Halting Inequality growth

At last there is now widespread discussion about the growing inequality gap and the social evils that come along in its trail. These messages are beginning to heard but what is missing are practical suggestions of what we can do tomorrow that will start to reverse the trend. This is the discussion that we now urgently need. In past blogs I have indicated several different ways in which our Economy has to change to better cope with today's pressures and social needs. Such change can be seismic, takes a while to gain critical mass, turn minds around, set aside trusted answer and face the new. What we need right now are immediate steps that work within the accepted norms. Here are my offerings. Things that could be done right away, that will make a tangible difference and whose impact will be felt within months not decades.

Housing is the new South Sea bubble, sucking in all the loose change cause that is the only market that is sure to produce dividends. Not just homegrown goldminers but gold seekers from around the world, House are bought to capitalise on it and matters not if they stand empty.

Step 1. All domestic property whose address is not recorded on an Electoral Register and cannot prove a minimum six month protected tenancy is taxed at an exorbitant  rate.

Our commercial core is being manipulated to provide instant profit to satisfy the demands of the investing institutions solely looking to todays deal. We have to break away and restore a longterm strategy back into our commercial core. Individuals are much more likely to take a long view and not the micro-second shifts in share values.

Step 2. Shareholder voting rights removed from Institutional hands. Votes only accepted from verified individuals, proxy voting disallowed.

Our economics have been distorted out of all recognition. Illusionary money made out of gambles on financial outturns is just lunacy, a fictional charade but unfortunately one that is self-perpetuating. It can never be a basis for building a countries future. We have to restore common-sense, investment in people and workplaces does matter.

Step 3. Sliding scale corporate tax introduced. Enterprises able to prove investment in building and equipment and people granted lowest rates with longterm write-off whilst those making money out of gambling on financial outturns paying a crippling high rate with no set-offs.

There are a lot of social injustices that have to rectified but as a first step we have to set a limit. How extreme, how polarised can we afford our country to be, between those that have nothing, not even hope and those who have everything plus the control that wealth brings?  

Step 4. A penalising high personal tax for any individual claiming residency in this country whose combined income or control of assets exceeds say 1:50 of that of the lowest paid.  

So here is my challenge to all you Electoral Candidates out there, come up with a better scheme to stop this iniquitous inequality.

All the World is a lie

Should I be the cause of a car accident I am required to lie and not admit to being the cause of the accident otherwise my car insurance will be repudiated. I know I caused the accident but cannot say so. The injured party/ies may protest and may clearly elucidate the sequence of events but I am not allowed to agree with them. Obviously I understand that in all the pent up emotions at that moment of an accident my perspective on the events may be distorted. Clearly unscrupulous 'victims' may seek to take advantage of that vulnerability and push events to demonstrate their 'innocence' to their insurance companies advantage. So yes there are grey areas  and we need to be on guard against free admissions where there might be elements of doubt. But not to the point of requiring me to institutionally lie against the plain evidence. When the sequence of events, the facts of the case, are clear to all and witnesses, when does a no comment become a lie. It is a lie if you know the true cause but choose, or are required, not to admit it.

We see time after time, exemplary investigations into corporate failings of one ilk or another, be it meat not as described, irresponsible lending to clearly insolvent clients, to plain manufacturing defects or flawed materials or staff failing to provide the level of care required, and the institution at the centre, twist and turns, shifts focus, counter claims against another party, anything other than admit they failed to act in a timely fashion. In this litigious world we now live in any slight admission will be the staring pistol for a host of damage claims, real, exaggerated to the pure fanciful. All of which would have to be defended at considerable cost even should not guilty as charged be the final outcome. Any admission, no matter how slight, inflames the counter case, hinders the assembly of a not guilty argument. No wonder companies are loath to admit. The end result, the victims, those who suffered as a consequence of bad decision made by others, are left without restitution, with the stigma of blame left in their laps, unable to overcome the mountainous costs of initiating actions against well-heeled corporates. Corporates who can afford to weather the storm of claims, knowing few can succeed against them and that time with eventually erase any suspicion's, so long as they do not concede to any failings. Despite all the clear unambiguous contrary evidence. Dissemble, misdirect, be economical with the truth, even bare faced lie rather than agree to the truth. Company policy.

Our elected representatives, appointed to promote our well-being are now schooled in the craft of avoiding answering direct questions. Anything that might give rise to concerns, or might put in doubt past decisions, that may give an opponent a free scoring point, might upset an important voting or funding cadre, anything that does not have a positive upbeat outturn is to be side-stepped. Far better to answer your own question you are comfortable in answering than answer the actual question posed that might lead you into troubled waters. Of course the baying pack of hyena media is there snapping at your heels just waiting for that  gaff. Any gaff, ill at ease posture or unfortunate turn of phrase, waiting to maximise and ridicule to their waiting audience. Never admit to any mistake, no matter how small as it will be turned into defacto incompetence of government, leadership, policy flaw, loss of voter confidence, anything that may help mud stick. When you speak as an MP the credulity of your party is on the line, so keep to safe issues which will have a favourable reception. Never mind what you actually think, did or did not do. Keeping voters loyal is far more important than esoteric concerns such as honesty or truth.

Our past choices make the Society we now live in. Nothing is immutable, we can change what we have chosen, we can choose to go in different directions from now on. Language is so clear, yet so fickle. The words I speak, or write, will resonate differently to each one of you. You will each form your own unique interpretation of my words. The words are the same, but being unique individuals with our past we bring our own different levels in meaning, experience and judgements to the self same words. What each of us does have to do is seek to choose those words which are as close to the truth, the essence, of what you want to say as you can. The more serious the subject area the more rigorous we have to be. We cannot afford the dashed off but instantly regretted Text or EMail. The recipients reaction to a careless choice of phrase cannot be brushed aside with an oophs, the damage can be lasting, tainting the relationship well into the future. We owe it to each other to be as truthful as we possibly can with each other. I don't buy the white lie, (see also my It is not important) the truth will out, eventually, meanwhile you live in a sham, concealing, obscuring your true thoughts, (see also News Propaganda). No one will ever know? Do you believe that you too are so inept at reading people that you could be fooled?

We live in a matrix society, having to deal with a wide range of peoples from all sort of alien, to us, backgrounds. If you can no longer trust anyone to speak the truth, to be honest, just how are you going to negotiate your way in this Society? Truth is the core trust that binds our Society together. Trust in the truth is what empowers us to make contracts with all those strangers we daily encounter. The next time you witness a Politician, a Company Executive evading giving a direct answer or you are required to agree to lie, pause and ask yourself, "Is this the Society I want to live in?"  
Answer truthfully.

Battle Lines

The rich elite, and their aspirant hoping to join them politicians, continue to enjoy the products of the financial squeeze on all the rest of us. A squeeze that is due to tighten even further, as our government, elected to promote and protect our interests, draws up plans to combat the anticipate civil unrest! Officials are actively looking into the purchase, the deployment and how best to utilise water cannon  to be used against their own citizens. This would seem to be a perfectly okay, matter-of-fact and reasonable step to consider. Obviously if your citizens are rioting, you need to be able to control them, perfectly logical and commendable, maintaining law and order is surely a prime purpose of government.

Pause for one moment and ask why the government anticipate their own citizens might rise up and riot? The government policy of squeezing ever harder the lower income groups, slashing essential benefit, castigating all those that fail to endure their imposed restrictions as cheats, fraudster, idle and lazy, is central to this growing unrest. The government with head in the sand pursues the 'proven' past practices of avoiding recession by encouraging consumer spending, by taking out more loans which inflate house prices even further. Their only other action is to frenetically cut their own spending on the easy targets, why of course, all  those wilful people who refuse to get jobs and look to the State for support. Cut back on all those wasteful and unnecessary social support measures. If only those people got off their backsides and worked they would get along just fine. Mean while the government must encourage consumer spending, what better way then ensuring those successful people with money to spend are shielded from the economic savings being made else where, so they can get on and spend even more.

People will put up with hardship and endure intolerable conditions providing it is fair and equitable, we are all in it together, each taking their own share of the burden. Clearly this is not happening. You only have to lift you head a fraction to see all the evidence that we are in an ever growing unequal society. Never has the gap between those that have and those who cannot survive been so large. The government, instead of rushing to halt this growing gap, is intent on ensuring its increase, because, in their view, that is the only route to economic recovery. Hence a growing ground swell of intense dissatisfaction with an unequal society on one hand and the government taking steps to contain civil disorder on the other. Use Water Cannon on your own citizens to prove you are right. So Vote to support or Revolt to find a better solution.

Secure in Fantasyland

Just come back from touring around a number of european countries and the absence of the surveillance cameras was very noticeable. Yet I did not feel threatened at any time even in public spaces with crowds gathering, nor did I feel my safety was compromised. Maybe surveillance cameras are just a reflection of a society that is insecure within itself and distrustful of its citizens. Without consultation or prior public consent, they are installed at the whim of authorities. Safe in their uncontested defence that the public welcomes all cameras as they protects them from acts of violence and no innocent has anything to fear!

That protection is of course an urban myth with very little substantive evidence to support it. The increasing numbers of installations are self-defeating. Every camera needs a person to sit and monitor it, for every 525599 (or 527039 in a leap year) minutes of a year. Just incase something is about to kick off. Other than that, your security is just a factor of luck. Is your particular monitor being watched at the moment you are under threat? Chance are so long against it you would stand more chance winning the european lottery! So cameras are next to useless protecting from an event but can have use after an event. As you lie unconscious on the floor, with luck, you might get spotted within half an hour if, of course a caring passing citizen does not respond first!

These cameras promote an entirely false sense of safety. They are of course of great interest to authorities wanting to control a submissive society. They gather vast volumes of data tracking each and everyone of us. With face recognition software they can, when they choose, track a person for their whole active day or life. All in the interest of our greater security of course. Such resources would only ever be employed against known national threats, like terrorists. It just does not add up. They do not know the terrorists in adavance, there are too many cameras for such a focussed need. No, they are used routinely to monitor you and I as we go about our every day lives. To make judgements about our actions and compile dossiers of citizens with behaviour patterns deemed suspicious. Nothing to fear as I live within the law. Yet your behaviour is being judged every day by you know not who. Software designed to pick up on nervous behaviour or by a low paid psychotic with a warped sense of normality. You have absolutely no idea nor any rights to know. Yet if by some mechanism you are placed in the suspect pile, your life can be change dramatically. To prove innocence is impossible. Once you are deemed a witch, or in this day and age, a terrorists, you are beyond help. Your cries of innocence merely confirm your guilt to those judging you.

No, let us get it straight, surveillance cameras are a weapon to be used by an authoritarian state against it citizens that are too submissive and indifferent to care.

Whilst I am at it of course the other aspect are speed cameras. Went through far too many road works when abroad and not a single one had an average speed camera let alone a fixed camera during the works. The organisation of the roadworks were far less controlled and organised than over here. If anything the risks were far higher there, but no cameras. Traffic density could be equal to or exceeding that here. I simply do not believe, and the evidence of my own eyes supports it, that we are not worst drivers. So why such a different reaction? Average speed cameras tightly controlling traffic speed through roadworks and even reducing the speed through the works arbitrarily down to 30 or even 20 mph, compared to, no cameras.

If the accidents rates were remarkably different between one country and another there would be an public outcry in the country at variance. No I suspect that accident and or driving death rates, one country to another, are more or less on par. Even in Germany where they still have unlimited speeds on parts of the autobahn I doubt whether there is a significant difference. So why does this country have such an obsession with speed cameras. It has to be distrust and control. Distrust by us the citizens of ourselves and the willingness of others to behave and an authority that leaps at that permissiveness, to exercise more control over its citizens that is never contested. All muddled and muddied up with good aspirational goals that allay social concerns, the need to save fuel in equal measures with doses of all speed kills. Twaddle but self-righteous twaddle so not easily dismissed.

At the heart of all this is a conundrum. The conundrum is that strong leaders are expected to be seen to act and be decisive and in times of threat, action is expected. In response to those expectations those in control publicly tinker. It matter not what they tinker at so long as it tickles the public's expectations of what is thought to be effective. In reality those tinkerings have very little actual impact on events other than massaging the public's concerns. There are no reliable studies to prove efficacy but they accumulate building up into a mythology of effective reactions to events. Just fantasy solutions for a submissive public that has given up on caring, thinking or protesting at self-evident bad decisions. It is up to you, have surveillance or speed cameras been proven to actually work? Get off your butt and do something.

It is not important

Just heard the Ad for a mature cheese, a new light version, where the slogan hook was 'No compromise'! A mature cheese is made mature so it has a bite and tang to it. That is the whole point of it being mature. So what it is only an advert. But is not, it a verbal role model for a new generation of children being taught, double speak, concealing truths is ok, even cool. This is how the dudes hang out. It is not okay. The hardest thing in all life is to keep close to the truth.

White lies are brushed off as necessary oiling of the social wheels. The suggestion that any lie demeans our society is shouted down. We need white lies is the chorus reply. No we don't, we need truth. Not in your full on face truth. Time and tact play important parts. Better to defer, to miss the point, to talk obliquely in another direction than the empty meaningless white lies, you are beautiful, you are a princess, you are looking so much better, you are so kind. The answer is not to square up and give full barrel critique, you are so childish, grow up and face the reality of your mean spirited life. But not lies, the audience knows the reality, pretending we live in some other mythical place, destroys the bonds between us. Our eternal search for truth.

When the pinnacles of our societies role models openly display a contempt for truth, from our Prince to our Police to our Politicians, society is in deep trouble. The Prince can publicly declare to the world his wedding vows whilst having a mistress at one and the same time off camera. The Police and Politicians can deny impropriety or worse refuse to answer as it might incriminate them, junketing with the Press and benefiting of Press freebies their salary and position gives them no entitlement too. Too eager to drink from the trough of corruption and too enthralled to notice truths lack.

Truth is not an optional extra. Trust is at the root of truth. Can I trust you, can I trust what you say, can I trust that you will be there to help when help is needed. This is the base cement that keeps us in a social bind. Of course we expect to be lied to, to be let down and for some people to pretend to be other than they are. But not the important people. Not the people close to us, the people we care about and most of all the people that have a duty to look after us. From them we expect the highest standards. Our social leaders used to have just a reputation for integrity, principle and honesty. The rot of misrepresentation, of double speak and standards, of weasely words disowning any sensible construction or over-hyped claims way beyond any realisable property, all these are now our common daily grist. The truth flew the nest a long time ago. How now trust? Who do you turn to that you can trust to mean what they say and do what they say they will do.

You are all on your own in a very cynical deliberately misleading world.