affect them politically? It puts the Conservatives in a very difficult spot as they are in coalition with a party that believes in the EU with almost God like zeal. They could be put under real pressure if the Labour party swung to Euro sceptic and started behaving as a true anti EU party. However for Cameron as long as the Labour party is ambivalent, or is it just too confused to make a decision, he can muddle along and hope the problem goes away, but if suddenly Milband and crew suddenly jumped on the referendum band wagon, or even a withdrawal position, he would be the squeezed middle - not the place he wants to be.

But the other major issue is exactly what should the UK do about, or even wish for, from the EU. And that seems to be a real policy weakness - there has been no meaningful review of the options surrounding the EU. The one way fast forward has been the setting that we were locked into. Even this slight hiccup appears to have changed little. 'Our future is still in the EU' is rattled off parrot like. There seems to have been little consideration of how far in we go, or can we reduce our status to associate? And what happens if all else fails and they insist upon a Tobin tax that could destroy our financial services industry - from whence cometh a healthy portion of not just our GDP but taxation and employment? We have said non once to a proposal that would endanger the City - what happens if that no is not enough and they use another way to hit the City - what then?

I have already said that I think we need to try and downgrade our status to that of associate member - but I am not sure that would be acceptable to the other members. I am equally unsure what would happen if we simply tried to walk away and say we are leaving - we do have treaty obligations and there are areas where leaving would be far from simple. On the question of the afterwards we have always been a great trading nation and could maybe see a future that way. But 60% of UK exports are with the EU: however significantly we are net importers from the EU. So it is in the EU’s interest to keep trade alive with le Royaume-Uni. But in any event we already had a healthy trading relationship with many EU countries before we became part of it.

I have suggested that the Labour party could set the agenda on the EU by taking up a more sceptical position, however the other way change might come is if Cameron goes back to wavering to keep his coalition and UKIP start making real gains in the polls - that would almost certainly endanger Cameron’s chances of actually winning an election; and some will say that without UKIP he may well have got his majority last time! It is also worth noting that Marie Le Pen of the anti EU party of France - the National Front - is polling a consistent 20% in the race for the presidency, and now the Socialist candidate - on current polls the likely winner - is becoming distinctly anti EU integration.

So now the EU has got to the top of the news the politicians can no longer ignore it and that will make dealing with the EU much more difficult and for Cameron, who was once trying to ignore it, the issue is becoming a time consuming disaster with whatever he does looking wrong either to his own party or to his coalition partners.

Of course one suspects the political view -from politicians too timid to take a position - is that with luck the Euro mess will resolve itself leaving the UK enough wriggle room to keep the City whilst not bankrupting the world. Sadly that is looking less and less likely - one suspects given half a chance they will do both. All the more reason for UK politicians to start thinking about all the options - including thinking the unthinkable which is leaving the EU.

Time to consider - conviction better than a poll.

2011-12-10T10:03:00.002+08:00

When I look at the current financial mess in Europe, and it ain’t much better in the US, I do what many others do and say “What do you expect from self serving politicians.” And then I look back in time and think about earlier politicians and conclude the current lot seem to be particularly inept. I have written why I think that is so in another blog. However there is another thought that keeps coming back to me. Despite having evermore sophisticated ways of killing people and a vast array of intelligence gathering assets our military performance, in recent years, appears lacklustre- we don’t seem be doing any better fighting wars than we are dealing with our economies. But I know if you ask most military people they will say - we could win this but the politicians keep us with one hand behind our back - so it is the politicians again: worse than inept it seems.

Then another thought occurs to me - it was the British general in the Crimean war who upon discovering he could be reached by telegraphs from London is reported as saying, “That is the end of warfare as we know it - the politicians are involved.” In other words the military could no longer simple do what they wanted to achieve an objective: they had to listen to their ultimate bosses - the politicians. And that is even more so today when politicians can watch the battle as it progresses. And that puts the politicians in an insidious position: they have to take responsibility. So even when fighting terrorists who regard human life as irrelevant, the military has all kind if impediments placed on it -it is very difficult to win a tough war if CNN are lurking behind every bush. War is extremely nasty and normally to win it the victors have to be tougher and nastier than the other side. But in today’s all media world that is almost certainly going to bring the wrath of arm chair experts down on the heads of the politicians.

But it is not just in war but in everything else- the politician gets the news - if they are lucky - a micro second ahead of the rest of the world, but all too often everybody else knows first. It is very easy to say do something but good decisions take consideration. I thought that Bush when he received the news of the first incident in the 9/11 attack did exactly the right thing. An aeroplane had flown into a tower of the World Trade centre: that is all he knew - bluntly what could he do about it at that moment. But he has received massive criticism for not doing something - what I am not quite sure. At least Lincoln, after the news of the fall of Fort Sumtarcould sit his bath and have a cigar before deciding how to respond.

Thus I get the feeling that this spontaneity of information and news is partly responsible for many of our current ills and the apparent inadequacy of our politicians. And that is compounded by the globalised business world and the 24 hour news cycle. It is difficult enough for managers of private companies who do not have to explain everything to a cynical public but is it well nigh impossible for a modern politician.

However the more I think about this the more I realise modern politics itself is accentuating the problems. They are so concerned with spin and being ‘on message’ they miss the vital confidence of a politician with a strong conviction that they are doing the right thing . If our political leaders listen less to polls and more to their instinct they have more chance of getting it right. But it is the pandering to politically correct media that make crises so difficult.

For that reason I suspect politicians of yesteryear probable were better able to deal with unexpected events -their beliefs one way or another pointed the way forward but on top of that they had time to consider both action and reaction. Now our politicians are so anxious to ‘get it right’ they dither and make it worse as well as making them look indecisive and weak. So yes it is harder but maybe it is not all the faultof the high speed world we now live in.

Executive pay.- when is it too much

2011-11-30T14:21:00.002+08:00

Executive pay is rapidly becoming an issue which the public is annoyed about, and the situation is being exacerbated by the likes of Occupy Wall Street: but the reality is a democratic government can do very little about it. The same applies to banker’s bonuses except maybe when the government is a shareholder of the bank - and then it depends upon what percentage they own. It is possible to tax excessive salaries to extinction but that is a catch all solution that will drive away investment, entrepreneurs, premiership footballers and quite possibly existing corporate headquarters as well - all of which would have a negative impact on the country. So governments can do little except catch the flak.

The first point to consider is how unfair are these salaries -what is a fair maximum wage? Or indeed is there such a thing? In Big corporate - new age feudal barons I wrote : the top man in a top global company has enormous resources and responsibilities - Nestle (49th in size by turnover) is a Swiss company with a turnover of 105,000 million, assets 190 million and has 250,000 plus employees. The top man there earns nearly $14 million. Is that reasonable or not? I find it hard to justify however good he is and suspect that somebody could do the job just as well for a mere million. But of course compared to some of our top sports men - take the Man U striker Rooney who appears to earn $16 million a year - it makes the CEO of Nestle look very underpaid.

Top sportsmen are a good area to look at -they are paid on their ability and the demand for that ability - in sports coming second is losing and everybody understands you have to pay to get winners. And whilst there is uproar when a banker gets a bonus there is no such outcry when Rooney gets more money because the side has won a series or a game. A top banker might apply the same standards to himself - if his team (the bank department) has made a lot of money so why should he not be rewarded.

One aspect that is exacerbating the situation is the recipients of mega salaries like to flash their ill-gotten gains in the faces of the less fortunate. In the past I knew many high paid individuals and they were not only subtle with their money but they were well aware of the envy they could create. One such person who was very successful in his own right and head of a significant public company, had a Bristol motor car because as he put it “If you park a Rolls Royce in the car park everybody know sit; nobody understands a Bristol.” I might also add his salary was minuscule compared to equivalent salaries today. And he insisted any business expenditure was rationalised in value terms. His age group were bought to understand the word ostentatious was a derogatory term. I suspect today many higher earners take the opposite view - they want to sock it to the workers by parking the Ferrari in the car park.

But the real problem is the remuneration committees that set executive pay in big organisations. These committees often are largely made up of non-executive directors and advisors. To put it bluntly they are part of the same group as the executives - it is actually in their interest to see executive pay rising. And of course as most major shareholders are now big investment funds their managers are also in the jobs market at that level -they have the same view on salaries.

Another problem is the idea that recruitment from outside the company is good. I sure it is in some cases but again going back in time companies liked to recruit from within - somebody moving up a job knows everybody and knows the systems and market. A successful company should be able to recruit from within - a succession plan is good for stability. Whereas an outsider needs to learn the organization and then maybe make expensive changes. I suspect in far too many cases it is more a negative than a positive. It is much easier to agree a sensible remuneration package with an existing employer.

The argument a modern executive will make is that with instant communications they are always on the job. Whereas in the past a manager could finish a day’s work now even when traveling have to get on their email in the evening and work for an hour or more - the Blackberry is always beeping. And of course all that instant access means decisions have to be made quickly in several time zones. It is much harder now than for the executive of twenty years ago who could go missing if he wanted to think about an issue.

Going back to the sports analogy a cohesive and well motivated team will often beat a team of superstars. But it needs a good manager to get the mix to gel. However the board of directors of a sports club knows that super star wages are a large percentage of operating costs. So they are careful to see they are really getting value for money but the cost of high wager earners is a small percentage of a multinationals overall costs and monitored by the very people who are getting those salaries. And with share capital in billions there is no defining shareholder which makes it all very incestuous.

However the real problem may well be that as we are no longer a wealthy manufacturing nation - our base salaries are not keeping up with the times - so the gap between the management and the plodders is inevitable widening. Wealth creation is not just good for the country but the average worker as well.

Getting back to focus - where wealth comes from

2011-11-29T09:14:00.002+08:00

Reading web boards as well as comments under articles sometimes produces gems but the majority of comments do little more than reflect a general view of the readers as well as badly thought out rants. But one comment that caught my eye was the dangers of going back to the eighties- I suppose an anti Thatcher rant. However my view is I preferred the UK in the eighties: the modern PC Britain I visit annually is not the way I want to remember my country. However that thought started me thinking about our past – our recent history. Well nobody can put the clocks back and ‘what ifs’ are useless afterwards. However history usually has something to teach us - thus my thoughts dwelled on the late Victorian era - the end of the 19th Century. At that time the UK was the manufacturing base for the world and we had vast resources in no small part due to the colonies. As a result the country became enormously wealthy and despite two very expensive World wars we still have considerable – but dwindling - wealth largely due to those energetic Victorians.

Now look at us - we have ceded most of our manufacturing to others - in part due to uncompetitive labour costs in part due to globalisation - and we pathetically scatter out hard earned cash in Africa in an attempt to appease those who disliked us for being colonists. Whilst on the other hand China, whom back then we sold tea to in exchange for opium, has now become the World's manufacturing hub and is now plundering Africa by simply paying off its dictators - dictators who are in power because we exited Africa in indecent haste without a thought for the majority of the people we were leaving behind. As a result the Chinese are becoming enormously wealthy.

Surely there is one big lesson in all that- to create real wealth you need something tangible. Of course going back to Victorian times there was no social security which meant little or no free health care, no dole etc. Something the Chinese are short of as well. So when you think that 60% plus of government spending is on social services you do not need a calculator to work out that without it our deficit problem would vanish overnight - and thus robust defence expenditure would be possible.

But the real issue is how do we get back to making things? Being part of the EU is a problem as well as being a solution. The regulations of the EU, on top of our own, pushes up the cost of employment (our unit labour cost) whilst on the other hand being a member gives us unrestricted access to EU markets. Of course there is then the great contradiction of the EU- they insist upon ‘leveling the playing field’ for members and thus the justification of the rules - but at the same time they allow imports from China et al that do not have our rules -which means their unit labour cost is considerable lower than ours. A true level playing field would insist the importers had the same working hour directives, holiday directives and straight banana directives - but no they don’t- so we bleed jobs and wealth to the rest of the World.

At Bretton Woods in a conference on how the world financial system should work it was agreed that currency exchange rates would float between each other - so that stresses in the system caused by one country doing better would be compensated by a higher currency: thus hopefully naturally correcting trade imbalances. And thereby hangs the source the dispute between China and the USA. The US think the Yuan should be allowed to float freely and if so it would be more expensive in terms of the US$ and the pricing differential to labour unit cost would be go back in the US favour. Of course China controls their currency because they do not want to risk large-scale unemployment which could happen if their currency was too expensive. You have to have sympathy with both positions although I have not touched on US quantative easing - but governments not unnaturally will think about themselves first.

So it is onto this mélange of problems the UK economy must struggle along burdened down with a massive social security budget. We are bogged down by regulation which pushes up our unit labour cost which is thus too high in World terms; on top of that China is keeping its currency low and using its surplus to buy up badly needed resources in the third world - the Victorians would applaud.

So in cliché terms it is time to think outside the box.

One point is quite clear the EU has become the problem not the solution that was promised in the early seventies. Leaving the EU would be not only be a big step but also a potentially dangerous one - I doubt we would be shut out of EU markets but we could still end up paying a high price if we left without agreement. The other issue would be how much can we reduce wage costs and stick within the EU rules - in principal if not fact - but the real point is would a bonfire of rules really make our labour cost that much better? It almost certainly would but would it be enough to get us back to making things? I doubt it. So we need to go further. We need to encourage investment in manufacturing - that could be done by tax breaks aimed at manufacturers in particular, NI contributions, capital allowance, tax rates for investors, corporation tax rates and even executive tax rates. Don’t think an executive making a decision on where to build will not look at his own final salary as well if he has to live in the country. Of course the cost and availability of land to build a factory is also an issue.

We need some special economic zones that are almost tax free not just for the goods but for labour as well with it excluded from minimum wage requirements. In other words a new factory would get cheap rents and rates with wages subject to no tax - and there would be no minimum wage. Of course we would need to make certain it did not distort investment away from other parts - and that maybe easier said than done - possible by targeting specific industries.

In addition we would need to make certain that labour was available as required and that would undeniable require a get tough policy on the local unemployed. I have no doubt it would also get unions and the politically correct buzzing saying that we are creating sweat shops in the UK - the answer is not we are not; we are trying to put the Great back into GB. Or maybe more correctly if we want our social largesse to continue we need to replace the original wealth that was created by the Victorian sweatshops.

As regards the Chinese in Africa I effectively deal with that it in this blog - and we need to do something for sure - again it will not be PC either but it needs doing.

Use the doom and gloom to make big changes.

2011-11-22T14:35:00.002+08:00

There are plenty of depressing articles and comments about the future of The UK, Europe and even the rest of the world all concentrating on the economic woes of the Euro. With no sign of a realistic solution an economic depression looms: sadly so say all of us including politicians and the governor of the bank of England. As conventional wisdom says you can only get re-elected if the economy is good the chances of the Conservatives winning the next election in 2015 look as doomed as the Euro.

But another danger is that when the Euro falls the next target for the markets will be the UK - we have got off the hook with austerity measures light. However these probably need to be adjusted to a medium level as our growth is neutral at best, but if we became subject to the same scrutiny as Italy - who did implement credible but light austerity measures as well - we will be forced into much sharper and deeper cuts which would finally finish off any election chances. In many ways the chancellor looks damned if he does and damned if he does not.

However surely this is the moment to use those very forecasts to do something radical -to take the entrenched positions and use the doom and gloom to make change.

These are the actions I believe the government can take.

In an article in August I suggested a logistics corps as an alternative to jail for young first time offenders. This could also take volunteers that could include the long term unemployed. In the end if the long term unemployed are offered a job - be it in the Logistics corps - they would be forced to take it or lose benefit. This is not a punishment corps but a kind of national service in which young men - it could of course include women - are trained on a military basis to perform logistics tasks which would include driving, warehousing, computer skills, catering, stock control maintenance - in fact a whole range of good skills. It would not only make people fit - the 13 week basic training period would concentrate on that - it would get them used to discipline, it would teach essential skills and those that need remedial education in the basics such as reading and writing would receive it. With nearly a million of our youth unemployed I cannot believe this would cost a great deal more than they are already costing; on top of that, in the longer term, they could take over existing military logistics work including catering. Sport should play a suitable role in getting people fit. But the real plus would be people would be cleaned up, got fit and would have a genuine skill after it. Conscription for offenders would be according to their crime but for volunteers a minimum of 12 months would do no harm and after a year or more on the dole it would be real way forward. Wages would be basic with those who have restitution to make having it deducted at source - and while they are serving their sentence a prison wage only would apply.

In a recent article I wrote about bureaucracy and referred to Parkinson’s law -I am 100% sure that there are plenty of civil servants with non jobs - there will be some paper shuffling just to look busy. The cost of employing all those civil servants - not to even mention their pensions - is a significant government and local government cost. A moratorium on new hires for say two years would save plenty - I am sure somebody already hired could do the job of those leaving. I also believe there should be a freeze on employing ‘consultants.’ Every department should publish a full list of employees with job title and brief job description. Details of any consultant hires must be advertised - on the department website - with full details of task and pay. All such deals when agreed must also be listed.

This cut back of civil service numbers would be helped by a serious reduction in petty rules and regulations - in an excellent article in the Telegraph by Charles Moore he points out the problem with the regulations is not an individual bit of legislation but the total of it all. If ever there was a time to get people hiring employees it is now. I believe the minimum wage should go as there would be plenty of jobs in the hospitality industry if there were no draconian wage demands - traditionally many staff in that industry lived off tips and been more than happy with what they got. Where the removal of such regulation clashed with EU rules - take the French line ‘tough’ we will do what is best for the UK!

A cut back of such regulations should stimulate investment but further motivation could be provided by suitable tax incentives to firms investing in manufacturing and research and development in particular. This is a suitable time because many firms are cash rich having been putting their houses in order over the last couple of years. We need to get the cash they are sitting on back to work.

An area that is costing the government a fortune is the trend of suing the government and councils at the drop of a hat. Often these are settled at way above the real damages to the person concerned - mainly because of the legal cost of defending them. It is time we accepted that public services are provided by us - the taxpayer - the public is suing itself which is ludicrous. It is something that should be stopped either by a fixed amount clarified by law, or making the suing of public bodies impossible.

My two other areas of action are the old chestnuts of Immigration and Overseas aid.

I saw a statistic the other day that pointed out that most jobs created over the last decade have gone to immigrants and older workers who are not retiring. And there are plenty of suggestions that we have a benefit culture that is keeping younger workers on the dole - my Logistics corps addresses that problem. However as we are seemingly heading for a recession there is no excuse for letting any more cheap migrant labour in, and people who are not EU citizens must have a valid work permit: I discuss this further in this blog.

Again with overseas aid I suspect - without any hard evidence other than living in Asia for over 10 years and knowing a few aid workers - that 50% or more of our aid goes sideways. Again I have written about directing aid so that it actually helps us in this blog, However I believe we could halve our aid budget and with careful targeting do much more good than we do at present.

The outlook is uncertain and it is very difficult to cut when the GDP is falling. My proposals will be income neutral or better however they have the real prospect of creating jobs that will in turn bring down government expenditure. The country is now exposed to far more risks that it should be and in politics it does not matter whose fault it is if you are supposed to be at the helm when it happens. The will be doubly so if the status quo is simply left in place: positive actions will not make matters worse and could even be election winners.

Bureaucracy is out of control.

2011-11-19T07:08:00.002+08:00

If I look at the UK today what do I see - a politically correct bureaucracy with no sense of humour that wants to micro manage my life - well I don’t live in the UK but I go back once a year and I am now surrounded by fellow Brits who say ‘thank heavens I don’t live in England.’ It is easy to blame New Labour who introduced more new rules per year than ever before - but it is more than them.

Go back to when I first left school in the mid sixties - there were no traffic wardens, few speed limits, no alcohol limit when driving and no VAT, furthermore there was no European Union, very few quangos, no race relations act, no unfair dismissal and nobody had heard of diversity let alone legislated on it - no doubt I could go on but the point I am making is that all these new rules and regulations might be a good idea - depending upon your point of view - but they have all created more bureaucracy and bureaucracy has a habit being sponge-like in its ability to absorb people and money.

Parkinson’s law was expanded in two or three humorous books published in the 1960’s and required reading by anybody in business. As regards to bureaucracies he wrote “(1) "An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals" and (2) "Officials make work for each other." He notes in particular that the total of those employed inside a bureaucracy rose by 5-7% per year "irrespective of any variation in the amount of work (if any) to be done."

You cannot say we were not warned and if you look at government administration today not only do we have our central government, regional and county government as we had in the sixties but we now have Scottish and Welsh Governments and of course on top of all this is the European Union - which is most definatly following Parkinson’s law as it expands and churns out regulations which in turn create more bureaucracy here in the UK.

Local governments have expanded exponentially; such growth excused by the rash of regulations that must be enforced, as much as by Parkinson’s Law. One of the more interesting comments I saw on a blog was an explanation as to why council managers wages had exploded - it was not that they now did a bigger job but that they now had management speak titles - so the senior administrator is now called the CEO and expects a salary in line with industry CEO’s. He also needs PR officers, diversity advisors, human rights managers and bin inspectors et al; all new positions that of course have to be paid for. And all those new managers need a department with secretaries and offices. But it is not just councils it is government departments that have also expanded with a string of new resources demanded by new regulations.

The other problem with bureaucracy is every decision has to go through the system. A manager in a commercial venture is told to get on with the job - he leads a team and when a good manager has a meeting he knows what he wants to achieve and makes certain that is the conclusion - democracy in management only goes so far as making certain the team know what they have to do and are ‘on side.’ Bureaucracies have a habit of consulting all and sundry and then putting off the decision until the next meeting. Of course one of the problems of ever expanding multi-nationals is that they too become bureaucratic and slow to react - although those that do tend to start going backwards.

There is much talk about government expenditure and calls to remove excessive regulation - there is little doubt in my mind that we have had far too much legislation of late and as a result far too much bureaucracy - partly as result of those directives and partly because Parkinson’s Law has been at work.

It is clear that we are losing our economic momentum - mainly due to globalisation but also in part due to regulation stifling new businesses and much of the stifling effect comes from bureaucracy. And the trouble is multiplied when we think what that bureaucracy costs at all levels. Governments love to pass laws and bureaucrats love to make rules - they think it demonstrates they have a real role in government. But it is also costing us real money - our taxes fuel that bureaucracy, taxes slow down investment, they stop people spending. Government needs to think very hard before it introduces new regulations - it needs to think of the real cost of that regulation not just on business, or the individual, but on the cost of government.

Bureaucracy and excessive government is destroying our enthusiasm and blighting our treasuries. It is time to recognise that is not just in the UK but most of the western world.

The Euro must be busted before we all are.

2011-11-13T11:38:00.001+08:00

I have written enough in this blog about democracy to make it clear that I do believe what we have is really democracy and that even if it is it is seriously flawed. I have written The Aquitaine Trilogy which traces the route a new society might take and developed a system there which would not be described as true democracy because I think looking at western democracy today we would see its flaws and try and work to create a better system. But even in my system the population have firstly a vote on adopting that system in a referendum and then there are the checks and balances of two parliaments - one fully elected - even if the actual government is left to what today seems to be called technocrats. However they have a strict set of constitutional guidelines which include borrowing powers - basically zero, tax raising powers to a max threshold of GDP and all forms of direct individual tax may not exceed 50% of income. There is also a list of priorities in the funding queue - and the ones down the queue don’t get funded if there is no money. Who knows it may or may not work but it is a system and it is thought through.

The one part of all the systems is that they have a democratic element that has either evolved over centuries or been approved by the people - but suddenly we have a new system that is rearing its ugly head, or maybe I should say eight heads of the various European Union presidents who now compose of the new ruling group de Francfort. This group does not have a single claim to democratic legitimacy - the EU is supposed to be run by a council, commissioners and even a neutered parliament but not by an ad hoc group. One thought will be that as The German and French leaders are the two drivers of this group that they finally see an opportunity to succeed where their predecessors - Hitler and Napoleon - failed. Are we about to fight Waterloo again with this time Blucher supporting the French side?

This is a good summary of events from Janet Daley .

But there is another dimension to this - the consensus is changing. For most of this crisis the line that breaking up the Euro will cause economic chaos has held - now the probable effect of keeping it together is beginning to sink in. The latest country to walk unwittingly into trouble is Slovenia - a tiny country which should be able to do no harm to anybody.

The ignored predicament is the deflationary spiral countries are being coerced into. The EU austerity plan is to make these countries deflate so they are competitive with a high Euro; in other words force down wages, or at least hold them, until labour productivity is the same as Germany and at that point they can grow their way out of trouble. In the meantime government spending must be cut to below expenditure so debts can be repaid. Fine but the trouble is cutting government expenditure at these levels inevitable means a fall in GDP, a drop in GDP means lower tax revenues and less jobs which equals more unemployment - you do not need to be a genius to work out where that leads. But the worst part is as more and more countries get forced into this downward spiral as demand drops across Europe and finally it gets to the countries with no problem at the start. That sucks the whole of Europe and ultimately the world into downward spiral - no wonder the Chinese and the Yanks are worried. What is worse once in the spiral sets in it will take years to rectify, and it is likely to ruin our economies for the next decade.

The alternative is what will be nasty shock to the system that most people concede may be very unpleasant but in twelve months time matters will be getting better. In school boy terms the choice is six of the best, or detention every day for the rest of the term that has only just begun.

Now you would have thought the people - in a democracy - would have a final say on what is to happen. But no - The Frankfort group have ruled we will take our deflationary medicine and have insisted that Greece and Italy replace their Prime Ministers with unelected prime ministers who are regarded as ‘safe’ by the ruling elite. I am wondering whether the elections in France for president next spring will somehow be subverted as they are being run at an inappropriate moment - I suspect if Marine Le Pen ever looked like winning that may well happen. Maybe the EU will just ban elections in all EU countries for five years as we need ‘stability’?

This will be because whatever the Francfort Group prescribes eventually somewhere there will be an election where a Euro sceptic group wins control of a national parliament - and of course that is even more likely if the Euro crisis forces an economic depression on the world and Europe in particular. Then what will happen? If the EU cannot somehow overrule the election then maybe they will get out of the Euro - causing the very collapse that the Francfort Group is insisting cannot happen. That will be like half a term of teacher mandated detention then six of the best.

The people will be very angry - and that will be the moment when the Francfort group will try and simple take charge and even give up any pretence of democracy - wars have started over less!

Cameron needs to start thinking about the worst case scenario and accept the Euro is a busted flush - it needs breaking up now before it drags us all into something much worse than a malevolent recession.

Aid to whom? It could do so much more

2011-11-09T15:46:00.001+08:00

One aspect of government policy that creates considerable ire is the amount spent on overseas aid - many feel if we are as broke as we keep hearing: why are we glibly handing out our money to those in other countries. I have lived a considerable time abroad and my view is most of it is a waste of money - it does little to alleviate poverty and much to keep corrupt governments in Rolex watches as well helping them stay in power. In most third world countries governments are inevitably corrupt as are the various layers of administration and as the money is passed through the system it suffers slippage which means by the time it gets those it was supposedly meant to help - it is fraction of what was sent.

I also believe there are some conditions in which we may be generous and one of those is, if it suits our business interests -bribery maybe - but at least we get some good out of it.

The Chinese have that policy. They will finance infrastructure and mines but the requirement is that a Chinese contractor builds the structure and a Chinese company operates the mine. The deal is good for the country - they get the road built and the mine open as well as thousands of jobs, and in due course they will get royalties from the mine and even in the longer term some of their people educated and trained to become managers in the mine business. Of course they get the benefit of the work to the contractor, the longer term benefit of operating the mine, and a number of jobs for their nationals as managers and more. It is win win and both sides do well. Our Politically Correct politicians may not like it but if you want to do business in the third World - and in reality not just there - you need to lubricate the wheels of commerce and overseas aid could provide just the right kind of lubricant.

If we want to be philanthropic I can suggest much better ways of handing out the money - the main essential being don’t give it to governments.

This is from my book Kelly- it is part of speech to the UN by Kelly

“Corruption and in some cases a simple desire to keep the peasants in their place will mean providing education is not as simple as it may seem.What is needed is a real conduit, a way in which money given actually helps where intended. To some extent faith schools provide a successful example.Their success is because they put their people on the ground. For many years missionaries to poorer countries provided the only real education; some will say they had an ulterior motive. Perhaps they did but with education they provided something that was worthwhile and lasting.

I would rather see donor countries making direct grants to suitable schools and colleges thus making certain that their money is used as intended. I know many countries do not like that idea – they believe it is meddling in their affairs. But I say why not? If somebody gives you money for a reason, why should they not see where that money has gone? Another good example is the teaching of languages. English is seen as the language of commerce, if not of the world. A command of proper English is a great boost to a poor person’s prospects. In fact any second language is a boost – so why not send -and fund - a swathe of language teachers?

Of course education is only part of it. We need jobs, particularly in poor areas. Just as importantly we need people to learn skills that will move them out of poverty. We do not always need large scale development but there are opportunities for local and niche businesses such as specialist food dealers and packagers, horticulture, small manufacturers, etcetera. These are not projects for multinationals but for entrepreneurs. I would like to see wealthy nations encouraging their own experienced businessmen to come and setup those businesses, and to finance them as part of their poverty eradication strategy. What we want is to see a small business set up then our people trained so that, at a later date, say 5 to 10 years, they can take over those businesses. I believe this is a way for many countries to grow opportunities in deprived areas.

Finally there has been much talk about micro finance and we could certainly do with that. The problem with conventional banks is they are not good at lending small amounts. They can do enormous harm by lending too much. A subsistence farmer needs enough money to plant a new crop – but a bank will lend him the value of his land with which he buys a television, a motorbike, … but then when the harvest is there is not enough money to repay the bank. Eventually the bank takes the land and the farmer goes from poverty to extreme poverty with no way out. Micro finance would lend him only the money for the seed that he can afford to repay. And even if he does not he will not lose his land – which is the only thing that is keeping him and his family from near starvation.

.......................

So I say to the rich nations: yes, we the poor people need your help, your money. But please make certain it goes to us and not to our feudal masters.”

So there are uses for an aid budget and it could benefit both UK and the people it is trying to help - but generally I suspect our current budget is doing neither. It is simple platitudes to be offered when we are called uncaring. Frankly if I can save 10 Billion a year I don’t mind being called uncaring. But if I can give benefit or genuinely help people I would be tempted to do so.

Can we save the world? - environment and global warming.

2011-11-09T14:59:00.003+08:00

The only good thing that is coming out of the global warming hysteria is it is making us think about our environment, the downside is it is highlighting just one of the many problems.

We were given a wonderful fertile planet that treated properly would look after us all - but we are not looking after it. We are plundering the planets resources, we are polluting the rivers and the seas, and we are killing off other creatures either to take over from them or to eat them. We are messing with the eco-system - the balance of nature - and it is not only down to global warming if indeed there is global warming.

I have lived and visited many countries I sometimes think the worst pollutant is plastics - plastic bags in particular blight far too many landscapes. The great pacific garbage patch is created by plastic waste and is an example of everything that is bad with none bio degradable waste. Everyday thousands of food carts in Thailand sell dozens of meals all packed away in multiple plastics bags - it is not dissimilar throughout Asia. I hate to think how many small clear plastic food bags are used each day in that region - must be millions. Those bags go into very basic landfills but far too many are just dumped, polluting water ways and blighting the landscape. Of course much the same happens in the West with most stores using plastics bags, most goods are packaged in plastics. I remember when I started shooting; cartridges were cardboard and brass - dropping them did no harm as they quickly broke down and disappeared - new cartridges are plastic and they have to be picked up and thrown away - to go in a landfill no doubt!

Our oceans and seas are not only being polluted by our waste but on top of that we are fishing them out. Fish is an enormously important food for humans with many coastal communities dependent upon it. Massive deep trawls are used to drag everything from the sea - what they don’t want goes back dead. This is not conducive to maintaining fish stocks, as a result they need to go further from land and big deep sea trawlers go further and further out into the oceans - the area around the Antarctic is now fished extensively. The pollution from careless navigators from damaging wrecks as well as greedy tanker owners who skimp on crews and maintenance is always with us and bigger and bigger tankers compound those risks.

On land urbanisation and deforestation are completely changing eco systems -driving the creatures that lived in that environment away to an alien location where they usually die off. I remember a diverse and variable bird population when I was young and farming in the UK - now all you see is carrion eaters -magpies, crows, rats and foxes living off the detritus of humans.

Water is a resource now sought after by many and there is real concern there is not enough to go round and how long before dammed rivers lead to a dispute between nations. Rivers are being polluted to uselessness by greedy factory owners and desperately poor people abusing them in some of the most populated parts of the world.

In the west we worry about global warming; whilst the worry in many new world cities is about air quality: pollution from factories and vehicles creates permanent smog that shuts out the sunlight and causes respiratory problems for many. But to rein in this pollution will slow down the march to prosperity the population demands.

However much of the problem global warming is - and I am less than convinced – there are other massive environmental problems that are being simply ignored. They are being ignored not just because nobody thinks they can do much about them but somehow we in the West have got hooked on global warming. However even if global warming is a problem and even if the world can seriously cut back on CO2 emissions it will solve nothing if we do not deal with the other issues.

It has been suggested that the real concern is population control - I would agree with that but I would also add it is also the not unreasonable aspiration of the third world to catch up with western living standards.

The issue of population numbers is not necessarily about just feeding people – it is also about having an improving life style so it is worth considering what the realistic population is. In my view we will never get a world agreement on that but there is a case for each country to consider what its own optimum population is. The economic argument is that a rising population is needed to maintain economic activity. A shrinking population means it is inevitable an aging one which means a disproportionate cost falls on young members of society. But notwithstanding that there must be a finite level of desirable population, a level that assures quality of life, and I would say the UK is already there.

I would like to think we can do more about our oceans by better control of both fishing and polluters - the only way you can do that is by somebody taking control of the open seas - the UN maybe; but they have proved to be useless to date and as such control would by necessity require the seizing or fining of polluting ships and illegal trawlers, of all nations - I can see all kinds of issues with that.

Even in the UK it is difficult to preserve wildlife areas from the urban masses – in reality the best wildlife sanctuaries are often those sporting (hunting shooting and fishing) estates where vermin - winged, pawed and two footed – is excluded. The best way to preserve tropical forests maybe to allow environmental trusts buy them: then local corruption can be sidelined. We should be working on this as much as on windmills

There is little doubt we are screwing up our glorious planet. And the solutions seem further and further away driven by mans relentless pursuit of wealth and perceived betterment. I suppose living in a 22nd Century mega city on the 30^th floor of a concrete tower with an underground station nearby, 500 channels on the wall projector (originally a TV), a life expectancy of 110 and carefully preserved trees in selected forest areas will seem like real life as will the birds and animals which will only be seen in zoos, but I like the planet as it is.

The solution maybe to adopt the religion of the peoples of the Earth (which is the new religion I created in the Aquitaine Trilogy) it recognises all existing religions and combines them in worshiping God’s gift - the Earth – our planet.

The Ten Commandments of the Peoples of the Earth

1. Look after your planet Earth and put no other planet before it.

2. Thou shalt not take the earth in vain

3. Remember every fourth year that the land of the earth must rest.

4. Do not take unnecessarily from the earth or from the forests and fields

5. If you cut down a tree, always replace it with at least another tree.

6. Do not bear false witness against any part of nature or any animal, fish or living thing,

7. Treat thy neighbour’s land as thy own.

8. Do not adulterate the land with any unnatural or abusive substance.

9. Honour your land so that it can nurture your children and their children and all subsequent generations

10. Remember that your body and mind have come from the divine nature; take what you have and be thankful.

The EU shows its true colours

2011-11-07T08:15:00.001+08:00

If nothing else the current crisis in the EU is showing exactly how difficult getting away from it will be. The idea we can easily scale down our commitment and limit their influence went as soon as they tried to force out the Greek prime minister. Whatever the justification it is clear the EU put pressure not just on Papandreou but on his various cabinet colleagues - how else do you interpret the fact his cabinet backed his referendum decision and then he flew to Cannes to see Merkel and Sarkozy - no doubt for a difficult meeting -but by the time he was back his cabinet were in revolt. It does not take a genius to realise the phone lines had been red hot and no doubt EU representatives in Athens had been visiting.

I certainly understood his rational for holding a plebiscite: there was very vocal opposition in the community and he only had a thin majority in parliament. Not the conditions under which to impose massive austerity and the opposition were saying they would get a better deal. Under those circumstances a national leader knows he needs to get his people on side or face a revolt. In the end in a democracy you need a consensus of some sorts. Especially so as without it those supposed to be implementing reforms will feel justified in holding them back.

We all know how contrived these political agreements can be: put together in a smoke filled room in the early hours of the morning - by which time everybody wants to say yes and go home. Maybe Papandreou was having second thoughts, or maybe he really did believe he needed to get his country onside; whatever the EU leaders were furious because they thought the Greek PM had reengaged on an agreement. And I suspect he had.

But looking back there have been two previous referendums which have gone against the EU’s wishes and both Denmark (1992) and Ireland (2008): they were both forced into holding another referendum and coerced into passing it.

The message of all these machinations is that EU does not allow countries to question its grand plan of a Federal Europe: it will certainly not allow backsliders. All of which makes me wonder if we will be allowed to renegotiate our membership, on the other hand if we try to just leave expect every dirty trick in the book -the will of the people will count for nothing.

Papandreou is now leaving and a new unity government is being formed to vote through the reforms and at least a large parliamentary majority will give them some legitimacy. There is also talk of elections in a few months- I doubt whether the EU will want that so I suspect they will be delayed. Pity Sarkozy cannot put his re-election in April back a few months - the EU may not like that result as well!

We get what we vote for - or do we?

2011-11-03T08:56:00.001+08:00

After reading an article entitled ‘Theworld is at the mercy of irrelevant pygmies’ by Mathew Norman, I decided that If nothing else the Euro crisis, the mess in the UK finances and the standoff between the President and congress in the US has made more and more people think about our governance. People are seriously wondering whether our western democracy is really all it’s cracked up to be. I have wondered whether it is indeed democracy and I am not sure it is - but to try and change it in a meaningful way will require a revolution.

To start with we need to look at the party system that effectively controls parliaments. The cry of fervent democrats is you get what you vote for! But my argument would be the parties select who you vote for, and climbing the party ladder is not conducive getting the best people - it encourages the irrelevant.

In 2006 I started thinking about this very seriously and that finally led me to writing the AquitaineTrilogy which follows the development of a new society made up of a melange of people who survive a nuclear holocaust. Nuclear because that was the simplest way to get to the beginning and not a statement about nuclear weapons. But the most interesting part was thinking about how I would change things - why would my system be better?

To know what to change I needed to first decide what is wrong with our current system. These are the problems with our system as I see it.

Short termism:

That can all be summed up in the comment ‘it’s the economy stupid.’ A politician who has to been re-elected every few years will always be thinking about that and not the longer term. There are too many examples around but the one I always quote is when I was studying economics in the ‘60s there was much discussion about us ‘baby boomers’ and the effect we would have on social security when we got to retirement age. To start creating a pension fund for each person was obvious but of course pensions contributions in a year were used to pay that year’s pension - that remains so today and now the 'baby boomers' threaten to overwhelm the system.

The quality of the people in politics

Being a politician has become a profession with more and more of our elected leaders having little more business experience than driving a copying machine. As anybody knows who has actually done it; ideals are one thing - reality is another.

The other issue is that Democracy was supposed to be an opportunity for the citizens to select their leaders - by inference the leading citizens; the successful ones. Our politicians are not successful at anything except climbing the greasy pole of politics. In the Euro zone the only successful businessman leading a country was Berlusconi!

Changes of direction:

To an extent volatile changes in government direction only really happen when there are two parties - left and right. On that basis coalitions look like a good option as nothing happens and that is generally good - but the when a problem needs fixing, it needs fixing. The worst example of what happens in a coalition is the machinations of the Euro zone. However politics which see rules regularly changed to favour one direction or another are generally bad for the country - whatever the perceived right and wrong of the move.

Minority groups and political correctness .

This is comparatively new issue and has been brought about by the professional aspect of political management. A government should rule for the majority - its decisions should be based on what is best for the country as a whole. But that has changed because all too often two major parties split the votes almost equally with core voters. It only requires a comparatively small number of swing voters to get a majority. So suddenly minorities become disproportionally important. Political strategists are thinking we need to appeal to the gay vote, the green vote, the lunatic vote etc. because they can win us the election.

Money

The disproportionate influence businesses can have on a political parties by providing the money required to fund the party and these days it is massive amounts of money.

Too much government

There is an unseemly rush to legislate - almost certainly because of knee jerk reactions to events -this is compounded by a combination of weak politicians and professional political managers who fear losing votes if nothing is done - all too often the subsequent legislation is badly flawed

Media

I believe that the media is losing its power to influence due to the internet and generally speaking whilst we have media that leans one way we also have media that leans the other. The recent furore over Murdoch suggest that politicians, at least, believed his media empire had genuine influence. As long there is a multiplicity of media I am less worried about it - but I know in many countries media laws are pernicious and do genuinely restricted freedom of thought by restricting news and keeping it ‘on message’ but I do not see that here whatever people say about the Beeb.

Maybe the most malicious effect of modern media is it remorseless search for scandal often using cheque book journalism. Normal people who have spent twenty years in the real adult world have probably done a few things they are less than proud off - a dalliance with a secretary, a pass at the office party or even just simple losing their temper after a hard day. These are things that happen and make a person what he is. The tabloids will take great delight in paying a significant sum for a suitable version of the story and posting it in effusive print. If you are successful why risk your reputation by entering the dirty world of politics and painting a media bulls eye on your back?

Needless to say some of these issues cross over and if we had strong economically savvy leaders who put the country before their own political gain we would not have most of these problems. Aristotle, who is credited with inventing democracy, assumed the voters would be citizens - by definition home owners thus people who had an idea of the problems. Now we have a vast electorate that mostly have little understanding of the real issues. I saw a suggestion on the UK petition website that everybody should be taught economics at school - but to Quote George Bernard Shaw “If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.” In other words it is an inexact science and I don’t think discussing the merits of Keynesiam will become a bar topic anytime soon however ever much economic theory is taught.

To quote from my book The Constitution“Governments go with the flow in order to get re-elected. But as the saying goes ‘Only dead fish go with the flow.”

............................ “We need to address economics,” Ted said.“Personally, I think the economics of a country are far too important to be left to dead fish.”

A future blog will suggest what to do.

Ministers are the boss not the civil service.

2011-10-27T07:15:00.000+08:00

When I was first involved in politics there was a saying that the real difference between Labour and Conservative was that the Conservatives could make things happen because they had ministers who were used to managing. And if you look back at the Conservative ministers of say the early Thatcher years most had a business background - they had run businesses before they became politicians and of course Thatcher’s husband was a director of a public company. So when you look at the difficulty the current government has, not to mention the previous one, it seems hardly surprising as few ministers had ever run anything other than a copying machine.

So that brings us to the subject of the civil service - much of what ministers are supposed to do has seemingly been passed to civil servants, but again in the sixties civil servants were seen as the competent unbiased administrators of the governments wishes. Nevertheless it is becoming clear that the civil service has now become politicised. ‘Yes Minister’ may have been a parody but even then most ministers agreed it has a great deal of truth in it.

The civil service has expanded exponentially and keeps growing and growing and inevitably when you have a bureaucracy it become less and less efficient and fiefdoms are developed. Add to that all the damn stupid diversity and equality legislation and you get an expensive mess. I remember when Harold Wilson’s government decreed - in the interest of equality - that management level recruitment to the CS must not just come from the Oxbridge but also the red brick universities as well - in other words entrance qualifications were to be dumbed down to make them more equal. At the time my father said ‘There goes the civil service’ or words to that effect and he looks horribly right today.

A not so good civil service would not matter if the Ministers could do their jobs. Even though most Ministers are now bolstered by their own special advisors, who are largely there to do what the civil service should do and are needed to try and keep the CS on track, the signs are not promising.

I wonder what would happen if a ministers first move, upon taking over a department, was to ask for a list of all employees of that department complete with job title, one line job description, extension number and email address. What is the betting Sir Humphrey, or whatever his name is, would think of a dozen reasons why such a list was not available, and then if it was still demanded it would take months to put together in the hope that by then the minister would have moved on. And if I was the minister I would be very concerned that the CS would not immediately start work to get rid of me by undermining me and even leaking dangerous documents.

Stories coming out of the Defence Ministry suggest that the management there is nonexistent and nobody really knows what is going on. The result is massive budget overspends. But on the surface nothing has been done about it - no stories of legions of civil servants fired!

Of course it is a much more complex world now with many facts and much information hidden (lost?) on computers. IT initiatives in government departments have proved to be very expensive and seldom do what is wanted. I suspect I know why- it is because IT throws up almost too much information and what starts of as a database say to hold the information of name, address and some specific information relevant to that department is suddenly modified to hold more information and produce additional obscure statistics - simply because it can - and nobody has enough balls to say stop - what do we actually want?

I am reminded of a story about the New York head office of a global company that in a period of consolidation looked for ways to save money. The final solution was to close every other floor of its 20 storey building. So it did just that and made redundant the relevant work force - the result was after 3 months the whole operation was running just as smoothly. I often suspect such a scheme would work in our over bureaucratic CS - get rid of say every third grade and I am sure that after a month or two nobody would notice.

However the point still remains ministers are there to run a department and they should be responsible for that department - that is what ministers are for. If ministers do not have enough experience to run a department then we need to rethink the whole way we run government. Sadly the argument is we have already done that by subcontracting the management to the Civil Service - with little or no supervision because the ministers simple do not understand what is really going on. Ever wonder why our finances are in such a mess?

The house of vested interests.- Lords reform

2011-10-25T09:13:00.000+08:00

I am always banging about how incompetent our governments are and I find very few people disagree with me. People just shrug and say politics - what can I do about it? But what I find extraordinary is that nobody looks at democracy with a jaundiced eye and asks is it really the best system? Looking at the west I am not so sure it is doing us any favours. Frankly we look very badly governed and the words of Alexis de Tocqueville I quoted in the article is it really democracy look horribly prophetic:

I have thought about this long and hard and that is why I wrote the Aquitaine Trilogy in which a new community looks back at our democracy and decides they don’t want to make the same mistakes - so they modify it. In the third book, 'The War' how it actually works is demonstrated. But as I have said I did not think I could reach that point starting from where we are now. However I believe that are steps we can take in the UK to improve our governance only because we have a unique institution - The House of Lords.

Originally the Lords were the ones who had money. In Medieval times they governed on behalf of the monarch who gave them land which they ran. And it was a spat betweenthe Barons and King John that formalized power away from the king in the Magna Carta in 1215. From then on parliament was developed over the ages: want to know more see House of Commons site.

The House of Lords had comparable power to the commons until 1909 when a fight over taxation forced a reform of the Lords. Their power on money matters was removed and their power to delay a bill was curtailed. In 1999 further reform took place when hereditary peers were limited to 92 and thus peers are now mainly political appointees as well as former senior members of the Commons. It is a hotchpotch and nobody thinks it is right but nobody is quite certain what to do. Many talk about an elected Lords - although Ipersonally think that is exactly what we do not want. As to the hereditary issue I agree it should be changed because far too many peers have no money and therefore little legitimacy.

Back to the Aquitaine Trilogy in that I created the Elders - as well as an elected parliament - and they both had equal power. The Elders are defined as leading citizens who are appointed according to merit. They must hold an agreed position in a major institution and/or business, such as largest employers, largest capitalised companies, largest unions, charities, trades, and professional institutions. Elders are appointed for 10 years and must be over 45 years or, if less, at least 2/3^rds. of the average age of the population. Up to 10 percent of Elders may be appointed from former members of the House of Commons.

I believe we should reform the House of Lords on similar lines. My reasoning is simple - as Pissed Off in Wall Street keep pointing out - the success of the country depends upon money as much as people - without the money there are few jobs and little investment. Of course my Elders will represent a lot more than just money but also institutions and associations as well as charities. The intention would be to give representation to people who really understand the issues, to bring into government people with genuine experience and by bringing in the institutions and trade associations a balanced view should be available. Yes most all have specific vested interests but why not - their interests are clearly defined and they can present their case to their peers - who may or may not be persuaded. The Elders would have credibility and as they would be appointed by what they are, they should be apolitical. They will bring another very important perspective to Westminster. I would also like to see them have some say over money matters because it is in that area we have gone so badly wrong.

I am well aware such a proposal will not go down well with most of our political class - apart from anything else they will fear they can no longer control parliament as most members of the elders would be cross benchers and outside the whip system. As long as they vote to do what they believe is best for the country I see nothing wrong in that.

I have proposed a minimum age and must admit I would also like one for the Commons as well - the people who govern us should have at least had some experience of working in the real world - maybe then they would realise why some of their legislation is so harmful.

I have thought this through in more detail but the basic idea is as laid out here. In the 1960’s I wrote a letter to the Times saying the same thing and received a fair number of letters supporting the proposal including one from a then MP. And that was before we suffered from some recent appalling governments - up until the ’60s Democracy looked a great deal better than it does today.

Does the government really want more jobs?

2011-10-18T13:00:00.000+08:00

I have used a few blogs to make the point that there are more jobs in the economy, and there is more life, if only the government would get over its lust for petty regulation and simply let entrepreneurs get on with the job of making things and employing people as opposed to pandering to the great bureaucracies of our and EU governance. But there is one other area that is just as important - energy.

We have a new mantra in our lives - renewable energy. I make no bones about it I am an enthusiastic environmentalist - I believe we have trashed our planet - if you don’t believe me read the Aquitaine Trilogy which is about a new society with new governance and in the process I have created a new religion called the Peoples of the Earth which worships the Gift of God - our planet. I deplore the degradation of our wildlife, our forests and our oceans all ignored as the human race clambers after an undefined utopia.

But I also understand that poverty and greed are the two emotions that are most responsible for some of the worst pollution. At the most basic level only a person with a vehicle can take waste to the right place to get rid of it - a poor person with no vehicle and no waste collection throws his rubbish in the river, on the road side, into the sea or wherever - somehow it goes. The greedy man collects the rubbish to take to the tip but simply dumps it creating more pollution, as does the greedy tanker owner who washes his oil tanks in the ocean when he thinks nobody is looking. And those super tankers circulating the globe are accidents waiting to happen; doubly so when a greedy owner cuts back on essential maintenance, as well as crew numbers.
The UK is approaching a crunch point on energy. For years the last government fiddled refusing to make a decision on building new power stations lest they upset the green lobby. There is simply not much time left to get new power stations on line but we still fiddle. The idea that wind power will fill the vacuum is ridiculous- the wind does not always blow. The most likely solution, that we will be rushed into as the lights threaten to go out, is buying nuclear power from France. That will be made easier as EDF (Électricité de France) already supplies 20% of UK electricity.

Bearing mind the issues with oil -particularly its price - the logical move would be to renew the nuclear power stations we already have, maybe using Thorium. But no we are still dithering and suddenly a bloody great windmill is about to appear on a hill near you: it will ruin your view, kill thousands of birds, hum when it is running and will require expensive rare earths in its construction - on top of that it will be subsidized by the government (that means you) both during the build and operational stage: a cost that is being quietly passed onto the consumers. So in a period of stiff and very necessary economic consolidation, energy prices are going up and up.

Now if you were the government and suddenly somebody said we have found almost limitless gas near Blackpool I would have thought you would have, in colloquial speak, taken their arm off. But no: it is almost as though the government wants to cover up the shale gas find. The question of fracking being safe in answered in this article.

The conspiracy theorists are having a field day as the PM’s wife’s family is doing very well out of windmills - thank you. And I find it unbelievable because cheap energy is one thing which would help get our factories competitive again. It is one thing that would get jobs back into our economy. It is one thing that would allow us to once again be a wealth creating nation.

So I am now wondering exactly what the political class want? They may talk about jobs and job creation but they don’t take the simple steps that would actually make a difference. They will not remove the bullshit regulations that are the bane of any manager’s life, they will not remove the minimum wage allowing thousands of jobs in the hospitality industry to be created and now they will not give us cheap energy. WHY Mr Cameron, Why?

Big corpoate - new age Feudal Barons

2011-10-17T13:17:00.002+08:00

The Occupy Wall Street Movement (OWS) appears to have had no problem in going global which provides a certain paradox as it is against globalised companies that much of their ire is directed. In any event I have a suspicion that most ordinary people are supportive of OWS as the top salaries of global companies are excessive by any measure when compared with Mr. Average. However looking at the figures in more detail the top man in a top company has enormous resources and responsibilities - I pulled out Nestle (49th by turnover) at random. It is a Swiss company. Turnover is 105,000 million, assets 190 million and has 250,000 plus employees. The top man there earns nearly $14 million. Is that reasonable or not? I find it hard to justify however good he is and suspect that somebody could do the job just as well for a mere million. But of course compared to some of our top sports men - take the Man U striker Rooney who appears to earn $16 million a year - it makes the CEO of Nestle look very underpaid.
Equating turnover to GDP means the highest turnover company (Walmart) with 421 Billion is roughly equivalent to the 23rd rated country by GDP (Norway); and 201st in the companies list at $40.5 Billion (UBS) is roughly the same as 79th in the country list (Uruguay). Which means there are a significant number of large companies out there which have as much if not more clout, in financial terms, than most nations. On top of that I am sure I would be correct in saying their balance sheets are in better order -they can manage what they owe and, most of the time, they actually make a profit.
It is very tempting to simple say these companies are not needed and should be broken up but that begs questions, the like of; who builds new auto plants, new power stations, who insures a jumbo jet, where do new ships come from, and what about new drugs and new computer products? The OWS crowd are all busy on their smart phones rallying friends - they should think of the process by which they have that phone and how it gets its service. And for those who talk about state ownership just think what happened to industrialisation in the Soviet Union between 1960 and 1990? The answer is very little - nothing moved on it was moribund in state bureaucracy: something that OWS would empathise with as it seems every decision they make requires a committee meeting!
There is very little doubt that globalisation offers enormous risks to sovereign nations and consequently democracy - if indeed we have that: see article . As I point out in that article big business goes hand in hand with government - it is by any normal standard a corrupting influence brought about by the cost of modern politics. But on top of that where a corporation builds its factories, not to mention locates its tax base, can have significant effects on the employment and tax revenues of a country. Even the biggest countries don’t want to lose a home based multinational. And worse still, there is always consolidation ongoing and suddenly an external company sweeps in to scoop up a home based company and takes many of the benefits that company provided with it. This recently happened to Cadburys in the UK.
The bankers get much of the wrath because of the bailouts and what is seen as obscene bonuses. But banks are an essential of modern economies and being global should help with trade - although I find the reality is different as each countries banks are subject to that country’s banking rules. Banks need to be large, if they are to do their job, and, before bankers get even more scorn poured on them, the Euro crisis throws up a situation where the banks being bankrupt is not all their fault.. As part of their capital ratios they are almost obliged to own government debt. That does not mean I do not distrust bankers, and much of what they stand for- I have done enough transactions across borders to know all about bank charges as well as run small businesses. Most people believe they cannot win with the bank bureaucracy and that is why they hate them - but again small banks can’t do the job required in a modern globalised world.
OWS may shout about unfair wages but the reality is that big corporations move jobs as they want and if we push the wage costs up too much then oops the factory or office is suddenly in another place. It is clear the people really can’t win against big corporate without dramatic changes and the last guy who tried that was Pol Pot in his attempt to restart civilisation with agrarian communities - not sure that is where OWS want to go!
But as I said in my article Pissed off in America there is much more in the Tea Party’s views to solving the problem that OWS might like. Big corporate is bureaucratic and therefore not nearly as agile as a small business. However big government fits well with big corporate: they understand each other. An example was when I was in the pub trade in the UK. What really annoyed me was when a ‘jobs-worth’ arrived and said ‘you must do this’ and because I was a sole trader added ‘you have 4 weeks.’ I would then see a fellow landlord who was a manager, I would moan to him and he would say ‘I got the same notice. I said I would send it to head office and that is okay.” Of course the head office would say ‘we will put the work in next year’s budget.’ That would be accepted.
As we cannot ban multinationals, and they are difficult, if not impossible, to change, we have to look at other options. And what is quite clear is the West has lost its ability to actually make things mainly because the cost of labour in the west is too expensive - note cost - not wages.
If anybody talks about tariff barriers to protect our own industries there is much sucking of teeth and comments about the dangers of protectionism. But I believe we really need to look at how to get jobs back into in our western economies - how we get real wealth back because it is only by making money and creating wealth that we will see wages and standards of living start to rise again. It is the only way we will see the return of jobs. But more importantly for OWS the only way we can counteract the power of the multinational is by creating a strong internal market place that has room for small players - and indeed encourages small companies. We need small government and we need entrepreneurs to feel inspired and comfortable in the business environment.
Big corporate leaders are the Barons of a modern day feudalism and as the poor found in the middle ages kicking against the barons is dangerous and not likely to get anywhere. But communities working together to build towns, and the town's business, slowly took over the power from the barons even though they still controlled the countryside - in the end the produce goes to market. We have never needed entrepreneurs more and what the people must demand is that their elected officials understand that and don’t just pay lip service to it. We need to genuinely support local enterprise and if that means a maneuvering of regulations and tariffs to suit local manufactures so be it. That is the only way we can slowly and maybe eventually roll back globalisation.

The EU, the EEC and Common Market.

2011-10-17T13:04:00.000+08:00

It was in 1975 when the UK voted to stay in the Common Market - I voted no. The reason I voted no was because we (the voters) were being constantly assured it was just a trade arrangement. My view was that since there was talk about a level playing field that inevitably meant regulation, and probably more rather than less. My conclusion was the politicians who were promising a ‘trade only arrangement’ were either stupid or lying. On that point I am still unsure, but my suspicion was right and the EEC has evolved into a behemoth called the EU that is determined to take over our lives - and nobody seems to be able to stop it.
The current Euro crisis, that rolls on and on, in many ways goes back to that vote as it demonstrates what is wrong with the whole EU agenda - all along there has been a federal plan. So the architects constructed a devious plan that has sucked countries in with false promises and soon the option will be ‘federalise or your money’ (bankruptcy).
In many ways the Euro crisis is easy to solve - there are two simple options: an orderly unravelling on the Euro project or a financial integration within the Eurozone. In many ways the Eurozone is already a federal institution - a country is no longer its own master if it does not control its own currency, add to that the raft of regulation and the like from Brussels and a federal Europe could well be better than the mess we have and as the people of Greece have found out; the difference between the current arrangement and a federal one is semantics. Thus there is a general agreement - outside the European kleptocrats that the EU project needs an overhaul.
In the UK, one suspects, if there was the much talked about opt out (of the EU) referendum the majority would vote to leave. But, whatever the rhetoric is, getting out is not easy - we have treaty arrangements and our largest trading partner is the EU. Any departure would have to be negotiated, and would be resisted by Brussels. A unilateral declaration of independence could result in a difficult backlash. But I have a cunning plan.
We are rightly concerned about the Euro crisis as it could cause enormous economic damage to the World Economy not to mention little UK. So we have a vested interest in solving the problem. Now would be the time to put a plan to reshape the EU on the table - such a plan could help resolve the Euro problem.
The proposal is simple - the EU should in future have two levels of membership full and associate. Full members would be members of the Euro zone and it would be agreed that in time that will become a federal entity with a single treasury.The associate members would have much looser relationship with the EU along the lines of the old EEC. The EU would have no power over the internal matters of Associate Members and there would be clear statement of exactly what the EU can and cannot regulate. This would provide an opportunity to define exactly what the EU is about. The final suggestion would be that each country should make a decision on whether they wanted full or associate membership by holding a referendum on the options. Thus those in have properly agreed to being there.
The point about the plan is it would get the real issues on the table and I believe if there was a clear plan and markets understood what was happening then it would calm them. I suspect that as a result various countries would drop out the Euro zone - but that could then be managed.
I am sure the proposal would be an anathema to the kleptocrats of Brussels but the EU is now a mess and the Euro Crisis seems to have had little effect on the invisible men - still churning out new rules and regulations that nobody wants and nobody asked for. The Euro crisis is concentrating all members minds on exactly what do they want the EU for - and for far too many the answer is nothing. So now is the time or the UK to take a lead and we may even help solve the problem because the machinations of Merkel and Sarkozy are threatening to destroy us all. On top of that we might be able to extract ourselves from damaging grip of unnecessary EU regulation.

There is now a suggestion today that there is an IMF master plan which includes the guaranteeing of up $2 trillion in bail out funds by leveraging most of a country's assets. Needless to say that means, because of our membership of the IMF, that the UK will end up guaranteeing 4.2% somewhere along the line. More debt to solve a debt problem - this time they could get the can down the road for another few years but in the end it is not a solution but may get this crop of back sliding politicians off the hook.

One other idea I had which I thought was worth promulgating - the solution to the Greece situation, where the EU are so worried about ‘contagion.' If the Greek Military were to step in and take over - something that has been mentioned as a possible danger. The EU could chuck Greece out on the grounds it is no longer a democracy - and there is a wonderful irony in that. Then Greece would not have ‘defaulted’ it would have just been forced back to the Drachma by its EU expulsion - or even suspension. The Drachma then dropping, together with Greek Euro debt, now re-denominated in Drachma, to 10% of the Euro would be a revaluation that happens outside the Eurozone. Greece could then have elections in two years and be let into the EU (if they want) with democracy restored. Job done.

Human trafficking, The Philippines and Uncle Sam

2011-10-13T08:48:00.003+08:00

In the Philippines every week there is a story about how the Philippine police have raided a ‘vice den’ and liberated several girls from an evil human trafficker. There have been several such raids in Angeles City and the usual format is the PNP raid a gogo bar, and arrest all the girls cramming them into inadequate transport and then imprison them for a week or two in Manila before they are released and you can guess the rest -they are straight back in AC looking for a job in another bar. One bus load was so pleased at being 'saved' they actually managed to escape when the bus stopped. In the provinces small vice dens are raided and half a dozen girls ‘saved’ - often leaving wailing children behind wondering where the next meal will come from.

Of course this is not human trafficking it is simple old fashioned prostitution - which is supposedly illegal in the Philippines. I was searching for information on the extent of the sex trade in PI and Icould find no up to date figures but enough seemingly researched figures to confirm the general view that it is significant part of the country’s GDP with over ½ million women working in it. That would suggest they are supporting a million plus family members.

The reason the sex trade is so large in Asia in general and the Philippines in particular is simple - poverty. You may add to that lack of education and downright irresponsibility - many girls have one or more children and the father has disappeared into the woodwork, and with not many jobs available - certainly not well paid jobs - the option is often go hungry or go work bar.

But this article is about human trafficking and there is quite a hullabaloo about it at the moment and I agree it is an evil awful business and a great deal more should be done. Furthermore I am sure there are girls and men trafficked from the Philippines every day - for the same reason many work bar. In addition the government positively encourages its population to get on their bikes and work overseas to the extent where the remittances from the 11 million overseas foreign workers (OFWs) is the largest single contributor to PI’s GDP. I have heard that described as modern day slavery and certainly many workers do not earn a great deal and stories of abuse and other problems keep surfacing. On top of that all jobs should go through a government approved agency - which of course takes a cut - and Filipinos can be refused exit fromthe country if immigration suspect they are going abroad to work without using an approved agency. That alone, in my opinion, is close to a human rights abuse but in a country where corruption is endemic - well I don’t need to spell it out. But that all means getting abroad for a legitimate job means paying an agent - not good when you are seriously poor. So somebody who sidles up and says ‘I know of a job overseas’ is likely to be listened to. I have several times cautioned Filipinos against jobs - and not been popular for my efforts as I am destroying a dream. I ask questions like how much will you be paid - they all know that - but it is when I ask what about accommodation, food, flights, etcetera I get a blank stare and acomment like- ‘If I earn that much; no problem.’ Of course they have no idea about prices outside PI.

So yes Filipinos are vulnerable to human trafficking- mainly because they have no money, little education and desperate for a dream. Unlike say Thai’s the Filipinos all want to go abroad: that is a general aspiration.

Now enter into this melange an altruistic Uncle Sam with millions of dollars to invest in stopping human trafficking. This money is not only passed to the PI government - as long as they are seen to be trying to stop human traffickers - it is also used to fund armies of NGOs who are in PI to root out evil. So a bus load of poor farm girls trying to feed their kids is neatly spun into girls saved from evil human traffickers. The NGOs are happy something is being done about prostitution, and the USA is happy as they have evidence something is being done about human trafficking. But the truth is nothing is being done - it is all smoke and mirrors. You want to stop human trafficking (and prostitution) then there are places to start like the education system, the rampant corruption, and the lack of decent jobs. Inward investment would help but it is not generally welcome because it often competes with Filipino businesses. Those, Uncle Sam, would be a lot better places to invest both your money and influence!

Read more about poverty and corruption in Asia read Kelly - the bargirl who would be president.