When I heard about David Cameron and what he had done in Europe my first thought was "now we will be an offshore tax haven" then I thought don't be silly and didn't think about it again until I heard a political commentator make a joke about becoming a tax haven and the Tory politician he had been interviewing laughed and agreed.
David Cameron's party is bankrolled by the very richest men and companies in the UK and he served his masters well in Europe this week, he has protected the City of London against the transaction tax, the regulations which will control feral banking practices and he has delighted his party by using the veto and in their minds starting the process of taking Britain out of the EU, no wonder they all had a big party at the Mansion House.
Years ago I saw Bette Midler at the Paladium, she was wonderful and she had a joke in her act where she said "when it's 15:30 in the afternoon in New York it's 19:40 in London" at the time I thought that was a bit unfair about us but it was only a joke about England being old fashioned. I don't think its 1940 any more I think we have gone further back in time than that. The politicians seem to think we have an Empire again and are a great and powerful country again. We don't have an Empire any more, we don't have any natural resources, we have no industrial base and we have no influence.
I know what I am saying will upset the people who wave the Union Jack and turn out for the Queen "God Bless Her" and really mean it but we have become a client state of America and act as her native troops fighting in her wars and hoping for the crumbs and we have just isolated ourselves from the one power base which would have helped us out of the Depression we are in, we could have become a big prosperous player in Europe and we the people not the City of London, would have lost nothing and gained so much.
But the City of London would have had to pay a transaction tax, would have had to follow regulations which in their minds would stop them making money so the Con Dems turned their backs on the national good and have gone back in time to the "golden days of piracy" I hope I am wrong but we may end up being a tax haven run by privateers, buccaneers and pirates with David Cameron as a version of Francis Drake, Captain Morgan of Jamaica and Captain Jack Sparrow but with we hope better personal hygiene. Britain as a ship anchored off France - 24 hour a day casino banking? That's the Captain's Cabin, corrupt speculation you need the Quarter Deck, hedge fund bets down the gangway to the Purser's Cabin while the ordinary people well, we are in the bilges pumping out the sea water, being flogged with a cat o nine tails when we dare to complain - what a terrible thought, I hope I am wrong.
Here's another fine mess you've got me in
When I wrote "Days of Thrift" back in March of this year I never thought that in the first week of December everything would be so changed. We are looking at a new Europe emerging very quickly from the ashes of the Eurozone implosion, a Europe Britain will have very little influence in if the politicians don't start to change their ways. I never thought when I was writing the chapter about being unemployed and how to buy cheaper food and how to barter that so many millions would be on the dole and more losing their jobs every week and some driven to suicide by the awful situation they found themselves in.
Back in March I didn't understand what the Government was doing, I thought that they were just stupid, too stupid and lazy to think through their policies but I think I have worked it out. They are aping the right wing extremist ideology of America. All the policies for shrinking government by sacking public workers, privatising health care, closing libraries, encouraging schools to become sponsored acadamies, early childhood projects and youth clubs must all be supported by sponsorship from business, rich people must not be taxed or questioned too closely about their wealth and the poor when they lose their homes due to a cap on benefits will not be "homeless" they will be socially mobile i.e they can move their cardbox anywhere they want to. These are the cruel ideas of the Koch brothers, the Bush clan and all the others who believe only in money and power and have no social responsibility.
I think that these ideas and the situation in Europe will destroy our coalition government. The reason I say that is there is a schism in the Conservative Party over Europe, Cameron has been out manouevered by Germany and France who are going to go forward with what you could call the Republic of Europe Britain has no control over this because we are not in the Euro and Cameron has already been told to stop annoying the grown ups while they sort Europe out. If treaties are re-written or new treaties created part of his party will want to pull out of Europe and they will demand a referendum about Europe to get their way ignoring the fact that Britain cannot withdraw if for no other reason than our trading and export links. This row will shatter the Cons.
As the catastrophe of the ConDem policies have overtaken our country more and more people have become politicised, people who have never stood on a picket line have gone on strike, UK Uncut, the various blogs and sites, left wing comedians, some interesting documentaries about money and power and the serious talk shows have started to talk truth to power and there is no Murdoch Press to spread lies and the right wing agenda because the Leveson Inquiry is showing all of us just how disgusting they have been and that they are not to be trusted to put the cat out.
I am not looking forward to any of this, I wish we had intelligent people in government not greedy, ignorant fools only interested in finding the next trough to stick their snouts in but that is our reality and we owe it to ourselves to think, read, discuss and understand politics and not say things like I don't have any opinions some one else who is cleverer than me can decide what to do, that isn't democracy and we need more democracy not less right now
Back in March I didn't understand what the Government was doing, I thought that they were just stupid, too stupid and lazy to think through their policies but I think I have worked it out. They are aping the right wing extremist ideology of America. All the policies for shrinking government by sacking public workers, privatising health care, closing libraries, encouraging schools to become sponsored acadamies, early childhood projects and youth clubs must all be supported by sponsorship from business, rich people must not be taxed or questioned too closely about their wealth and the poor when they lose their homes due to a cap on benefits will not be "homeless" they will be socially mobile i.e they can move their cardbox anywhere they want to. These are the cruel ideas of the Koch brothers, the Bush clan and all the others who believe only in money and power and have no social responsibility.
I think that these ideas and the situation in Europe will destroy our coalition government. The reason I say that is there is a schism in the Conservative Party over Europe, Cameron has been out manouevered by Germany and France who are going to go forward with what you could call the Republic of Europe Britain has no control over this because we are not in the Euro and Cameron has already been told to stop annoying the grown ups while they sort Europe out. If treaties are re-written or new treaties created part of his party will want to pull out of Europe and they will demand a referendum about Europe to get their way ignoring the fact that Britain cannot withdraw if for no other reason than our trading and export links. This row will shatter the Cons.
As the catastrophe of the ConDem policies have overtaken our country more and more people have become politicised, people who have never stood on a picket line have gone on strike, UK Uncut, the various blogs and sites, left wing comedians, some interesting documentaries about money and power and the serious talk shows have started to talk truth to power and there is no Murdoch Press to spread lies and the right wing agenda because the Leveson Inquiry is showing all of us just how disgusting they have been and that they are not to be trusted to put the cat out.
I am not looking forward to any of this, I wish we had intelligent people in government not greedy, ignorant fools only interested in finding the next trough to stick their snouts in but that is our reality and we owe it to ourselves to think, read, discuss and understand politics and not say things like I don't have any opinions some one else who is cleverer than me can decide what to do, that isn't democracy and we need more democracy not less right now
A Death in the Family
A few weeks ago I was going to start writing my latest blog something about the Eurozone but on the day I was going to write it I saw an item on the news which said a couple had committed suicide because they could no longer deal with being on the dole, they had been living in one room in their house because they couldn't afford to heat the whole house and had been walking 6 miles each Sunday to a food bank because they had no money for food. I felt as though someone had punched me so hard I couldn't breath. Since then I haven't been able to write - this blog, my other blog about spondilitis or do any work on my latest book "What Have Air Raid Wardens Got To Do With It?". Some people would say this is writers block after all, in this last year I have written 2 books "Days of Thrift" and my autobiography "Pulling Myself Towards Myself" which was pretty draining as I told the whole truth about myself and some could say I have lived a pretty scandalous life and known some very dangerous people plus I have written a childrens book "The Artistic Yetis Cafe" which is being evaluated by my agent; that is a lot of work. But it was not writers block, it was the great sadness I feel about that couple and all the other people losing their jobs, their hopes and knowing there will be more deaths by poverty.
Then I remembered Woody Guthrie, he literally had nothing but the clothes on his back and his guitar, a hobo riding the rails in America during the Depression looking for work. I had always liked his reply to a man who accused him of being a communist. He said something like "Yes, I'm a comm'nist, I believe in what we all have in common". So do I. I am getting back to work, there is a strike to support, a book to write, emails to send to annoy MPs, petitions to sign and I am working out how to disseminate my ABC ideas. I am using my sadness and anger about that couples deaths as fuel. I have decided we live in the twenty first century and now is the time to make a great society for all of us.
Then I remembered Woody Guthrie, he literally had nothing but the clothes on his back and his guitar, a hobo riding the rails in America during the Depression looking for work. I had always liked his reply to a man who accused him of being a communist. He said something like "Yes, I'm a comm'nist, I believe in what we all have in common". So do I. I am getting back to work, there is a strike to support, a book to write, emails to send to annoy MPs, petitions to sign and I am working out how to disseminate my ABC ideas. I am using my sadness and anger about that couples deaths as fuel. I have decided we live in the twenty first century and now is the time to make a great society for all of us.
A B C
I spent most of yesterday keeping up with Jon Snow's tweets about what was happening in Brussels. The things I talked about in the last blog Greece defaulting, Italy beginning to shake are happening; soon Greece will default on the entire loan because they won't be able to repay even 40% of the debt and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Italy's government doesn't fall and Berlusconi leaves office. Then I lay awake most of the night thinking about what I can do. Doesn't that sound arrogant, I am not an economist, when I was young I could hardly add up and now I am trying to untangle the mess we are in and make suggestions that are practical.
In the last blog I wrote a little bit about the "people of the abyss". The Victorians loathed, feared and shunned them. I started thinking again about our "people of the abyss" they are not the poor they are the ultra rich, the power brokers, the food and commodities speculators, the bankers - they are the feral criminal class and we need to try and break their hold on our society. I am not advocating revolution or violence. I am saying A B C. A is for Allotments. Very few of us have small holdings or allotments which would let us be self sufficient but as I said in "Days of Thrift" most of us have yards or little gardens and all of us have window sills where we can grow vegetables in pots or grow bags or perma tunnels if we have enough room in the garden. A grow bag will support tomatoes, herbs, potatoes (look at all the different sites on the internet where you can get information).
This leads onto B. B is for Barter, you can barter the excess produce for other goods and services. Because no money is involved you don't have to declare anything to the dole office if you are on any benefits. I would love someone to hoover my floors, I find this the hardest of the cleaning jobs because I find it difficult to stand for any length of time. I may not have grown any fruit or veg to trade but I can offer to help someone with their reading or writing, help write a CV, edit a story or piece of writing you may have done and I can swap an hour of help with a child's homework (unless it is maths or foreign languages) for an hours hoovering. I am going to send a flyer to every house in my street explaining what I think we can do together and see if anyone wants to join me, I am just going to cover my street, this is a small scale operation; each street can organise their own Barter and support their own neighbours. I will let you know what happens.
C is for Credit Unions. Take the money and its manipulation away from the bankers and their offshore tax havens. Credit unions are financial co-operatives owned and managed by the members who use them. They offer a convenient way to save and the opportunity to access low cost loans and a range of other benefits including stopping desperate people using loan sharks or those dishonest companies with the friendly names that advertise on television giving a helpful loan with an APR of 2,000%.
In the last blog I wrote a little bit about the "people of the abyss". The Victorians loathed, feared and shunned them. I started thinking again about our "people of the abyss" they are not the poor they are the ultra rich, the power brokers, the food and commodities speculators, the bankers - they are the feral criminal class and we need to try and break their hold on our society. I am not advocating revolution or violence. I am saying A B C. A is for Allotments. Very few of us have small holdings or allotments which would let us be self sufficient but as I said in "Days of Thrift" most of us have yards or little gardens and all of us have window sills where we can grow vegetables in pots or grow bags or perma tunnels if we have enough room in the garden. A grow bag will support tomatoes, herbs, potatoes (look at all the different sites on the internet where you can get information).
This leads onto B. B is for Barter, you can barter the excess produce for other goods and services. Because no money is involved you don't have to declare anything to the dole office if you are on any benefits. I would love someone to hoover my floors, I find this the hardest of the cleaning jobs because I find it difficult to stand for any length of time. I may not have grown any fruit or veg to trade but I can offer to help someone with their reading or writing, help write a CV, edit a story or piece of writing you may have done and I can swap an hour of help with a child's homework (unless it is maths or foreign languages) for an hours hoovering. I am going to send a flyer to every house in my street explaining what I think we can do together and see if anyone wants to join me, I am just going to cover my street, this is a small scale operation; each street can organise their own Barter and support their own neighbours. I will let you know what happens.
C is for Credit Unions. Take the money and its manipulation away from the bankers and their offshore tax havens. Credit unions are financial co-operatives owned and managed by the members who use them. They offer a convenient way to save and the opportunity to access low cost loans and a range of other benefits including stopping desperate people using loan sharks or those dishonest companies with the friendly names that advertise on television giving a helpful loan with an APR of 2,000%.
Members of a credit union save in a common fund. This fund can be then used to make low interest loans to the credit union's members. All interest on loan repayments is reinvested in the credit union and nothing leaves the community. Many credit unions now offer a range of services including Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs), insurance products, budgeting and debt management advice. I know not everyone can save anything at the moment because "moneys too tight to mention" but this a way for the community to take control away from the City of London.
I can hear people saying what you are talking about is so little, a tiny bandage on gangrene what about job losses and pensions being degraded, high university fees and now they want to be able to dismiss someone from a job if the boss "doesn't like you". We can only start from where we are. Although its not fashionable to quote Mao he said "a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step" and that was a man who knew about walking a long way.
I can hear people saying what you are talking about is so little, a tiny bandage on gangrene what about job losses and pensions being degraded, high university fees and now they want to be able to dismiss someone from a job if the boss "doesn't like you". We can only start from where we are. Although its not fashionable to quote Mao he said "a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step" and that was a man who knew about walking a long way.
food share, whose share?
"Food Share" is a national, volunteer driven charity which links food growers with local charities. It started in Cambridge where £1,000.
00 worth of fruit and vegetables were donated to a local children's hospice over a 3 months period. This is a wonderful idea. The need for food banks is growing, more people than ever, often people in full time employment, are having to resort to soup kitchens and food banks. I never thought I would write a sentence like this talking about soup kitchens and charity in one of the richest countries in the world in 2011.
We are continually told the worst is over, the economy will grow and the private sector will create jobs. I totally disagree, we haven't even seen the beginning of the "bad times" most people still have some resources; they still have a job although it's hanging by a thread and the hours have been cut, there is a little bit of spare money either on a card, in the bank or post office or a piggy bank sat on a shelf in the kitchen. The winter hasn't started yet so most of us haven't put the heating on yet or budgetted for Christmas yet, "yet" being the operative word.
"People of the Abyss" used to be the term the Victorians used about the poor, I started thinking about what pushes you over the cliff so that you can't meet the bills and how easy it is to find yourself in that situation. One of my cats is ill, she will have to go to the vets and I am looking at a bill of probably a hundred pounds or more. Of course she will go to the vets and I will make a deal with them to pay the fees off over the coming months, I've done it before I don't feel any embarressment explaining that I can't meet the whole bill in one payment. Lots of people are facing those sorts of situations everyday and I joke about mine saying I wrote a book called "Days of Thrift" which I published on Amazon as an ebook looking at being unemployed, broke and facing hard times in our modern society and now as an unemployed single woman with an incurable disease I am living in my book.
The question is what can be done? I think this is a wonderful charity and they are doing great work but a lot more needs be done in a more regulated way. I think supermarkets should give the food they would throw away at the end of the day or when the sell by date is reached to the local food banks, charities like "Food Share" or soup kitchens. A law should be passed requiring them to do this. The reason given by the supermarkets for not voluntarily doing this, which is very clever, is that it is a health and safety issue - they don't want to give food which is not safe to eat to the hungry. In my book I looked at "skip diving" and discussed sorting through the bins full of perfectly edible food and how you can gain access to these food mountains .
I hope this charity goes from strength to strength and I am going to set up a petition on line asking for a law to be passed to require supermarkets to donate their left over food to charity, when I have that set up I will blog the details.
Sometimes I feel like Cassandra, everything I have talked about for years in some cases (my neice has borne the brunt of my rantettes), written about, shouted at the television about and worried about is starting to manifest itself and this last round of "quantative easing" or "credit easing" which is just another bank bail out under a different name shows how badly things are developing. The economy flat lining and unemployment rising are the actual and visible proof of government policies which are not working and shows us all what an ignorant, clueless government we have - the coalition has no clear idea of what to do next about the problems our country faces, no compassion towards its people just the catch phrase "we are all in it together" nor wisdom to guide the EU as it faces problems such as the crisis about to explode when Greece defaults on its repayments and Italy begins to slide too, Germany won't keep picking up the pieces forever.
We the people are going to have to look to ourselves by organising, demonstrating, lobbying, signing petitions, joining UK Uncut and let's use the few decent MPs in Parliament to protect us and change the direction the ideology of the ConDems is taking us in so that we can re-construct a fairer society where "to each according to their needs and from each according to their abilities" really means something. Until then food banks, food share and soup kitchens are going to be a life line for millions of people. See you on the bread line.
00 worth of fruit and vegetables were donated to a local children's hospice over a 3 months period. This is a wonderful idea. The need for food banks is growing, more people than ever, often people in full time employment, are having to resort to soup kitchens and food banks. I never thought I would write a sentence like this talking about soup kitchens and charity in one of the richest countries in the world in 2011.
We are continually told the worst is over, the economy will grow and the private sector will create jobs. I totally disagree, we haven't even seen the beginning of the "bad times" most people still have some resources; they still have a job although it's hanging by a thread and the hours have been cut, there is a little bit of spare money either on a card, in the bank or post office or a piggy bank sat on a shelf in the kitchen. The winter hasn't started yet so most of us haven't put the heating on yet or budgetted for Christmas yet, "yet" being the operative word.
"People of the Abyss" used to be the term the Victorians used about the poor, I started thinking about what pushes you over the cliff so that you can't meet the bills and how easy it is to find yourself in that situation. One of my cats is ill, she will have to go to the vets and I am looking at a bill of probably a hundred pounds or more. Of course she will go to the vets and I will make a deal with them to pay the fees off over the coming months, I've done it before I don't feel any embarressment explaining that I can't meet the whole bill in one payment. Lots of people are facing those sorts of situations everyday and I joke about mine saying I wrote a book called "Days of Thrift" which I published on Amazon as an ebook looking at being unemployed, broke and facing hard times in our modern society and now as an unemployed single woman with an incurable disease I am living in my book.
The question is what can be done? I think this is a wonderful charity and they are doing great work but a lot more needs be done in a more regulated way. I think supermarkets should give the food they would throw away at the end of the day or when the sell by date is reached to the local food banks, charities like "Food Share" or soup kitchens. A law should be passed requiring them to do this. The reason given by the supermarkets for not voluntarily doing this, which is very clever, is that it is a health and safety issue - they don't want to give food which is not safe to eat to the hungry. In my book I looked at "skip diving" and discussed sorting through the bins full of perfectly edible food and how you can gain access to these food mountains .
I hope this charity goes from strength to strength and I am going to set up a petition on line asking for a law to be passed to require supermarkets to donate their left over food to charity, when I have that set up I will blog the details.
Sometimes I feel like Cassandra, everything I have talked about for years in some cases (my neice has borne the brunt of my rantettes), written about, shouted at the television about and worried about is starting to manifest itself and this last round of "quantative easing" or "credit easing" which is just another bank bail out under a different name shows how badly things are developing. The economy flat lining and unemployment rising are the actual and visible proof of government policies which are not working and shows us all what an ignorant, clueless government we have - the coalition has no clear idea of what to do next about the problems our country faces, no compassion towards its people just the catch phrase "we are all in it together" nor wisdom to guide the EU as it faces problems such as the crisis about to explode when Greece defaults on its repayments and Italy begins to slide too, Germany won't keep picking up the pieces forever.
We the people are going to have to look to ourselves by organising, demonstrating, lobbying, signing petitions, joining UK Uncut and let's use the few decent MPs in Parliament to protect us and change the direction the ideology of the ConDems is taking us in so that we can re-construct a fairer society where "to each according to their needs and from each according to their abilities" really means something. Until then food banks, food share and soup kitchens are going to be a life line for millions of people. See you on the bread line.
it's enough to make you swear
A definition of madness is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different outcome each time.
This morning I signed the petition to protect our countryside, protect the badgers from a cull and stop the government plans for building on green belt land.
I signed the petitions after I watched David Cameron speak to Andrew Marr explaining his ideas for selling off council houses and building one new house for each one sold off. Oh, please give me strength and find the will to live, I shall end up raiding my secret stache of choccie bars and over dosing on flake bars in despair.
I banged on and on about regenerating our housing stock in my book "Days of Thrift" (sold as an ebook on Amazon) and in previous blogs. We do not need to be building houses on green belt land, we can renovate the boarded up shops on the High Street, provide social housing and re-invigorate the local communities, there are thousands of empty houses which could be taken into the housing stock providing thousands of hours of work for builders and all the surrounding trades as the empty houses are made good for habitation and there is plenty of "brown site" land to use. The green belt does not need to be used nor should the regulations and laws protecting the countryside be weakened or removed.
The bland self satisfied voice of David Cameron explaining in his earnest "head boy" manner (he always uses the same cliches and hand movements when talking to the "Great Unwashed" who don't understand how intelligent he is and how enlightened his proposals are) his ridiculous idea to allow bill boards to be erected anywhere in the countryside made me shout four letter words at the television (why is it that every time there is a conservative government in power I end up swearing like a trooper, I never swore half as much at Tony Blair and he did a lot of things I vehemently opposed and I consider him a war criminal as well so I definitely did not support Labour in a lot of their decisions).
I ask that everyone sign the petition to protect our countryside, we have such a beautiful land and we have to fight to protect it, again.
This morning I signed the petition to protect our countryside, protect the badgers from a cull and stop the government plans for building on green belt land.
I signed the petitions after I watched David Cameron speak to Andrew Marr explaining his ideas for selling off council houses and building one new house for each one sold off. Oh, please give me strength and find the will to live, I shall end up raiding my secret stache of choccie bars and over dosing on flake bars in despair.
I banged on and on about regenerating our housing stock in my book "Days of Thrift" (sold as an ebook on Amazon) and in previous blogs. We do not need to be building houses on green belt land, we can renovate the boarded up shops on the High Street, provide social housing and re-invigorate the local communities, there are thousands of empty houses which could be taken into the housing stock providing thousands of hours of work for builders and all the surrounding trades as the empty houses are made good for habitation and there is plenty of "brown site" land to use. The green belt does not need to be used nor should the regulations and laws protecting the countryside be weakened or removed.
The bland self satisfied voice of David Cameron explaining in his earnest "head boy" manner (he always uses the same cliches and hand movements when talking to the "Great Unwashed" who don't understand how intelligent he is and how enlightened his proposals are) his ridiculous idea to allow bill boards to be erected anywhere in the countryside made me shout four letter words at the television (why is it that every time there is a conservative government in power I end up swearing like a trooper, I never swore half as much at Tony Blair and he did a lot of things I vehemently opposed and I consider him a war criminal as well so I definitely did not support Labour in a lot of their decisions).
I ask that everyone sign the petition to protect our countryside, we have such a beautiful land and we have to fight to protect it, again.
If I ruled the world
The first thing I would do if I ruled the world would be to bring into international law the equivalent of the "Glass Steagall Act" which would prohibit a bank holding company from owning other financial companies. This would create a seperation between investment banks which issue securities and commercial banks. This would also prevent investment bankers acting as CEOs etc. of commercial banks. Any bank that broke this law would see its board, CEOs and top officers being treated as criminals with a long jail term (as this is my world I think I will include hard labour as well into the sentence), the bank would be nationalised so that the customers would not suffer and the workers would keep their jobs.
All tax havens would be dismantled and every person or company which used those facilities would be forced to pay back the last 10 years of taxes in full as if they were ordinary citizens. The money brought in from doing this would be billions and that money would be used to clear slums, build houses for the homeless, provide fully equipped hospitals, put every child into school, clean water and invent new irrigation techniques and invest in new green technologies, all these projects would create jobs for the people and inject growth into the world economy as well as the local economies.
I would outlaw speculating of the kind companies like "Glencore" specialise in especially in basic food stuffs and basic commodities.
I would insist that the EU create a monetary fund to support the EU countries. Failing economies such as Greece and Ireland for example who will probably default on their payments and bring about even more confusion in the markets would have their debts waived and start again with a "clean sheet" the only proviso being that the country involved start to invest in creating jobs for their populations, reform their tax laws (which will be much easier to implement with the huge burden of debt no longer hanging over their heads) and if they haven't already done so sign up to Human Rights Agreements. Any country that has populations of gypsies, ethnic minorities, gay, lesbian and transgender communities in their country must give all of them full equality and protection under the law and I would make sure the laws were used to protect these communities.
Capital punishment would be no more. Prisoners on "Death Row" in any country but especially America must have their cases reviewed and children under the age of 18 should not be held in prisons instead they should be in custody which provides a high standard of education and care.
I am enjoying this but finally I would make prostitution and all drugs legal. This would immediately remove the income pimps, gangs, slavers and drug dealers make at the moment from the most vulnerable parts of society. Prostitutes could form co-operatives and work in the same system that they use in Hamburg or Amsterdam. Drugs and clean drug paraphenalia would be issued at 24/7 clinics that would be found in every town and city the clinics would also offer counselling and rehab facilities.
As I said at the start of this little "rantette" this is my world but everything I have talked about is possible and we have to start thinking about new ways forward. We are at the start of the twenty first century we have to start thinking like citizens of this new century and - oh yes, I want every one in the whole world to go to an amusement park of their choosing for a free long weekend once a year! (people who don't enjoy going to places like "Disneyland" or "Alton Towers" can have free tickets to the opera).
All tax havens would be dismantled and every person or company which used those facilities would be forced to pay back the last 10 years of taxes in full as if they were ordinary citizens. The money brought in from doing this would be billions and that money would be used to clear slums, build houses for the homeless, provide fully equipped hospitals, put every child into school, clean water and invent new irrigation techniques and invest in new green technologies, all these projects would create jobs for the people and inject growth into the world economy as well as the local economies.
I would outlaw speculating of the kind companies like "Glencore" specialise in especially in basic food stuffs and basic commodities.
I would insist that the EU create a monetary fund to support the EU countries. Failing economies such as Greece and Ireland for example who will probably default on their payments and bring about even more confusion in the markets would have their debts waived and start again with a "clean sheet" the only proviso being that the country involved start to invest in creating jobs for their populations, reform their tax laws (which will be much easier to implement with the huge burden of debt no longer hanging over their heads) and if they haven't already done so sign up to Human Rights Agreements. Any country that has populations of gypsies, ethnic minorities, gay, lesbian and transgender communities in their country must give all of them full equality and protection under the law and I would make sure the laws were used to protect these communities.
Capital punishment would be no more. Prisoners on "Death Row" in any country but especially America must have their cases reviewed and children under the age of 18 should not be held in prisons instead they should be in custody which provides a high standard of education and care.
I am enjoying this but finally I would make prostitution and all drugs legal. This would immediately remove the income pimps, gangs, slavers and drug dealers make at the moment from the most vulnerable parts of society. Prostitutes could form co-operatives and work in the same system that they use in Hamburg or Amsterdam. Drugs and clean drug paraphenalia would be issued at 24/7 clinics that would be found in every town and city the clinics would also offer counselling and rehab facilities.
As I said at the start of this little "rantette" this is my world but everything I have talked about is possible and we have to start thinking about new ways forward. We are at the start of the twenty first century we have to start thinking like citizens of this new century and - oh yes, I want every one in the whole world to go to an amusement park of their choosing for a free long weekend once a year! (people who don't enjoy going to places like "Disneyland" or "Alton Towers" can have free tickets to the opera).
And saved the sum of things for pay
"a war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, was acquired with this war. Our eventual evacuation of the country resembled the retreat of an army defeated”.
Sounds a bit familiar, it could be so many wars, this is a quote from a survivor of the First Afghan War (1839-1842). That war was fought to prevent Russia establishing influence over India. Again the Second Afghan War (1878-1880) was fought to prevent Russian influence, this time Britain w0n "the Great Game" and blocked Russian expansion. Third Afghan War (1919), even I am getting bored, this is a very simplistic explanation for the timeframe and reasons of war and I have had to remind myself that thousands of soldiers and civilians died in these terrible wars, was fought to prevent a tribal uprising. This third Afghan war, the last one fought in a "Victorian" fashion, started and ended in 1919 with the Afghans achieveing full control of their country.
Then we have the "modern wars". The outbreak of civil war in 1978 led to an invasion by the USSR in 1979, what followed was 10 years of vicious fighting using conscripts as the Soviets propped up the communist government and fought against a loose coalition of Islamic insurgents. The Mujahideen toppled that government in 1992. Then the Taliban fought a civil war against the Mujahideen and took over the country in 1996. The Taliban were tolerated by the world community even though they demonstrated time and again that they supported the most extreme teachings of something which definitely was not Islam and then distorted those teachings to a further level that included murdering women and desecrating ancient world heritage treasures when they blew up Buddhist statues because they were evil idols.
In 2001 America overthrew the Taliban because they supported international terrorism and established a corrupt regime in Kabul; the war has continued until today, there is talk of withdrawal in 2014 now that Osama bin Laden is dead.
Now, that is the history, here is the reality. The cost of the war for America EACH MONTH is $10 billion and another $300 million each month for what are called "civilian led projects". This is untenable, no country can spend this on a neverending basis and I haven't mentioned all the soldiers and civilians who have been killed and maimed or the terrible cost their families pay. Since Osama's death both sides of American politics have called for troop withdrawals and they are going to begin in a modest way this year and next.
But the big problem is the pipeline. What pipeline, you ask? It's the crux of the whole problem and another version of the "Great Game".
The roots of the pipeline begin in the involvement of international oil companies in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in the 1990s. Russia controlled all the export pipelines of these countries and refused to allow use of its pipeline network, so these companies needed an independent export route avoiding both Iran and Russia.
The original project started on 15 March 1995 when an inaugural memorandum of understanding between the governments of Turkmenistan and Pakistan for a pipeline project was signed. This project was promoted by an Argentinian company Bridas Corporation. The U.S. company Unocal, in conjunction with the Saudi oil company Delta, promoted an alternative project without Bridas' involvement.
On 21 October 1995, these two companies signed a separate agreement with Turkmenistan. In August 1996, the Central Asia Gas Pipeline, Ltd. (CentGas) consortium for construction of a pipeline, led by Unocal, guess who worked for Unocal, only Hamid Karzai, funny old world isn't it, was formed. On 27 October 1997, CentGas was incorporated in formal signing ceremonies in Turkmenistan, by several international oil companies along with the Government of Turkmenistan.
Since the pipeline would go through Afghanistan, it was necessary to work with the Taliban. The U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Robert Oakley, moved into CentGas in 1997. In January 1998, the Taliban, selected CentGas over the Argentinian competitor Bridas Corporation and signed an agreement that allowed the proposed project to proceed. In June 1998, the Russian company Gazprom relinquished its 10% stake in the project.
On 7 August 1998, American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam were bombed under the direction of Osama bin Laden, and all pipeline negotiations stopped, as the Taliban announced that Osama bin Laden had their support. Unocal withdrew from the consortium on 8 December 1998, and soon after closed its offices in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
America invaded Afghanistan and a new deal for the pipeline was signed on 27 December 2002 by the leaders of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That's why you often see TAP or TAPI as the way its reported (Turkmenistan, Afghan, Pakistan and India). In 2005, Forbes magazine reported that"the project has been revived and drawn strong US support" as it would allow the Central Asian republics to export energy to Western markets "without relying on Russian routes" and Iran would be out of the loop as well.
The 1,680 kilometres (1,040 mi) pipeline will run from the Dauletabad gas field to Afghanistan. From there it will run alongside the highway from Herat to Kandahar, and then via Quetta and Multan in Pakistan. The final destination of the pipeline will be the Indian town of Fazilka, near the border between Pakistan and India. I'm sorry to go into so much detail about business but this is part of the world's real politick.
We have been fightng a "resources war" for years under the guise of fighting terrorism which is also a fantasy. You can't fight an idea only a country.
Now being unable to continue to pay for the war or justify the war to the American public now that Osama is dead and the elections are coming up for Obama and that is an event which always focusses the minds of American politicians; yet needing to protect the pipeline and all the other resources to be mined and gouged out of Afghanistan and at the same time control Russia and Iran's presence in the region America has found an answer. Mercenaries, soldiers of fortune, condottieri or as they are called now civilian led projects, private security and risk management companies like "Blackwater" now called "Xe" and "Aegis" the new company built on the ruins of "Sandline" and where America leads Britain will follow. Of course there are "Oliver's Armies" fighting hidden private wars right now but we are going to see war privatised, unaccountable, very brutal and beyond the budgetary control of Parliament or Congress on a scale that has not been seen probably since the days of Renaissance Europe. What are all the newly redundant soldiers affected by the newest round of cuts going to do? Even if they did not want to continue soldiering there are no jobs in "civvie street" and unemployment will only get worse next year. Soldiering will at least mean your are using your skills and feeding your family.
It's terrible to see what playing the "Great Game" has brought us to - so much waste and corruption for so little gain: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed". that quote is from Doug Eisenhower and I will leave it there but I will probably come back to the problem again.
years of Russia fighting and having to admit defeat and withdraw, since 2001 America
Sounds a bit familiar, it could be so many wars, this is a quote from a survivor of the First Afghan War (1839-1842). That war was fought to prevent Russia establishing influence over India. Again the Second Afghan War (1878-1880) was fought to prevent Russian influence, this time Britain w0n "the Great Game" and blocked Russian expansion. Third Afghan War (1919), even I am getting bored, this is a very simplistic explanation for the timeframe and reasons of war and I have had to remind myself that thousands of soldiers and civilians died in these terrible wars, was fought to prevent a tribal uprising. This third Afghan war, the last one fought in a "Victorian" fashion, started and ended in 1919 with the Afghans achieveing full control of their country.
Then we have the "modern wars". The outbreak of civil war in 1978 led to an invasion by the USSR in 1979, what followed was 10 years of vicious fighting using conscripts as the Soviets propped up the communist government and fought against a loose coalition of Islamic insurgents. The Mujahideen toppled that government in 1992. Then the Taliban fought a civil war against the Mujahideen and took over the country in 1996. The Taliban were tolerated by the world community even though they demonstrated time and again that they supported the most extreme teachings of something which definitely was not Islam and then distorted those teachings to a further level that included murdering women and desecrating ancient world heritage treasures when they blew up Buddhist statues because they were evil idols.
In 2001 America overthrew the Taliban because they supported international terrorism and established a corrupt regime in Kabul; the war has continued until today, there is talk of withdrawal in 2014 now that Osama bin Laden is dead.
Now, that is the history, here is the reality. The cost of the war for America EACH MONTH is $10 billion and another $300 million each month for what are called "civilian led projects". This is untenable, no country can spend this on a neverending basis and I haven't mentioned all the soldiers and civilians who have been killed and maimed or the terrible cost their families pay. Since Osama's death both sides of American politics have called for troop withdrawals and they are going to begin in a modest way this year and next.
But the big problem is the pipeline. What pipeline, you ask? It's the crux of the whole problem and another version of the "Great Game".
The roots of the pipeline begin in the involvement of international oil companies in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in the 1990s. Russia controlled all the export pipelines of these countries and refused to allow use of its pipeline network, so these companies needed an independent export route avoiding both Iran and Russia.
The original project started on 15 March 1995 when an inaugural memorandum of understanding between the governments of Turkmenistan and Pakistan for a pipeline project was signed. This project was promoted by an Argentinian company Bridas Corporation. The U.S. company Unocal, in conjunction with the Saudi oil company Delta, promoted an alternative project without Bridas' involvement.
On 21 October 1995, these two companies signed a separate agreement with Turkmenistan. In August 1996, the Central Asia Gas Pipeline, Ltd. (CentGas) consortium for construction of a pipeline, led by Unocal, guess who worked for Unocal, only Hamid Karzai, funny old world isn't it, was formed. On 27 October 1997, CentGas was incorporated in formal signing ceremonies in Turkmenistan, by several international oil companies along with the Government of Turkmenistan.
Since the pipeline would go through Afghanistan, it was necessary to work with the Taliban. The U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Robert Oakley, moved into CentGas in 1997. In January 1998, the Taliban, selected CentGas over the Argentinian competitor Bridas Corporation and signed an agreement that allowed the proposed project to proceed. In June 1998, the Russian company Gazprom relinquished its 10% stake in the project.
On 7 August 1998, American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam were bombed under the direction of Osama bin Laden, and all pipeline negotiations stopped, as the Taliban announced that Osama bin Laden had their support. Unocal withdrew from the consortium on 8 December 1998, and soon after closed its offices in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
America invaded Afghanistan and a new deal for the pipeline was signed on 27 December 2002 by the leaders of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That's why you often see TAP or TAPI as the way its reported (Turkmenistan, Afghan, Pakistan and India). In 2005, Forbes magazine reported that"the project has been revived and drawn strong US support" as it would allow the Central Asian republics to export energy to Western markets "without relying on Russian routes" and Iran would be out of the loop as well.
The 1,680 kilometres (1,040 mi) pipeline will run from the Dauletabad gas field to Afghanistan. From there it will run alongside the highway from Herat to Kandahar, and then via Quetta and Multan in Pakistan. The final destination of the pipeline will be the Indian town of Fazilka, near the border between Pakistan and India. I'm sorry to go into so much detail about business but this is part of the world's real politick.
We have been fightng a "resources war" for years under the guise of fighting terrorism which is also a fantasy. You can't fight an idea only a country.
Now being unable to continue to pay for the war or justify the war to the American public now that Osama is dead and the elections are coming up for Obama and that is an event which always focusses the minds of American politicians; yet needing to protect the pipeline and all the other resources to be mined and gouged out of Afghanistan and at the same time control Russia and Iran's presence in the region America has found an answer. Mercenaries, soldiers of fortune, condottieri or as they are called now civilian led projects, private security and risk management companies like "Blackwater" now called "Xe" and "Aegis" the new company built on the ruins of "Sandline" and where America leads Britain will follow. Of course there are "Oliver's Armies" fighting hidden private wars right now but we are going to see war privatised, unaccountable, very brutal and beyond the budgetary control of Parliament or Congress on a scale that has not been seen probably since the days of Renaissance Europe. What are all the newly redundant soldiers affected by the newest round of cuts going to do? Even if they did not want to continue soldiering there are no jobs in "civvie street" and unemployment will only get worse next year. Soldiering will at least mean your are using your skills and feeding your family.
It's terrible to see what playing the "Great Game" has brought us to - so much waste and corruption for so little gain: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed". that quote is from Doug Eisenhower and I will leave it there but I will probably come back to the problem again.
years of Russia fighting and having to admit defeat and withdraw, since 2001 America
Let's face the music and dance
I am in the middle of writing the last chapter of "Days of Thrift" with the last part of the editing to do; on the 14th July 2011 it will go onto Amazon to be sold as an e book for £6.00. I have been writing it since January 2011 and it covers subjects such as being unemployed, eating well on a tight budget, getting free food, barter, finding a new job and squatting, the six blogs I have written are also included.
I don't know if what I have written is any good or will do any good, I had a panic the other evening when I thought, what if everyone hates it and then I thought, well it's been written now and there is no going back, which made me feel more cheerful.
To keep myself sane I have been writing childrens stories at the same time, out of nowhere four characters emerged and became 6 stories centred around a cafe in Bristol called "The Artistic Yetis Cafe" run, of course, by 4 Yetis. I want to write 12 stories in all and again publish as e books.
Some days I have been getting up at 5am working until 9am, then watching "The Wright Stuff" after that back to writing until 7pm when Channel 4 News starts. In the middle of all that I have been looking for work as my savings have run out and I have signed on, so I am living my work.
The title for this blog is "Lets face the Music and Dance" and that is how I feel, tired yet hyper which is always the way I used to feel when I finished work on a script and raring to go.
"Let's face the Music and Dance" could be the title for the upheavals the country is going through as well, the News of the World scandal is going to open up a huge window on how the "Great and Good" have used and abused their positions, not just in News International and the Murdoch empire but in a lot of other areas too, why would you need to hack the phones of relatives of dead soldiers?
Well, they always say if you wait long enough by the river the bodies of all your enemies will float by and I really hope the enquiries will not be whitewashes but show what so many of us have said for a long time that a corrupt and greedy plutocracy is destroying our rights, our economy and our country and then rein in their power with legal curbs that work.
With huge price jumps for gas, high food prices and every week new job losses I can see we are all going to dance to a different tune. I hope the tune brings a clarity which will allow us to connect the dots between the bankers casino banking practices, the hedge funds price manipulation, and all the other issues I have banged on about over the months and the tune show us all a way forward that is ethical, inclusive and brings prosperity for all of us
How funny,I have just got an e-mail saying that I am now a VIP with one of the survey companies because I have filled in my surveys promptly and fully and so I have been entered into a new prize draw and would I like to fill in a new survey? Okay, what is it this time - milk shakes, carpet cleaners or motorbikes. No, its cat food. See you soon.
moving the deckchairs on the lifeboat
At the start of the year I woke up at 4:15am and knew I had to get up and turn on the BBC news, don't ask me why, the cats thought I was crazy, I usually get up around 7am. The item I watched I have never seen since and no one has talked about it.
Southern Uganda is in the grips of a terrible drought and the report dealt with a family whose children were eating goat hide cut from their tent because food aid had been stopped - not cut down- but stopped dead last November 2010 and they had nothing left to eat.
The top UN food aid official, a fat man dressed in a suit complete with waistcoat and tie (apologises to chubby people who wear suits) had come from Rome to oversee the end of the food aid policy. The reason given for the policy change and the presence of this apparatchik sweating in the middle of a desert; it was the fault of the people who had not used the food they had been given responsibly. I was stunned, no mention of corrupt government creaming off the majority of the aid given their countries, no mention of binding receiving food into buying arms, or any of the other filthy deals done over the years - no folks- this drought and food aid maladministration since the 60s, was all the fault of this tiny shrivelled up woman and her sickly, malnourished children chewing goat hide. She hadn't used the food she had been allocated properly. I mean they had eaten it! (well thank heavens we had cleared that up and know who to blame, it's the ordinary people, especially this woman sitting in the dirt, not corrupt officials, warlords, IMF deals or greedy bankers).
As I watched this huge policy change at 4:30am I felt I understood something really profound, it wasn't just this destitute family in Uganda being destroyed it was all of us, the huge majority of ordinary people, the ones who are not part of the plutocracy and we are coming to a gigantic turning point in world history.
Southern Uganda is in the grips of a terrible drought and the report dealt with a family whose children were eating goat hide cut from their tent because food aid had been stopped - not cut down- but stopped dead last November 2010 and they had nothing left to eat.
The top UN food aid official, a fat man dressed in a suit complete with waistcoat and tie (apologises to chubby people who wear suits) had come from Rome to oversee the end of the food aid policy. The reason given for the policy change and the presence of this apparatchik sweating in the middle of a desert; it was the fault of the people who had not used the food they had been given responsibly. I was stunned, no mention of corrupt government creaming off the majority of the aid given their countries, no mention of binding receiving food into buying arms, or any of the other filthy deals done over the years - no folks- this drought and food aid maladministration since the 60s, was all the fault of this tiny shrivelled up woman and her sickly, malnourished children chewing goat hide. She hadn't used the food she had been allocated properly. I mean they had eaten it! (well thank heavens we had cleared that up and know who to blame, it's the ordinary people, especially this woman sitting in the dirt, not corrupt officials, warlords, IMF deals or greedy bankers).
As I watched this huge policy change at 4:30am I felt I understood something really profound, it wasn't just this destitute family in Uganda being destroyed it was all of us, the huge majority of ordinary people, the ones who are not part of the plutocracy and we are coming to a gigantic turning point in world history.
In the dictionary "plutocracy" is defined as government by the wealthy. The plutocracy exercises the preponderance of political power, whether directly or indirectly, (look at our Parliament, especially the Cabinet, how many millionaires sit in the House of Commons?).
Plutocracy also has a cultural and social aspect that benefits the rich. If you start to think about society and what it is made up of - universities and colleges, publishing houses, mass circulation magazines, newspapers, television and radio stations, professional sports teams, foundations, churches, private museums, charity organizations are organized as corporations, ruled by boards of trustees (or directors or regents) composed overwhelmingly of very wealthy people often called in Britain "The Great and Good" as compared to the rest of us "The Great Unwashed".
Considering America and as the only super power you do have to consider America very carefully, I found this quote in "Who Rules America", by sociologist G. William Domhoff. "The idea that a relatively fixed group of privileged people might shape the economy and government for their own benefit goes against the American grain. Nevertheless . . . the owners and top-level managers in large income-producing properties are far and away the dominant power figures in the United States. Their corporations, banks, and agribusinesses come together as a corporate community that dominates the federal government in Washington. Their real estate, construction, and land development companies form growth coalitions that dominate most local governments. In the US, plutocratic governance is abetted by mass media owned by the hyperwealthy and operated in their own economic self-interest".
If you ally plutocracy with a very destructive but powerful theory called "The Lifeboat Theory" and link that to a world which we all know is running out of conventional resources - well I'll try to explain my thinking.
A man called Garrett Hardin developed a theory and wrote "Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor". He wrote "Environmentalists use the metaphor of the earth as a "spaceship" in trying to persuade countries, industries and people to stop wasting and polluting our natural resources. Since we all share life on this planet, they argue, no single person or institution has the right to destroy, waste, or use more than a fair share of its resources".
Hardin disagreed profoundly with the idea of sharing and mutual responsibility and argued that all the rich countries and rich people are in a lifeboat, not a spaceship, and all the poor countries and poor people are in the water trying to get into the lifeboat to escape drowning. His question was "does everyone on earth have an equal right to an equal share of its resources?". It's a fair question but when it's premise is put into action you end up with the BBC showing real, poor people chewing goat hide.
There are lots of reports showing how earth's resources are dwindling and the alternatives offered by "green technology" aren't being taken up fast enough or promoted widely enough to make a difference. I'm sure that if I have read some of those reports and I'm not an economist, scientist or politician then the people in power, our plutocracy, have read them too and been briefed by the best minds available.
What are these plutocrats to do?
The resources like oil and gas which make their corporations multi-billions and enable them to have the power to speculate in commodities and food unchecked (remember "Glencore") are dwindling, even if at the moment it doesn't seem like that.
Money and power, the only important things in life ( that is what families like the Bush clan believe) must be preserved and because they cannot face the fact that it is their morally bereft beliefs and actions; their capitalism red in tooth and claw which has created the situation of pollution and dwindling resources they are looking for a scapegoat which at the same time will make money. So the IMF impose even more draconian measures on countries whch have taken loans and then bailouts to cover the loans and then further bailouts (Greece anyone?) to cover the bailouts.
We, the people must be made to work longer, have smaller or no pensions at all, have our rights whittled away and be brainwashed by the mainstream media into accepting this because acording to the favourite lie our country has huge debts which we, the "Great Unwashed" not the "Great and Good" must be made to pay off.
But a problem has arisen for the plutocracy that it did not foresee: us ordinary people, and it seems to me, people all around the world (praises be to the internet, twitter, social networking, mobiles with cameras and the brave individuals who use the technology, write the blogs and post the pictures) aren't buying into having no rights or their rights taken away, we don't want to lose our pensions, work until we die with no relief or have the NHS privatised or pay more for food or be banned from driving a car, or denied a free education just so that incredibly rich people can make even more money.
The "Arab Spring" is saying what more and more of us want to say; we are going to try and base our societies on social justice, a fairer distribution of resources which Huey Long dreamed of giving everyone the rights enshrined in the American Bill of Rights (how ironic seeing how America has turned out) ratified in 1781 protecting the natural rights of liberty and property including freedom of religion, freedom of speech, a free press, free assembly, and free association.
What I have written is only a tiny part of the real politik we all face, the turmoil of the secret wars for resources being fought in the Arctic and Antarctic, the economic war between the USA, Russia and China, the cyber wars, the still unresolved Middle East, the problems the EU face, the wars in Africa these are partly the plutocracy fighting for supremacy and sometimes it seems there are only terrible things to think about but I truly believe at the end of the day we will all be in the lifeboat and there will be deckchairs for everyone.
no such thing as a free lunch
Ever since I started writing this blog I have been testing out various ways of making money or getting freebies and I have had some success. I signed up to anwer about 4 or 5 surveys each day and I registered with "Free Stuff". I got 6 free tomato plants so I will have free tomatoes this year. I was awarded 2 £10.00 wouchers for Amazon and at the rate I read that equals 4 books maybe more as I use "Kindle" and some ebooks are free.
I faithfully fill in my surveys and commodetise my opinions about fruit juices, health products and the merits of furniture polish. I particularly like "YouGov" as that one is more fun and you can be rude about David Cameron and George Osborne. I have been clocking up points and gaining entries for prize draws, so many I have lost count as all these sites run prize draws each month or quarter and I won a computer game I actually want to play with backgammon chess and card games.
So, I will keep going as I don't care enough about furniture polish to feel my privacy is being invaded or that I am being used to make companies profit and I love tomatoes.
Only 5% of the UK population earns £60,000.00 a year most people earn £24,000.00 a year and are watching their incomes and standard of living erode drastically, a chance win on a prize draw or lottery will not change our society or bring people out of poverty.
I want every household in the UK which earns less than £40,000.00 a year to receive £10,000.00 as a gift tax free to use as they see fit, the only proviso being if it is used for a holiday the holiday must be taken in the UK to support our tourist industry.
I can hear the hysteria erupting from the uber rich and people who believe the lie that Britain is broke and everyone must "do their bit" and "tighten their belts" we spend millions on wars and weapons, security for that wedding and bailing out bankers and hedge funds but children live in dire poverty. We have got to change the dynamic, not trickle down economics but bottom up synergy.
Just apply a gift of £10,000.00 to your own life. I would pay off all my bills and use part of it to take a course to learn a language, buy some new clothes, go to the theatre and invest in my business. In that one sentence all the companies I owe money now have cash flow, the clothes shops, language provider and the arts have now got some revenue they didn't have before and my publishing company will have funds. Young people who couldn't afford to leave home will have money for renting a flat of their own, setting up their own business or going to college.
Use your imagination and follow the money it would transform our country.
I am going to close now and leave this while I think it over further.
I faithfully fill in my surveys and commodetise my opinions about fruit juices, health products and the merits of furniture polish. I particularly like "YouGov" as that one is more fun and you can be rude about David Cameron and George Osborne. I have been clocking up points and gaining entries for prize draws, so many I have lost count as all these sites run prize draws each month or quarter and I won a computer game I actually want to play with backgammon chess and card games.
So, I will keep going as I don't care enough about furniture polish to feel my privacy is being invaded or that I am being used to make companies profit and I love tomatoes.
Only 5% of the UK population earns £60,000.00 a year most people earn £24,000.00 a year and are watching their incomes and standard of living erode drastically, a chance win on a prize draw or lottery will not change our society or bring people out of poverty.
I want every household in the UK which earns less than £40,000.00 a year to receive £10,000.00 as a gift tax free to use as they see fit, the only proviso being if it is used for a holiday the holiday must be taken in the UK to support our tourist industry.
I can hear the hysteria erupting from the uber rich and people who believe the lie that Britain is broke and everyone must "do their bit" and "tighten their belts" we spend millions on wars and weapons, security for that wedding and bailing out bankers and hedge funds but children live in dire poverty. We have got to change the dynamic, not trickle down economics but bottom up synergy.
Just apply a gift of £10,000.00 to your own life. I would pay off all my bills and use part of it to take a course to learn a language, buy some new clothes, go to the theatre and invest in my business. In that one sentence all the companies I owe money now have cash flow, the clothes shops, language provider and the arts have now got some revenue they didn't have before and my publishing company will have funds. Young people who couldn't afford to leave home will have money for renting a flat of their own, setting up their own business or going to college.
Use your imagination and follow the money it would transform our country.
I am going to close now and leave this while I think it over further.
shopping, oh god, shopping
When worshipping at the great shrine of "Shopping". The first thing you should do after genuflecting at the altar, is make a list. It helps you focus on what you need to buy and what you have to spend, I am not going to make comparisons between shops and supermarkets etc as that is easy to do and I don't want to promote one over another. I do all my shopping on line as it is cheaper - you don't spend money travelling to and from the supermarket, you save time and effort as you don't lose hours trailing around the aisles of your chosen church or have to lug huge bags of shopping on and off public transport or in and out of your car and you don't get distracted by periphal "offers" you don't really need but which all add up.
I don't drive, I have always used public trransport and for years I have had a shopping trolley, I know it sounds so old fashioned and something your great granny would have used with some boiled sweets embedded in the side pocket but I really reommend it - any special offers, cheap fruit at the market, bulk buy bread at the end of the day stick it in the trolley and save your arms from growing extra inches.
My trolley helped me run my book business; I would drag my trolley around all the charity shops where I used to go and find my stock of second hand books. I started my company "Serendipity Books" with £5.00 which I saved out of my weekly wage of £80.00. I went to my local charity shops and bought £5.00 worth of books which I sold to a local book dealer and made a profit of £15.00 and I repeated the process over and over again. This was before amazon.com or e-commerce. I progressed to a stall at the local book fairs then finally after some years I had enough for a small bookshop. No bank will help a woman by herself who has no collateral and I was too "wealthy and priveleged" to be eligible for anything like "The Princes Trust" grants so I did it by myself and I couldn't have done it without my trolley.
Anyway enough of prehistoric times when mammoths roamed the earth and back to the future why are all the prices rising so fast and going so high? Every day seems to see a new increase and supermarkets are trying to lessen the pain with loss leaders; there are some extremely difficult things that have to be looked at and I don't think our government will be able to deal with them becase it goes to the heart of the way we live and the systems at the core of everything that surrounds us.
In 2010, investment bank "Goldman Sachs" warned of "violent price spikes" in commodities markets, and that prediction has more or less come true.
The rapid rise in prices for food, fuel and commodities has been disastrous for the world's poor who are always hit hardest and hit first but now those rapid rises are filtering into middle class life but it's a bonanza for multinational trading firms such as "Glencore" - the world's largest diversified commodities trader - is planning a US$11billion share sale, probaby the largest market debut ever seen on the London Stock Exchange.
The initial public offering from the commodity speculating giant will create at least four billionaires, dozens worth more than $100million and several hundred old fashioned millionaires. Chief Executive Ivan Glasenberg is set to make more than $9bn from the share sale. And speculating on food prices is an important part of his wealth.
Valued at about $60billion, "Glencore" controls 50 per cent of the global copper market, 60 per cent of zinc, 38 per cent in alumina, 28 per cent of thermal coal, 45 per cent of lead and almost 10 per cent of the world's wheat - according to information the firm disclosed prior to its share sale. It also controls about one quarter of the world market in barley, sunflower and rape seed.
"They are possibly one of very few mining companies that are price makers, rather than price takers," said Chris Hinde, editorial director of Mining Journal magazine. "They are the stockbrokers of the commodities business [operating] in a fairly secretive world. They are effectively setting the price for some very important commodities,".
The firm employs about 57,000 people, generated a turnover of $145billion in the past year and has assets worth more than $79billion. Based in Baar, Switzerland, where regulation is minimal, the company's sprawling interests span Bolivian tin mines, Angolan oil, zinc producers in Kazakhstan, Zambian copper mines and Russian wheat operations.
"Glencore's vertical integration really is unprecedented," said Devlin Kuyek, a researcher with GRAIN, a non-profit international organisation working on food security.
"Glencore" owns almost 300,000 hectares of farm land and it is one of the largest farm operators in the world. They are engaging in speculation on the grain trade and have immense market power,".
Global food prices have climbed recently, returning close to their 2008 peak, when bread riots swept parts of the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean.
"A disturbing amount of price increases, I fear, is being driven by speculative activity," Marcus Miller, a professor of international economics at the University of Warwick. "Bets [on future price rises or declines] can become self-fulfilling if you are big enough to affect the market."
In March 2011, the World Bank's global food index was 36 per cent above levels from a year earlier, although prices for commodities have dropped in the past few weeks. Some analysts believe price increases have more to do with a growing global population and rising middle classes, particularly in India and China, who are eating more meat and thus driving up prices for corn and other animal feed.
To make money betting on food, metals and energy, "Glencore" – like other trading houses and hedge funds – relies on one crucial commodity: Information.
"They have offices all over the world and unique access to information about production and distribution," said food security researcher Kuyek. "When the people who have that information are also the ones speculating, there is grave cause for concern; they can purchase forward contracts when they know prices are going up."
In August 2010, for example, Russia issued a ban on grain exports, after droughts ravaged crops. On August 3, the head of "Glencore's" Russian grain unit encouraged the government to halt exports. The government followed his advice on August 5, causing prices for cereals to rise 15 per cent in two days.
"Days before the export ban went into place, "Glencore" made huge bets," said Kuyek. "They had some kind of information there; companies with information are in the best place to capture profits from volatility." "Glencore", for its part, said it also lost money as a result of the ban, because it had to fulfill delivery obligations to clients outside Russia at the new, higher price.
In addition to manipulating food prices – potentially with insider information - the trading giant appears to have broken laws on several continents.
Prosecutors in Belgium charged "Glencore" employees with criminal conspiracy and corruption, alleging they illicitly sought confidential information on European export subsidies from a public official. The case will be heard in Brussels on May 12. During Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq, and the UN sanctions which accompanied its final years, "Glencore" made handsome profits marketing embargoed oil. In February 2001, "Glencore" bought 1million barrels of Iraqi crude oil destined for the US and diverted the oil to Croatia, where it was sold for a premium of $3million, according to a UN Security Council report. When the news broke, the Sunday Times newspaper in the UK headlined their investigation "Secretive Swiss trader links City to Iraq oil scam". "Glencore'"s founder and lifelong commodities hustler Marc Rich was dubbed the "face of scandal", by Vanity Fair magazine. After founding the company in 1974, Rich rose to prominence by pioneering "combat trading" -aggressive deal making in countries facing turmoil. He traded oil for Ayatollahs when Iran was blacklisted by the US, did business with South Africa's apartheid government and skirted US trade embargoes on Cuba and Libya to make trades under the motto: Do whatever it takes.
"There will always be allegations that they [Glencore] are dealing with some unsavory folks," said Chris Hinde from Mining Journal magazine. "But I wouldn't say that makes them unusual for traders.". Tony Hayward, the disgraced former BP CEO who presided over the worst oil spill in US history, has been approached by "Glencore" to become a non-executive director on the board of the company when it becomes public. While Rich sold the company in 1993, his take-no-prisoners approach to the commodities business lives on in today's traders and speculators, including the South African CEO Ivan Glasenberg, who gave Rich's trading empire the name "Glencore".
Institutional investors from the US, East Asia and the Middle East have all committed to buying. Aabar, the sovereign wealth fund from the United Arab Emirates, controlled by Abu Dhabi's oil-rich monarchs, is expected to become the largest "cornerstone investor", pledging to buy about $1billion worth of stock. "It seems that they are buying a stake to strengthen the UAE's control over the global grain trade, for their own food security," said Kuyek. "In the absence of anything meaningful being done at the international level, - except for the same prescriptions of open markets and trade liberalisation." Food insecure countries in the Gulf, Northeast Asia, Korea and other regions are attempting to gain more direct control over food, as the market economy "can’t guarantee decent prices",
"Stability is to be prized," said Oxfam's David Green. And that is the last thing "Glencore" wants, as it's instability which is most profitable - for those who have the inside knowledge to exploit it.
If Dante were alive today and rewrote "The Inferno" I think he would include a special hell for food speculators. I can't get my head around the figures it seems like monopoly money and where is the moral compass? There is none.
I know there are lots of facts and figures to read but we have to understand what is happening so that legislation, international and national can correct what is going so wrong in our societies. The facts and figures come from an excellent article on "Al Jazeera" and the opinions are mine and I will write more about this on future blogs
I don't drive, I have always used public trransport and for years I have had a shopping trolley, I know it sounds so old fashioned and something your great granny would have used with some boiled sweets embedded in the side pocket but I really reommend it - any special offers, cheap fruit at the market, bulk buy bread at the end of the day stick it in the trolley and save your arms from growing extra inches.
My trolley helped me run my book business; I would drag my trolley around all the charity shops where I used to go and find my stock of second hand books. I started my company "Serendipity Books" with £5.00 which I saved out of my weekly wage of £80.00. I went to my local charity shops and bought £5.00 worth of books which I sold to a local book dealer and made a profit of £15.00 and I repeated the process over and over again. This was before amazon.com or e-commerce. I progressed to a stall at the local book fairs then finally after some years I had enough for a small bookshop. No bank will help a woman by herself who has no collateral and I was too "wealthy and priveleged" to be eligible for anything like "The Princes Trust" grants so I did it by myself and I couldn't have done it without my trolley.
Anyway enough of prehistoric times when mammoths roamed the earth and back to the future why are all the prices rising so fast and going so high? Every day seems to see a new increase and supermarkets are trying to lessen the pain with loss leaders; there are some extremely difficult things that have to be looked at and I don't think our government will be able to deal with them becase it goes to the heart of the way we live and the systems at the core of everything that surrounds us.
In 2010, investment bank "Goldman Sachs" warned of "violent price spikes" in commodities markets, and that prediction has more or less come true.
The rapid rise in prices for food, fuel and commodities has been disastrous for the world's poor who are always hit hardest and hit first but now those rapid rises are filtering into middle class life but it's a bonanza for multinational trading firms such as "Glencore" - the world's largest diversified commodities trader - is planning a US$11billion share sale, probaby the largest market debut ever seen on the London Stock Exchange.
The initial public offering from the commodity speculating giant will create at least four billionaires, dozens worth more than $100million and several hundred old fashioned millionaires. Chief Executive Ivan Glasenberg is set to make more than $9bn from the share sale. And speculating on food prices is an important part of his wealth.
Valued at about $60billion, "Glencore" controls 50 per cent of the global copper market, 60 per cent of zinc, 38 per cent in alumina, 28 per cent of thermal coal, 45 per cent of lead and almost 10 per cent of the world's wheat - according to information the firm disclosed prior to its share sale. It also controls about one quarter of the world market in barley, sunflower and rape seed.
"They are possibly one of very few mining companies that are price makers, rather than price takers," said Chris Hinde, editorial director of Mining Journal magazine. "They are the stockbrokers of the commodities business [operating] in a fairly secretive world. They are effectively setting the price for some very important commodities,".
The firm employs about 57,000 people, generated a turnover of $145billion in the past year and has assets worth more than $79billion. Based in Baar, Switzerland, where regulation is minimal, the company's sprawling interests span Bolivian tin mines, Angolan oil, zinc producers in Kazakhstan, Zambian copper mines and Russian wheat operations.
"Glencore's vertical integration really is unprecedented," said Devlin Kuyek, a researcher with GRAIN, a non-profit international organisation working on food security.
"Glencore" owns almost 300,000 hectares of farm land and it is one of the largest farm operators in the world. They are engaging in speculation on the grain trade and have immense market power,".
Global food prices have climbed recently, returning close to their 2008 peak, when bread riots swept parts of the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean.
"A disturbing amount of price increases, I fear, is being driven by speculative activity," Marcus Miller, a professor of international economics at the University of Warwick. "Bets [on future price rises or declines] can become self-fulfilling if you are big enough to affect the market."
In March 2011, the World Bank's global food index was 36 per cent above levels from a year earlier, although prices for commodities have dropped in the past few weeks. Some analysts believe price increases have more to do with a growing global population and rising middle classes, particularly in India and China, who are eating more meat and thus driving up prices for corn and other animal feed.
To make money betting on food, metals and energy, "Glencore" – like other trading houses and hedge funds – relies on one crucial commodity: Information.
"They have offices all over the world and unique access to information about production and distribution," said food security researcher Kuyek. "When the people who have that information are also the ones speculating, there is grave cause for concern; they can purchase forward contracts when they know prices are going up."
 |
| Trading firms can capitalise on instability in world food markets [EPA] |
In August 2010, for example, Russia issued a ban on grain exports, after droughts ravaged crops. On August 3, the head of "Glencore's" Russian grain unit encouraged the government to halt exports. The government followed his advice on August 5, causing prices for cereals to rise 15 per cent in two days.
"Days before the export ban went into place, "Glencore" made huge bets," said Kuyek. "They had some kind of information there; companies with information are in the best place to capture profits from volatility." "Glencore", for its part, said it also lost money as a result of the ban, because it had to fulfill delivery obligations to clients outside Russia at the new, higher price.
In addition to manipulating food prices – potentially with insider information - the trading giant appears to have broken laws on several continents.
Prosecutors in Belgium charged "Glencore" employees with criminal conspiracy and corruption, alleging they illicitly sought confidential information on European export subsidies from a public official. The case will be heard in Brussels on May 12. During Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq, and the UN sanctions which accompanied its final years, "Glencore" made handsome profits marketing embargoed oil. In February 2001, "Glencore" bought 1million barrels of Iraqi crude oil destined for the US and diverted the oil to Croatia, where it was sold for a premium of $3million, according to a UN Security Council report. When the news broke, the Sunday Times newspaper in the UK headlined their investigation "Secretive Swiss trader links City to Iraq oil scam". "Glencore'"s founder and lifelong commodities hustler Marc Rich was dubbed the "face of scandal", by Vanity Fair magazine. After founding the company in 1974, Rich rose to prominence by pioneering "combat trading" -aggressive deal making in countries facing turmoil. He traded oil for Ayatollahs when Iran was blacklisted by the US, did business with South Africa's apartheid government and skirted US trade embargoes on Cuba and Libya to make trades under the motto: Do whatever it takes.
 |
| In Lia Romi's community, people have to choose between sending their kids to school and buying food [Credit: Oxfam] |
"There will always be allegations that they [Glencore] are dealing with some unsavory folks," said Chris Hinde from Mining Journal magazine. "But I wouldn't say that makes them unusual for traders.". Tony Hayward, the disgraced former BP CEO who presided over the worst oil spill in US history, has been approached by "Glencore" to become a non-executive director on the board of the company when it becomes public. While Rich sold the company in 1993, his take-no-prisoners approach to the commodities business lives on in today's traders and speculators, including the South African CEO Ivan Glasenberg, who gave Rich's trading empire the name "Glencore".
Institutional investors from the US, East Asia and the Middle East have all committed to buying. Aabar, the sovereign wealth fund from the United Arab Emirates, controlled by Abu Dhabi's oil-rich monarchs, is expected to become the largest "cornerstone investor", pledging to buy about $1billion worth of stock. "It seems that they are buying a stake to strengthen the UAE's control over the global grain trade, for their own food security," said Kuyek. "In the absence of anything meaningful being done at the international level, - except for the same prescriptions of open markets and trade liberalisation." Food insecure countries in the Gulf, Northeast Asia, Korea and other regions are attempting to gain more direct control over food, as the market economy "can’t guarantee decent prices",
"Stability is to be prized," said Oxfam's David Green. And that is the last thing "Glencore" wants, as it's instability which is most profitable - for those who have the inside knowledge to exploit it.
If Dante were alive today and rewrote "The Inferno" I think he would include a special hell for food speculators. I can't get my head around the figures it seems like monopoly money and where is the moral compass? There is none.
I know there are lots of facts and figures to read but we have to understand what is happening so that legislation, international and national can correct what is going so wrong in our societies. The facts and figures come from an excellent article on "Al Jazeera" and the opinions are mine and I will write more about this on future blogs
the complications of dyeing undies, fdr and huey long
Since the last blog I have been busy cleaning the blue dye stains from my hands, face, work surfaces and clothes, although I live in the Celtic Motherland of Wales I don't think painting your face with woad is really a fashion statement and dye is like grouting once you have started you have to finish and it will get into every room but I can report it is not worth doing. Fortunately I had some dye so I didn't incur any costs but the results gave me 3 different shades of blue - one for the lace, one on the fabric and a third for the elastic so my undies looked like I had put them in the wrong wash.
While I was scrubbing my face and kitchen I started to think about things that do work - turn off all the electrical equipment that is on stand by and you will save £20.00 a month. Go through all your stuff and decide what you can live without - the dvds you never watch, old toys, any quilts and sell them on line e-bay, gumtree etc, if you have any old mobiles off they go that will give you some cash. Do not sell your gold, if you have any, on line or through one of those companies that advertise on tv, go to a jewellers and shop around.
It's funny what you think about as you clean I started to think about Huey Long, a Governor of Louisiana from 1928 -1932 he was amazing he was too poor to go to college as he couldn't afford the books, I bet some of us are starting to feel the same about attending university and he worked as a door to door salesman in one of the poorest states in America in 1934 he created the "Share our Wealth" programme with the motto "Every Man a King", proposing new wealth redistribution measures in the form of a net asset tax on corporations and individuals to curb the poverty and hopelessness endemic nationwide during the Great Depression. To stimulate the economy, Long advocated federal spending on public works, schools and colleges, and old age pensions in a state that only had 300 miles of paved roads that programme is extraordinary and he made sure every school had free textbooks. Of course as is the fate of nearly anyone who tries to make a difference he was assassinated in 1935 when he was a Senator but he changed the lives of the ordinary people and so did Franklin Delano Roosevelt always known as FDR he was 3 times President of America from 1933-1945.
Sorry if this is all a bit boring and historic but if you don't know the context and backstory you will never change the present or the future.
FDR's "New Deal" during the Depression of the 1930's kickstarted the economy by, again, public spending on infrastructure and public works. What those guys did is the absolute opposite of what our government is doing to us. Don't believe what is continually pushed as a basic given that there is no money and we have to "tighten our belts" (remember Herman Goering said if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth) every time some politician or tv guru says that repeat out loud after me "bullshite".You see there is plenty of money in our country it is just in the wrong hands; ultra rich people don't start small businesses or care about the community (they don't have a community just countries they live in for short periods of time to avoid paying taxes) and until we have laws that close the loopholes exempting "Non Doms" and people like Phillip Green and various big companies from paying the taxes they owe but have so far reneged on we will continue living in an unjust society where the Depression will seem like good times.
I drew on "Wikipaedia" for the facts about Huey and FDR because I didn't want to make a mistake about dates etc but the rest are my own words and I will expand on them in future blogs along side gardening and shopping (I hate both).
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While I was scrubbing my face and kitchen I started to think about things that do work - turn off all the electrical equipment that is on stand by and you will save £20.00 a month. Go through all your stuff and decide what you can live without - the dvds you never watch, old toys, any quilts and sell them on line e-bay, gumtree etc, if you have any old mobiles off they go that will give you some cash. Do not sell your gold, if you have any, on line or through one of those companies that advertise on tv, go to a jewellers and shop around.
It's funny what you think about as you clean I started to think about Huey Long, a Governor of Louisiana from 1928 -1932 he was amazing he was too poor to go to college as he couldn't afford the books, I bet some of us are starting to feel the same about attending university and he worked as a door to door salesman in one of the poorest states in America in 1934 he created the "Share our Wealth" programme with the motto "Every Man a King", proposing new wealth redistribution measures in the form of a net asset tax on corporations and individuals to curb the poverty and hopelessness endemic nationwide during the Great Depression. To stimulate the economy, Long advocated federal spending on public works, schools and colleges, and old age pensions in a state that only had 300 miles of paved roads that programme is extraordinary and he made sure every school had free textbooks. Of course as is the fate of nearly anyone who tries to make a difference he was assassinated in 1935 when he was a Senator but he changed the lives of the ordinary people and so did Franklin Delano Roosevelt always known as FDR he was 3 times President of America from 1933-1945.
Sorry if this is all a bit boring and historic but if you don't know the context and backstory you will never change the present or the future.
FDR's "New Deal" during the Depression of the 1930's kickstarted the economy by, again, public spending on infrastructure and public works. What those guys did is the absolute opposite of what our government is doing to us. Don't believe what is continually pushed as a basic given that there is no money and we have to "tighten our belts" (remember Herman Goering said if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth) every time some politician or tv guru says that repeat out loud after me "bullshite".You see there is plenty of money in our country it is just in the wrong hands; ultra rich people don't start small businesses or care about the community (they don't have a community just countries they live in for short periods of time to avoid paying taxes) and until we have laws that close the loopholes exempting "Non Doms" and people like Phillip Green and various big companies from paying the taxes they owe but have so far reneged on we will continue living in an unjust society where the Depression will seem like good times.
I drew on "Wikipaedia" for the facts about Huey and FDR because I didn't want to make a mistake about dates etc but the rest are my own words and I will expand on them in future blogs along side gardening and shopping (I hate both).
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My first post
In November 2010 I started work on a book I entitled "The Art of Making Do for Those Who Have Never Had to Make Do". I wanted it to be a helpful guide on how to weather the coming hard times for so many relativily affluent people who had never had to think too closely about taking a pay cut or losing their jobs and the physical,emotional and economic struggle that being. what I am going to bluntly call poor entails. So many things written about saving money are rubbish - when you have £5.00 to last the week buying virgin olive oil in bulk is not a priority and so many supposedly "cheap" meals when you cost them out properly adding in cooking time with its cost for gas or electricity, any extras like herbs or spices and how many people the meal will actually feed in the real world are not "cheap" at all. I wanted to write a sensible, ethical book that would provide real help and this blog was supposed to be the funny side, if you can call it that, of being skint trying out all the ideas people tell you about how to save money i.e bake your own bread, keep chickens, dye your underwear.
However, one morning in the New year I turned on the BBC Breakfast News and there was an interview with a lady who had done everything to make the best of a hard time - the bread baking, turning off all the electric appliances on standby, even going so far as to take the bus to work rather than the train which was more expensive thereby putting another 2 hours on her travel time each day and she still couldn't make ends meet; a second person in this piece was in full time work but had to resort to hand outs from a charity which has food banks just like in America. I was stunned.
It was then that I knew what I wanted to write about was going to be more serious, radical and difficult than the brief I had started with, yes I am still going to try all the crazy ideas bread baking and underwear dying included but I want to look at what is really happening to us.
I live in 2011 at the start of the 21st century I do not want to regress 90 years to 1920, the start of the last century for my standard of living and I do not want to go back 70 years to 1940 for a role model of how to live. We can do better than that, it doesn't have to be that way.
However, one morning in the New year I turned on the BBC Breakfast News and there was an interview with a lady who had done everything to make the best of a hard time - the bread baking, turning off all the electric appliances on standby, even going so far as to take the bus to work rather than the train which was more expensive thereby putting another 2 hours on her travel time each day and she still couldn't make ends meet; a second person in this piece was in full time work but had to resort to hand outs from a charity which has food banks just like in America. I was stunned.
It was then that I knew what I wanted to write about was going to be more serious, radical and difficult than the brief I had started with, yes I am still going to try all the crazy ideas bread baking and underwear dying included but I want to look at what is really happening to us.
I live in 2011 at the start of the 21st century I do not want to regress 90 years to 1920, the start of the last century for my standard of living and I do not want to go back 70 years to 1940 for a role model of how to live. We can do better than that, it doesn't have to be that way.
