OneGuyFromBarlick

The deeper tragedy of economic policies that ignore the condition of the under-classes and regard them as expendable in the pursuit of 'real money' is that by doing so, the moneyed classes undermine the source of their own wealth which is the adding of value by either taking raw materials and making something out of them or doing the physical labour of maintenance and service needed to keep systems running. This was where Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph made their biggest mistake, he steered her towards Friedman and the Chicago School and her interpretation was that smoke st5ack industry was dead and the country could survive in the 'new economy' by relying on the service industries, particularly the City. Administering these essential industries and the other public services was messy and best outsourced to the private sector. The windfall of North Sea Oil revenues was used to finance a massive pool of unemployed labour so that wages could be reduced. Remember "be glad you have a job"?
The present economic model is directed to the same end, reducing wages and skill levels, the belief is that this makes the country 'more efficient' but in fact what they are doing is eroding the greatest source of GDP, the spending of the under class. 85% of consumption is generated at this level and the reason why we have such an unbalanced economy where growth can only be fuelled by debt, particularly in the housing market is the result of adhering to these defective models. There is also the fact that in the long run, history teaches that there is always a backlash from policies like this. It can be anything from increased levels of crime to public unrest and we have already seen disturbing evidence of these problems. We are being wooed at the moment by statistics 'proving' that crime is down, growth is up and everything is going well. Sorry, I don't buy it. My belief is that we are kicking the can down the road and storing up tremendous problems for the future. The tragedy is that there is the capacity in this country for real growth and improvement all round but as long as austerity is the main economic weapon we shall not see any improvement. Sorry, but I do not see any light at the end of the tunnel!
By the way, did you notice that the EU central bank has halved interest rates from 0.5% to 0.25%? That train wreck is ongoing and will affect us.

Read it twice Stanley and couldn't find anything I disagreed with, when you post send a copy to our politicians and give them something to think about.

There was an interesting discussion on World Service this morning about worrying trends in education. The participants were worried by the fact that we may be educating our children to believe that making a living by physical labour or getting your hands dirty was to be equated with failure in life. I have to admit that while I have sympathy with this point of view I have always had a healthy mistrust of well-spoken people advocating the concept of 'The Dignity of Labour', in my experience they have never done a hard day's work in their lives. I remember once giving a doctor a lift down the country in my wagon driving days and he was an interesting bloke. He accurately identified the fact that I had spent my formative years working hard and eating well. He said he could tell this from my build and bone structure. It turned out that he knew what he was talking about as he worked with the Canadian Air Force on the physical efficiency of pilots, even in those days they had identified the dangers of DVT in people who spent long periods of time sitting. He was one of the men who advocated isometric exercise in which, even though sitting, you could take exercise by pitting opposing muscles against each other. He said that the best precursor for health during life was bone mass, or at least the amount of bone marrow they contained. He said that the best way to promote this desirable outcome was to work hard and eat well between the ages of 17 to 24, exactly what I had done. I think about this many a time when I look at modern youth and many of our politicians. It's quite obvious that they aren't fully developed physically and consequently have no concept of what prolonged hard work means. They may have had a good intellectual education but that should be balanced by physical education. Say what you will but National Service was the saving of many a lad, they were forced into good habits and it stayed with them all their lives. I realise that it's deeply unfashionable to advocate this in these more enlightened times but I can't halp feeling we have lost something.
I posted a quote from Trevelyan the other day in which he enumerated the advantages of industrial apprenticeship and part of his thesis was the fact that it engendered habits of discipline and punctuality. Exactly what army training did for you. These are dirty words today and I wonder whether the lack of regularity and principle I see in the modern world, and particularly government, isn't in some way connected with this shift in thinking.
Of course, I may be simply advertising my prejudices but I can't help thinking that public life might be improved if our leaders had been subjected at an early age to the same sort of influences that I had. One thing is certain, I have a far better idea of the temperament and attitudes of 'the workers' than these moon faced career politicians.

I watched the Panorama programme last night on the 'housing boom'. Two things struck me, the warnings about people taking on mortgages that are only just affordable in a climate of low interest rates and predictions that they will be in serious trouble as the interest rates rise as they are almost certain to do. The other thing that caught my attention was the clear figures from the Office of National Statistics that highlighted the drop in disposable incomes over the last ten years and laid out the inflation in essentials over the same period. Have a look at this Telegraph article (LINK) which lays out the decline in living standards.
It is useless for the government to try to bolster their view of the 'improving economy' as an electoral ploy when the truth for many families is just the opposite. Sooner or later the realisation of what is actually happening to fuel their policies will emerge and I can see the headlines now about 'The Big Lie'. Apart from any other consideration this is a bad strategy and in the end will rebound on these selfish, outdated and basically dishonest strategies. Even then the question will be how long will it take to reverse the effects. Can anyone realistically see an improvement inside ten years? Twenty?
One more thing, the housing 'solution' depends on people accepting even more debt and it was debt that got us where we are now. Do we ever learn?

I had understood that Panorama had explored the "housing costs more than 1/3 of income which is unsustainable" from Shelter and other organisations. The way that it was spun on Today.

That does mean that it affects more people than those taking out mortgages, and if they only concentrated on that portion then I would find that to be a very simplistic take on the actual problem.

Tardis wrote: then I would find that to be a very simplistic take on the actual problem.

Please don't keep it to yourself. Post the answer here and send a copy to Mr Cameron.

I've bumped the piece I did on the cost of living in 2002 (Cost of Living). When I bought Hey Farm in 1959 it cost me five years wages, £2,200. I don't know what the average industrial wage is these days but £400 will be a high figure for the lowest 50% percentile. That would put the price of the farm at £100,000 but this is a false comparison because in 1959 my wage was one of the lowest in the country, 18p an hour and minimum hours worked. (3/6 in old money, £8-10-0 a week) So. on the same measure 35 hours on minimum wage the price would be roughly £50,000. I would imagine it would be at least six times that today. So, on a very rough measure, housing is at least six times more expensive in real terms today than it was in 1959. Rents have risen accordingly of course. So you have a conundrum, either the cost of houses is grossly inflated or the wage level has dropped catastrophically in real terms. Of course even this is grossly simplistic, many things like prams are far cheaper in real terms than they were then. So, solution to the housing prices may be to raise all other prices by the same amount and let wages catch up. That's the problem.....

Asset deflation is never popular or simple, especially when you are trying to tether the social care packages in later life to them.

You seem to be advocating massive household inflation Stanley for no apparent reason, when surely it would be simpler to limit the finance available to purchase so that the price of property came down in real terms over a prescribed period, and you are probably talking about a long term solution rather than something that could be alleviated overnight.

House price inflation is good for some but bad for others. When I die I will be a very rich man. Meanwhile as the prices keep increasing so does my insurance making me poorer by the day. And of course there's the very real danger that the rating bands will be adjusted upwards making the day to day living more expensive. Down size I hear you say. But why? Just because someone wants to make a profit from their own house purchase.
One solution. Everyone puts their houses on the market at the same time. You don't need to sell. Prices would tumble. Order would be restored. Another bit of pie in the sky.

Irony is lost on some people....



Alice in Wonderland politics. Ashworth House on Church Street. What is it for? Problem is that it is still an empty shop. I note that David and his decoration elves arranged for the lights on the Xmas tree to be blue.....

See this LINK for our leaders current views on social mobility. Is he really attacking the system that educated him and gave him opportunities? Or is this the politician giving lip service to what is obviously a flaw in modern society. If it's the latter I have a warning for him and some advice. The warning is that he can't do anything to help reversing this trend if he's looking for the goal of all politicians, the Quick Fix.
The advice is that if he is really sincere he has to start at the bottom of our education system. For far too long we have neglected the early learning years. People of my generation had the advantage of parents who had received a good basic grounding and passed knowledge on to their children by talking to them and in my mother's case by teaching me to read before I was 4 years old, she did this using the advertisements in public transport and on hoardings in the street. At my first school I had the advantage of being in a class of two for two years when I was 8 to nine years old. Nearest thing to private tuition anyone could have had under the Primary School system. By the way, I also had free school milk and dinners so they made sure I was well-nourished. Miss Hogg, the headmistress who taught me had a good position in the community. She was on a par with the solicitor and the doctor and only slightly below the parson. She got respect and support not only from the community but from the LEA, there are letters extant from her to her superiors on everything from staffing and standards to providing free boots for children who were absent from school because they had none.
I don't see this level of dedication and respect as being the automatic right of today's primary teachers. This isn't to say that there aren't good teachers out there but they are under-paid and supported and have been for many years. Contrast this with the funding of higher education and you'll find an imbalance. I have no evidence but suspect that in terms of 'bangs per buck' early education gives a far greater return.
Of course this isn't a complete solution, the best early years education in the world can't compensate for lack of opportunity for school leavers. They have no well-connected relations or family money to give them a start and are faced with a job market that is virtually impossible to crack open. Add to this the view of society they have been brought up with, to accept that consumption is the measure of success, reinforce this with relentless advertising and is it any wonder they feel abandoned.
Interesting that this sound bite was triggered by John Major, the boy who made good. The one thing that worries me more than anything else is that the route to Westminster is now a politics/economics degree at a major university rather than a climb from the shop floor via organisations like the trade unions or local politics to national political activity and eventually Parliament. There have always been politicians who got there chance through birth, privilege and even nepotism. The difference in those days was that this was leavened by experience of war service and the presence of politicians who came from the grass roots.
I'll stop, I could go on but it would be boring. Read the history of the great education acts and recognise what their effect was. Then try to emulate this but start at the bottom!

Isn't it wonderful that this Island of ours is still a place where personal ideals can be poured forth on a daily basis without the pourers being shot at or just carted off, never to be seen again. If this Island and its diverse ways is so bad, how is it that so many people want to come here and are willing to risk much to do so. It cannot be the climate or the much talked about lack of opportunity, which only leaves the freedom of speech and thought, and in too many cases the handouts.

I'll go along with Stanley on this one. Basic education at a young age is very important. My early days were just one round of rote chanting after another. No explanation of the "why's and what for's". Fortunately. part of my father's loot he brought back from the war, exchanged for some cigarettes, was a chess set. He knew nothing about chess but thought it a good idea if we learnt how to play. Probably the best introduction to logic that I know.

I also agree with the early education being important, my parents taught me to read before I even started in the school system, now in my community there are many young people leaving school almost illiterate. This I attribute to the ethos in lower school where the personal expression of the pupil is placed above discipline and learning. If they do not manage to attain a good level of reading and writing at this age, they are lost, there is no system at the advanced level for them to catch up. The school Chess club holds many fond memories for me, though I seldom play the game against a human adversary these days only the computer.

I would have thought that a country's education system should be reflective of what that country feels it needs by way of its people's knowledge and skills - both for the society it wants to be and how it will continue to pay its way in the world. Too often for my liking in this country, 'education' seems reflective of the varying views, beliefs, prejudices, experiences (call it what you will, but likely all four) of assorted here today, gone tomorrow Secretaries of State. To take the current incumbent just because he's there so to speak, this manifests as among many things a fervour for free schools, a focus on 'rigour' and discipline, tradition, a disdain for local oversight as well as the views of the profession.

To take free schools, he has looked to Sweden as well, that's where there are some. He could have looked next door at Finland. Where there are none. And where, mindful of his other preoccupations, I might add all schools are comprehensive, everyone goes to their local school (there is no 'choice'), formal education starts at six or seven (not unusual - we are unusual in starting at four in Europe), there are no school uniforms, pupils call the teacher by their first names and vice-versa, there is no constant testing, no league tables and teachers are well-qualified (to Master level at all levels of teaching) and very well paid. And Finland, by some measure, has the highest attainment levels around.

Now this is not to argue for the Finnish system. It is simply to note there are many systems which serve their country well. This clearly serves Finland so what would best serve us here? Nothing, I would argue, that is the whim of a Minister in London. No, what I would have thought we need is a reasonably adult discussion among education experts - thinkers and practitioners - at all levels (primary through to tertiary). Business representatives involved too (both employer and employee groups - forlorn I know in this country, but we can hope), along with the public/charity and voluntary sectors and assorted others all with a view to deciding what we need by way of knowledge and skills to reflect the society we want to be and enable us to continue to pay our way as noted at the start.

We can then begin to design an education system from start to finish that enables this.

Richard Broughton

There was a time in this country when after two Wars things began to pick up and run reasonably smoothly. The opportunities were there at all levels for they who were determined to advance themselves. Most of this stemmed from a sound basic education and respect for they who were trying to aid this advancement, plus the individuals ability to take on board what was being offered. This it would appear was too simple a mantra and had to be changed. The requirement for the fundamentals still exists despite modern technology and the "well meaning" efforts of the "experts", the colossal amounts of legislation and interference are stifling what at one time worked well enough.

Could it be Richard that there are some areas of society which should be managed by independent professionals who are supported by, but not interfered with, politicians. Give them an adequate budget and let them get on with it. Health and Education could be a good place to start. One of the most damaging factors in both cases over the last thirty years could be the constant shifting of targets and goals when ideology rather than good management is the ruling influence.
That was a mistake, mentioning ruling influence. My mind immediately chases off after a favourite hare of mine, the degradation of 'influence' in the modern world. I've been reading Georgina Battiscombe's biography of Ashley-Cooper (Lord Shaftesbury) and the ruling influence in his life was principle not ideology, that's why he never attained high office when he could easily have been Prime Minister. He was not alone, look at Chadwick, Forster and Wilberforce and you will find the foundations of much that we enjoy today. They saw a problem, identified a principle and fought for it. Put together Churchill (yes, read the history!) Beveridge and Bevan and you get the NHS and the Welfare State. Not Party ideology but clearly defines principles and goals. Either things were more simple then or we had better politicians....
Sorry to see that Obama has had to apologise about the Launch of his healthcare policies but glad to see he stood up and admitted that they had 'fumbled' it. Honesty can never detract from eventual success.

Spreading the wealth around (UK version):

http://www.cps.org.uk/blog/q/date/2013/ ... k-version/

And the CPS is the leading proponent of free-market monetarist policies in the UK. It was co-founded by Conservatives Sir Keith Joseph, Alfred Sherman and Margaret Thatcher in 1974. You can see the worst results of their economic theories by looking at what is happening to the lower 50% of incomes at this moment so I think I'll pass on any opinions they advocate!

You are welcome to use these figures yourself to try to illustrate what you state:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/household ... 11-12.html

Remember the figures include all those costs associated with education, bus routes, roads etc. Everything that taxes pay for and which most people benefit from everyday but often don't equate the subsidy given directly. You can see how removal of the elderly on their fixed incomes has little effect upon the numbers in the lowest quintile & a much greater effect further up.

I see nothing political in actually demonstrating the value derived from taxation to the whole of society.

If it wasn't political the CPS wouldn't be doing it.

As with all statistics it all depends on which bits you present that makes them political or not. The general starting point always concerns averages. How else can you represent statistics for over 50 million people. However, as you delve into the detail the picture gets fuzzier and fuzzier. No doubt Tardis will be conversant with all the charts presented but to the layman like myself I found some of the figures hard to justify. In particular, examining the “retired” section it would appear that everybody is attributed with a benefit in kind from the NHS approaching £6000 a year and a bus travel subsidy of £145 per year. These may be true as averages but I’m not sure that lumping everyone together is a correct way presenting these statistics.
So back to the original point are these figures political. Only if you want them to be political. But as Stanley pointed out they were presented from a very highly political source.

Here's something that's worth reading and thinking about, LINK. Paul Krugman talking about the present state of the world's economies. I went looking for an interview I heard with him on R4 this morning in which he was saying that GDP will not rise until the black hole in consumer spending caused by austerity is eliminated. He says something very strange is going on in the UK because employment hasn't risen uncontrollably. He suspects that this is at the expense of skills and productivity and this could cause long term problems of slow or absent growth. Not cheerful news but we should take note of someone who is so widely respected.

Yes, the source is political. To that end you would have to wonder why you are refuting them because they are a political source rather than their relevance, but also in the absence of any counter figures from a different political source, and maybe then ask a question about why they aren't really happy with such transparency?

To take some of your figures for averages. It would be unfair to say that only OAP's who use their bus passes should count. The facility is there as a Universal service. If some people do not want it, then they have made a choice, the budget would still have to be allocated if that individual changed their mind. Averages also tend to even out many of the anomalies because that is the best guidance that you can have with a multitudinous population and having to design services to accommodate. You appear to understand the figures, so there is no reason why you shouldn't also be able to provide your own interpretation.

Once you are aware of 'where you are', and you know 'where you want to go' then it becomes easier to plot the route between the two.

As I said averages are well and good if you keep them in context. Once you move away from generalisation and start pointing averages a select group they become meaningless. A bit like going into a cemetery and declaring that half of them buried there should still be alive. Income tax is designed so that those earning more pay more. The corollary to this is if you earn nothing you pay nothing. Why all the fuss then when the figures show that those with no earnings get a relative bigger percentage of the tax spend?