GDP is only useful when . .

GDP measures how many 'units' one years value is divided into. Nothing more.

We calculate GDP by adding the market value of all officially recognized final goods and services.

In reality, if we are going to try and get some worth while measurement, one that relates just a little to how much money, not value, the mean average person in the country gets out of what they do then we need do this sum.

% GDP change - % population change - inflation.

So lets put some optimistic pre-2008 figures in

(GDP growth 1%) - (Population growth 0.6%) - (Inflation 2%)

That's -1.6% that we get out of what we do (if we count tax advice as getting) hardly progress is it.

The current situation is more like

(GDP growth 0.7%) - (Population growth 0.7%) - (Inflation 2.5%)

So -2.5% per year.

This figure is historically negative so ruling parties ignore it.


But even GDP taking into account inflation and population is is just a load of old twaddle unless we include value.

Much if what is included in GDP is of no value.

Lets say someone like you buys a bomb and blows up your house.
The bomb is manufactured, your house is rebuilt. The legal work, admin, tax calculations. It all had no value.  There is plenty of GDP.

What else has no or negative value in our economy?

The PPI insurance fiasco.  Marketing it, sending out letters and training staff to sell it. FSA decides it's a bit mean five years too late. Companies buy tele sales data and cold call people who may have been miss sold PPI in a bid to win the legal fees. All these people needed a place to do their work, transportation, electricity, computers etc. No value

Land Lord. If someone owns homes they do not need then the need for homes goes up, making them less affordable. Other must pay inflated property prices plus bank interest for the owners unwanted service. The landlords pointless annoying role has to check the condition of the property because they still own it and those occupying therefore have no personal insensitive to maintain it. The tenant  never builds a nest egg the landlord uses it to grow the problem. GDP, negative value.

Speculative land owner. If someone buys land with the view to gaining planning permission and selling it on or holding land it in an area where the land value is likely to increase in value then their profit is simply debt passed onto new home owners house prices GDP or land owners. No Value. Since the property is bought on debt we then have additional unwanted interest payments and other 'services'.

Land change of use. The UK is a net importer of food. with an assumed 1.2 acres of farm land needed per person the UK's 45 million acres is not going to cut it. this means that the GDP we gain now from changing farm land into property has a long lasting negative effect. Effectively taking on a lifetime of resource import debt for future generations. High GDP, off the books real monetary local debt.

All resource consumption and damage caused by mining. 
If the over all effect of mining a reusable resource is unsustainable damage to the environment then that is again a debt that does not show up  in the deficit.
If the resource is consumable then again we are literally spending reserves. The off the books deficit is huge.

Many bank activities. Hedging, credit default swaps, encouraging, 'Buy Now Pay Twice Later' on people who will be poorer in the long run. No value.  Factor in fractional reserve banking and that all wealth must reside somewhere and it is clear that the systems we have in place have allowed market forces to turn ursery into the backbone of economies who leaders profess to believe in god.

And while all this false GDP is being created we are running a deficit. There should be no deficit. On and off the books combined. We should aim for a national profit just like the companies who's representatives run the government.

Greater value would be created if people did not undertake these GDP activities and left the workforce.

With the gift of time those people may have become active members of the 'Big Society'. Bringing happiness and taking the strain from state resources. This has 'Value'.

They may have restored items to a greater value and not have traveled so far twice a day in the rush. Saving on consumption.

They would have cared for their home during the day and perhaps shared a mutual appreciation in the evening with their wife or husband.

They would not have been doing something they hate 40 hours / week. Being unhappy should be the main negative value.

Where would they live, how would they eat without money? 

This is the crazy thing. If they had done nothing of value and yet the value resources were available in that economic model then where did the resources go? 

Those 'value' resources were still produced by value creators. 

The GDP figure is simply the calculation for distribution of available value. The higher the figure, the less each unit of value is worth in money (inflation).

Many hopeless unfortunates correctly choose to give up on working as part of the system. For them the sums will now never add up. Even if they give 100%, which is no way to live and should not be necessary. They raise a family with their hand out and a swelling bitterness at the injustice of it all. And the cycle continues.

A GDP model in the absence of strict banking rules results in debt.
A GDP model in the absence of wealth distribution rules results in poverty for most.
A GDP model in the absence of sustainability rules results in accelerated consumption.
A GDP model in the absence of enforced political integrity result in lax rules.

The above result in hardship to breaking point then painful revolution.

How can we fix this?

Step 1 is to get vested interests out of politics. Be part of a simple and painless revolution on the 28th of August visit www.goodegg.org.uk. Put it in your calander now.

An MP should be treated like any other full time company director with incentives for reaching their goals. The question is what should those goals be?

Increase GDP? No!

Here are some ideas.

• Reliable prompt health care.
• Breathing space.
• Comfort and security.
• Sustainability. 
• The number of hours per day the lowest paid workers must work per week to meet their needs, insure against illness and contribute toward society.

If you are fed up of signing petitions against the latest evils pushed through by corporate interests in politics visit www.NoCheapPromises.org. Its time for a new breed of politician and the electorate will have to force the change.


Click here to read a comic about two kids, an island and GDP.

Great explanation of GDP measurement. 

I'd love to see a real  GDP survey response from a bank. Remember #Libor. I doubt 'what counts' is clear cut and there is big money to be made in the markets.

Here is one way we can start taming the life consuming beast that is GDP.

Building houses will not make them more affordable . . yet.

"Silly Kaz. It's supply and demand. You make more to meet demand and then prices some down. Economics 101".

This is true. But lets look back at what caused the increase in house price rises. Was it the demand for a home . . or the demand for an investment?

In the mid 90's property started to sky-rocket. But something had happened. Banks started lending more. Then an investment phenomenon took place. What was once reserved for the social elite became a game all would play. If you buy a house and rent it out you can re-mortgage in two years and buy another one using the increase in value as a deposit, and rent that out . . and so on and so on.

This lasted nearly just over years.

In the rush anyone looking to purchase or upgrade their property would stretch as far as they could go, why not, the more they borrowed the more they would profit from percentile property value increases.

Some of us re-mortgaged out some money for improvements a few years later? I paid the lion share of my wedding and got some double glazing. Property inflation became an income.

2008 comes and where is the big crash with properties for perhaps 15% below their peak, still massively over valued in relation to salaries, and build costs, but any lower and the banks safe deposit of housing will be too small. Having lent out 10 x real money in circulation (see fractional reserve banking) there was simply not enough money in actual existence to cope with any shrinkage.

So house prices will be kept high.

Exportable labor salaries will shrink towards those of the most down trodden globally.

The rich and developers will acquire land and do whatever it takes to change its usage rights to as many residential units as possible, each and every unit permit being worth £100k+.

Houses are not going to get cheaper, and the way planning works means a few already rich investors will pocket the overspend of new home owners.

The simple way of eliminating spin and corruption led development is for a council to choose strategic locations and compulsory purchase them for what they are worth without planning permission. Then invite developers to bid for the public consultation and and design phase.
Then invite businesses to bid for various aspect of the build.

The profit to the councils will be smaller than the efficiency of the developer, but efficiency and 1 person getting rich is not a good thing.

The council should get a bit more money towards infrastructure and smaller local companies will be able to get in on the act in a sustainable manner.

Building houses will not make them cheaper, with this planning permission system the money just makes the rich richer and encourages corruption.

Land tax - wealth wax. The for, the against and the for again

I've been arguing for a wealth tax since I first got politically active.

The argument comes down to economics and ethics including from from the perspective or the landowner.

Economics is easy.

Land value tax at first seems complicated regarding farmers etc. The lets say 1% cost will be passed on. I think, if the the money finds it's way to those who can not afford then that is fine and it can.

The cost will also be passed on by private landlords. That is why we need the right2buy extended to the private sector. If you have rented a house, field, office for two years and the landlord is taking too much cream whilst providing only a unnecessary middle man between you and the bank then ...

1. Our economy can not afford the inefficiency. We need less people being paid well for doing nothing of value.
2. The non landlord majority should not tolerate this method of profiteering or perpetual hereditary land titles.

The argument against 

My land wealth hoarding gambling friends, who are nice caring people by the way, simply do not comprehend the hardship 'start from scratch'ers are facing. They are also not willing to accept how significantly that it ties in with their favourite game 'how much will I pass on when I die'.

Anyway. The argument against, especially from people who started their own successful wealth creating business before moving into asset retention and inheritance strategy is... 

"Why should I have to pay more, I already pay more on income tax, it's mine."

The answer

Firstly. I personally do not think you should be expected to pay more income tax as a percentage, (And you don't anyway do you. You sneaky so and so ;)). I'm happy for us to make loads of money getting people working earning what they need in less than 40 hours / week, or create solutions so people need work less to do their resulting fair share.

Regarding taxing your estate. Why don't all the people who are paying too much in mortgage debt or rent just not do it just go and live on your land or take your home by force? 

The reason is that we have a legal ownership system and it is enforced.

Our wealth in this country is protected by the men and women of the armed forces and police most of whom are all the poorer for protecting your estate.

As the cycle continues our grandchildren will hold theirs to the same random, legally devoid of tax in trusts be them off shore or here.

The cost to quality of life, for both.

Their children will miss out on the best things in life which are free, working too many hours trying to fund themselves and our estate growth + what we collectively squander.

Our grandchildren will miss out on having made something of themselves if they survive all the sex and drugs.

So changing the ownership system to tax hoarded wealth, especially in the form of rental properties and rented farm land is not only fairer to those who defend it for us, fairer on the majority for whom our MPs who in effect are Trustees supposed make the law work in benefit of, but on the decedents of the fortunate who will actually build character having a little hardship, and empathy with the majority who are actually their equals.

I welcome innovation and commerce. The lord of the land is not an innovation. It is old custom come back to haunt us.

That is why, as a landlord myself, and someone who will continue to attempt to purchase land and place in trust for my beneficiaries so long as it is the easiest way to secure wealth, I will back any motion to give the right to tenants to purchase their rented properties / land at the mid value between when the moved in and the current market value. #Right2BuyPrivate


On a separate note, it would also be a great moment to scrap inheritance tax. The wealth will be taxed over time in manageable pieces instead. Few wealthy land / business owners pay it anyway causing more wasteful work for tax advisers like John Redwood MP. Those maintaining strategies to help us avoiding paying tax. He should instead spend time actually wealth creating, trying to improve the 'quality of life' index if he is so clever. And if not then there is always the 'Big society'.

If you are fed up of signing petitions against the latest evils pushed through by corporate interests in politics visit www.smart-voter.org

New fair tax and benefits system. Looking for ideas. Discussion.

The tax and benefits system is so complicated that we have people who should be doing something of value dedicating their lives to manipulating it.

Could we actually get a decent system down to two pages of A4? A system that motivates and rewards productive work, facilitates a less consumer / debt based economy and renders our highly intelligent time wasters in tax avoidance and gambling redundant so they can become doctors, work in a recycling plant or, if they are so clever, innovate and lead others into private enterprise.

I've got it down to one side of A4. Thoughts greatly received.

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Flat 30% tax on all incomes (including unclaimed trust growth, capital gains on stocks and shares etc.
Exclusions are Capital gains on your primary residence and share holding in Ltd businesses that are predominately productive (productive definition, most revenue comes from turning physical goods into physical goods of higher physical value.

0.5% wealth tax on all world assets for UK citizens. assets (including trust stakes) over  200,000 x the minimum hourly wage. (about £1m).

1% wealth tax on all UK based assets. Assets (including trust stakes) over  200,000 x the minimum wage (about £1m). (instead of 0.5% for UK citizens)

No individual may transferee internationally more than 10,000 (about £50k)  x the minimum hourly wage worth of assets in any given year.

No death duty,

All citizens will have the right to work in the national service should they be unable to find work within the private sector. This will be 30 hours per week and 20 days of holiday. until the age of 65 and 15 hours per week and 60 days of holiday until the age of 75.

National service work will include house building, recycling, food production, defence (home soil only), utilities. These services will be managed by private contracting managers.

All citizens will be provided with health care.

All Citizens will be provided with free childcare and education up until the age of 18.

All national service citizens will be provided with appropriate accommodation up to home suitable for two children.

All citizens over 75 will be provided with suitable accommodation should they so need it.

National service citizens will have a food card, electricity and gas that reflects modest requirements they will also receive 2x minimum day wage / month to use how they see fit.

One parent per national service household is allowed not to work their 30 hours if there is an infant  below school age. Once parent with one more children will be expected to work 1 hour after school starts and one hour before school finishes.

Disabled people will have their work suitability assessed and be provided with work that meets their specific needs.

People who must unfortunately leave the private sector after not less than two years of private self sufficiency and own a home  may receive monitory value of their national service work for up to one year should they so wish.

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How to fix the UK economy for dummies

My recent blog titled 'What's wrong with the UK economy for dummies' as you can imagine just points out flaws.

I hate people who try to sound clever by pointing out flaws but offer no improvements for which they can be scrutinised.

So here is how I (with some tidying of loose ends) would fix the economy.

The fix?

Fundamentally get house prices to the right relative level (about half what they are) get debt  to the right level and mortgage interest rates to around 5% so that pensioners can spend their interest and banks make on the 1% in the middle. Then stop it happening again.

We will need to introduce capital controls like Malaysia 1978 (link)

We were ok until 1986 when we deregulated domestic markets (link. See 4). And stocks went up in value many times their worth. Not that financial 'experts' will see a problem with that.

Protect local labour rates from direct competition internationally using sensible import duties.

Encourage a sustainable population that is better distributed over the UK by having nationalised essential services and use them to action full community developments where business might not, or attract businesses with attractive 'temporary' perks for private businesses who do invest early.

We will need an adjustment period where everything is allowed to inflate locally by about 8% / year for 5 years . . everything including salaries but NOT PROPERTY / LAND. 

Limit mortgage lending to 3x highest house hold salary. Keep them property prices down. But need to stop wealthy family trusts buying to let. Simple. #Right2Buy Private. If you rent a property for 2 years + you have the right to buy it for the midway point between what it was worth when you moved in and what it is worth now but not below what the landlord paid. No fees for landlord.

Stop with this stamp duty rubbish. Moving house is tough enough. We want people to live in suitable accommodation leave the 4 bed detached house near a school when the kids leave.

Printing money inflates locally and devalues internationally so that is easy. Just print it and spend on the things that need fixing. 'Need' means 'essential' so on national project. Get these essentials back under national ownership and just manage people better. Examples of things we can nationalise are refuse & recycling #right2work. And pay off the National debt. Why are we in debt. My grandparents are not in debt and the UK is at least twice their age.

The big problem here is foreign investment and the price of global commodities  Well hey, guess what. It's going to happen anyway. We need simple wind tidal and solar energy, 100% recycling and a static population some time in the next century.

More part buy homes for young couples while the adjustment takes effect, place nice low subsidized interest rate on that, adding a #Right2BuyPrivate law free up access to the home ownership and stop this wealth bubble where poor hand to rich for nothing more than being rich first. Greedier landlords no longer offering a service will get bought out quicker.

More radical, give to money to every citizen,to to pay off debt first, those who are locked in debt because they overpaid for their property will at least be in part reimbursed. 

Young families will pay off their debt or boost their deposit, and the banks will have more liquidity, but less debt interest income ...shame, to all those fake Christians in parliament, charging interest is a sin anyway. Banks should be providing an essential service, nothing more. Increase capital reserves to something like 20%. This will counter the inflation from the true currency we just printed and shared out.

If people have any cash left then they can choose to spend it on the new not disposable priced goods people will be employed to make or repair here. Since mortgage payments will be so much less they will be able to afford locally manufactured goods anyway. 

Sure tech progress will slow down. Admit it you waste too much time tweeting anyway. Nothing better than a run in the park and back home for a good book and a cup of tea.

The planet can not afford this level of consumption for another 200 years. The faster we hit the wall the more it will hurt, if it were us hitting the wall I'd be ok since we let is happen, but others will bare the burden of our consumption debt. I personally have no option but to act.

There are few measures that would need to take place first which the Financiers and Landlords would never allow. 

• 1. Limit capital flows to stop politicians and their mates cashing in on the adjustment destabilizing into a bust, ready to manufacture another boom. This may also require that we leave the EU unless capital flow restrictions are placed across EU. We could just enter trade agreements like China and US if need be (they are doing ok).
• 2. Stop over taxing hard working wealth creators who tend to spend or invest in innovation anyway. Top rate of tax 30%. But on everything. Capital gains, dividends, and anything else they dream up.
• 2. Tax wealth, all of it above lets say £700k including trust stakes at 1% / year. This will be very messy but simply put, we can no longer allow a few to own everything and rent it back. The super rich are not that happy and the poor are missing out on a life worth having. Yes wealth hoarders will leave UK but will have to sell there local excesses at price someone here is willing to pay.
• 3.  Lets just have landlords who provide a service that tenants want. We are too civilized now to have land owning families taxing peasant families half their earnings because of a 100 year old trust fund. #Right2BuyPrivate should be extended to the private sector. No fees for landlord. Terms to be considered but suggest after 2 years they may force purchase at midway between value when moving in and when deciding to buy. No silly get outs.
• Planning permissions to cost the land value change and that money in full going to the local authority. There is no such thing as a magic money tree, someone less well off pays that in the end, better and fairer to invest planning permission profit in the community that is permitting it.
• Import duties that mitigate local hour labour rates. E.G china may be 50%.
• Import duties that mitigate against environmental efforts for supplier. Not relevant now but would be if we make the sustainable conversion and wish to encourage others to match us.
• Nationalised house building, recycling, energy, farming and banking to run in parallel with private who must match national salaries and staff numbers in their government contract bids
• A #right2work and a #need2work. No one should not have something useful to do for 20 hours / week. We are going to make work pay. No excuses for those who don't want to. The new national energy, housing and food companies will take them on and train them up if private sector will not. If they do not turn up they will have privileges docked. eg, loss of console, TV, curfew. We do it to kids to teach them discipline, why not the big kids who have fallen into bad habits and bad attitudes curtsey of the hopelessness capitalism places on the bottom 50%.
• Oh. None of this can happen without democracy. That means all those Investors and chairmen with other interests having money thrown at them should find being an MP impedes their personal business opportunities. MPs should be paid well to represent you and be willing to BARE ALL now and in the future for the privilege.

Please consider www.SMART-voter.org.

What's wrong with the UK economy for dummies

A Councillor in my town recently tweeted. "How do we help small business in #woky? Lower parking changes ? Refunds of parking charges with minimum purchase? Regenerate town centre? "

For me this is a collection of short term measures that helps them start out, and one expensive 10 year measure that would provide great stimulus for it's duration. But no lasting solution because it does not address the problem we have and would in-fact compound it.

John Redwood (who I feel is a criminal by the way , but a clever chap who knows exactly why we are in the shape we are) wrote a very good piece recently on why America is in such bad shape.

It's is here.

Basically it comes from importing everything and helping or even encouraging local people to buy even more of it with debt. John makes his main living out of advising people where and how to invest so keeping it like this and knowing when it will change is good for business. Maddeningly inappropriate, dark ages insane legal, but good for him.

Anyway. Enough Tory bashing Kaz. They are all the same. That's why the public are so disengaged.

Compound 2 
That with the fact that the bonus hunting @ankers lent out 5 times each persons salary and finders fee hunting IFA's doctored applications to whatever other income streams they could dream up. People could borrow so much that they would have nothing to spend . . and had to jump on the band wagon because property boomed. Sitting on a home would make you richer than working. Others with more money available just bought to let and sat on several.

= Poor disposable income for majority of those who purchased homes after 2000.
= Sensible aspirational young (#woky) need to save more deposit.
= More men and woman in family home must work.
= Less families in town midweek and those who are likely on a budget.

Compound 3
A town centre needs people to spend money there. But many of us do nothing of intrinsic value,  and our resources do not replenish fast enough us to work them into value if we did. Most of our jobs are trying to get people to by stuff they don't need (with bank debt), make things that help those people who are trying to sell things the debt ridden do not need do not need, or do the accounts. Too few do anything of value. Too much physical value is imported . . too much money is leaving the country. Too much is just moving around.

= Little actual new value being created. = Less wealth being created. 
= Money just moving around shrunk by tax from active economy and partially redistributed in the form of debt thanks to deficit.

Compound 4.
The property bubble burst. Couples on £22k each with 5% equity on flats worth, (sorry not worth, they only cost £60k to build) that cost them £180k, found themselves in properties worth £160k. They now have negative equity. Probably better will go bankrupt. They already had a mortgage that left them nothing left to spend in town. 

Fractional reserve banking mean't that banks had lent out 5 times as much money as they had deposited but houses were 30% overvalued. The country was literally bankrupt if the property prices were allowed to be what they should. Build cost plus a bit of profit.

= No back up confidence. Even more likely to save just to pay off mortgage debt.
= Banks all bankrupt on property collapse.

Compound 5. 
So we reduce interest rate to 0.5%. Me being a Mr clever pants saw it coming and have a lifetime tracker, 2 actually because I am a landlord but one who will campaign to give all tenants the Right2Buy so their kids can have a nest egg too.

Now nanny and Grandad get nothing from their savings, the pension has been going up by 0.8% for the last 5 years not real inflation. Nan and Granddad buy food, energy and council tax, not gadgets. Their Grand kids in the £180k house have just enough to stay afloat, but no hope for starting a family. Good thing too because they are so stressed about loosing their job and home they would struggle as parents. Grandparent's seeing their family stall offer savings to invest in meeting Gread Grandkids before they die.

= Pensioners have less to spend, what they might they are saving for both themselves and grandkids.
= Pensioners are the only reliable daytime offline shoppers.

Compound 6. 
The internet, better international management, large companies started moving office workers and customer service abroad to developing countries where working 13 hours / day, six days per week, with no welfare state for £6k is legal.

= Very little low basic labour work, and what there is will not even pay the bills.
= everyone must gain skills in things can make money here. e.g. IT and moving money.
= Young academic aspirational training harder than all the rest. Less time to go shopping. Chores for weekend.
= Less academic young just want to get by and not give 110% for a boxroom have absolutely no hope and no money to spend, more likely to look for trouble and drain resources.

Compound 7
Joining the EU. Ever met anyone who was happy where they are. Yes. Wokingham . .for now. Everyone else seems to want to move abroad, and guess what, and some foreigners are the same and some of them want to move here. The grass is always greener. They work here for enough to share a box room . . and so must we. They have no hope of buying a home here and buy land back home, guess what that does to house prices there for those who stayed?
International relationships are formed so not only do the workers go home for Christmas and spend there but international families every year for life. I married a Moroccan and spend about 4 months disposable income seeing family abroad at Christmas, not in town.

= Lower local wages.
= Less disposable income out of what is earned due to high cost Christmas / birthday etc.
= Increased travel = pollution.
= Increased old age care costs back wherever family originated.

Compound 8.
Inspirational young leave home areas for where their are established opportunities  Leaving many pensioners with no local family to support them. No innovators to create opportunities  Adding to the welfare burden there.

= Increased tax burden to subsadise poor areas.
= Top tallent (who are the only people getting paid well) congregate one area. Making demand for housing very high.

Grim is it not.

Now Jonny Redwood knows all to well where the fixes lie. But I think he and his cronies so busy making money out of having the best information on what things they might do, they don't have time to care.

Below are a list of what Tory donors are thinking about with their spare cash.
Invest in Asia, buy land and rock bottom in Greece and Portugal or even stretches of Africa (where energy will come from when the oil runs out).
We have our own currency and they need other currency as they export their ill gotten gains. Maintain relations with naieve Middle East oil princes so can sell assets to them, sell him weapons to keep the poor Arabs from claiming sovereignty of their land creating their own resource companies. Oh and do it all in a tax haven wrapped in a trust so future generations can live of the cream of the peasants labour but daft spoilt junky kids are unable to blow the capital or loose any of it in one of many divorces.
ched the point where many people are not having their families. It's not a game any more. 


Anyone can pick flaws though. Here is how I would fix it.

In answer to the actual question

How do we get people to spend in the town centre. 

In regards to the suggestion of a town regeneration investing 100s of millions in upgrading everything in a middle of an IT Mecca that may well not be an IT Mecca in 50 years is unsustainable?

I would not do it yet. It would hide the problems for another ten years and probably compound the damage. We must do it with local economy money. Not by private investors who must make such a huge margin for both their profit and to pay huge local contributions as well. Definitely not with a secret contract with no breakdown of costs to add corruption to the bill.

Rents and rates have to drop. that mean greedy landlords have to have empty shops for a while or we have compulsory purchases. I prefer a #Right2Buy law.

If you do want people to use the town rather than online then more events is all it can offer. Do them smaller, cheaper and attractive to different niches. St Patrick soon. Lets hear some bag pipes in Wokingham and have the kids learn some sword dancing. The libraries have worked this out and so there are already experienced civil servants to do the planning.

If you are fed up of signing petitions against the latest evils pushed through by corporate interests in politics put in your calendar 28th August to visit www.GoodEgg.org.uk.

Why I stopped voting Conservative

I am a conservative in that I believe that government runs business inefficiently. I also believe that business in competition is necessarily selfish and cruel.

I believe it is the role of government to create an environment in which business can provide momentum and drive, but not at the cost of quality of life. 

The benchmark is to create an environment in which all who are willing to work an honest week until their mid 60s can raise a family at a timely age if they so choose, with a good provision for security, health and education.

More and more people become disenfranchised with the Conservative leadership. Not with what Conservative means but what the Conservative party has become. Business interests dictating policy and government directly running businesses or quangos. Both cruel and inefficient.

What is the solution. How about get involved! Join the Conservative party and change it from the inside yes? ... NO.

There are just too many self interested business men involved and they will join the rest at the top, not you. Some have gained economic respect due to their wealth and party contributions regardless of its source. Inherited wealth, successfully reducing costs for large companies simply by reducing front line wages to below a local living wage or helping them avoid tax and drive tax paying competitors out of business, being ahead of the curve on the financial markets,  personal tax avoidance, land ownership and hoarding.

Not only are these non-'wealth creators'  allowed to influence policy in their own best interests, but they represent the aspect of business that provides nothing of value, increasing the burden on those who do. Individually costing you more than the worst of lifestyle benefit families.

By joining them as a hard working local with an ideology for change your support adds in-touch credibility to a leadership that deservedly has none.

I stood as a Green councillor in 2012. Why. Business men are going to get involved in that too and cycle will start again.

I agree. Until a minister is forced to sign away future revenue streams for the privilege of serving his country the cycle will continue. But, as of yet, I believe the Green party, currently at least, would be hard pressed to drive for wars or unsustainable consumption while allowing the London casino to continue to steal 10% of what you do, without flagging themselves as hypocrites.

For me the cut off point has been reached. When someone of average intellect is willing to work a 40 hour week can not support a family by their late twenties or early thirties, society has failed. This is not growth, this is not efficiency, this is not progress and I believe it was avoidable.

If you are fed up of signing petitions against the latest evils pushed through by corporate interests in politics consider www.smart-voter.org


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Update 2015. I'm standing as an independent in Wokingham. I left the Green party in 2014 when I was unable to get any Green party candidates to make a meaningful commitment. I don't think it is appropriate for a political candidate to maintain the right to lie unnecessarily. so I had no-one within the party to support.

 

The causes of unaffordable homes (and therefore the things we 'MUST' fix

If we are going to have affordable housing we need house prices to reflect better what they cost. This means less section 106's and less developers, it also means stopping 'buy to let' being the only pension a person can rely on. 

But before we build loads of houses we need to make sure that land and homes are what they should be relative to the essentials cost of living first. UK is already unsustainable populated so any building should be done well, i.e. people get appropriate homes for the right price.

The main problem. Lords taxing the peasants.

A landlord should either provide a valuable service or they are simply a new version of a lord of old taxing the peasants who work the land.

Hoarding land is a low work way of providing a robust income as well as providing a tax free legacy as it will avoid death duty of 40%. As your property portfolio ages the mortgage payments  (if any) become lower relative to rents and profits go up, allowing you to purchase more properties. You might perhaps pay a little over the odds since you know it will pay off in the end.

Your grandchildren, who inherit the 'business' can then charge other peoples grandchildren to rent from them. Your grandchildren will therefore have money to purchase more properties and expand the trust. Or, if they are creative, they will use their rent income to buy faster appreciating assets or land in developing counties. Removing the wealth from uk circulation, driving unnafordable housing in other countries and expanding the number of other people's grandchildren their grandchildren can tax for having access to one of the basic needs. Shelter.

The demand for homes will has increased not  simply because their are more people at edge of their finances, otherwise the value of property would not be able to fluctuate as it does. The problem will be a property hoarders who have more money available who are thinking long term and avoiding 40% death duty. 

There is a double whammy here. The increase price means people who bought their home have higher borrowing. Not only has our new buyer purchased a home for double for multiples of the build cost, but they will pay multiples of that to the bank before they pave paid it back.

Meanwhile there is a new additional waste work (work that has no real world beneficial output). Those people who simply had to rent because prices are so high will have to have their relationship with the property managed. If they owned. The would not and the manager could instead job share with a doctor or recycle.

This has reached epic proportions in the UK. #RentBritain

The fix would be simple were it not for many buy to let landlord having little equity and that house prices need to come down by about 50% to be a real reflection of the cost of actually building a home. A reduction like that would create a negative equity bomb. No, prices can not come down by 50%. 

Thankfully we did not adopt the Euro. So we can still fix it.

If we can not deflate property prices we must inflate everything else. Including Salaries. 
Perhaps 10% / year for ten years. This can be done by printing money. This effectively steals from the rich to give to . . whoever they give the money to so it would be nice if it was split evenly with Nationals.

It would normally create a run on the pound as senior politicians, I mean investment bankers, try to get their money into globally stable assets, ready to buy back in to the UK after the printing has stopped. But since other counties are hemorrhaging at the moment it may not. I would drop the EU for a bit and restrict capital flow. Like Malaysia did in  1978.

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2004/book_reviews/3132malaysia_v_imf.html

If our 'Wealth Creators' are so clever let them try to create money by getting people here to do something of value. Not buying and selling imported goods, hoarding land or gambling with the advantage of inside information.

To stop property from inflating also we must carefully limiting lending so that working people can only borrow the money they should afford for a home. 

So how do we stop those landlord grandchildren buying the properties and starting the process again?

Here are some options I like.

Make private further buy to let on homes illegal and turn it into a national service.

'Right to Buy' extended to private market, for private and business. If you are letting out a property are either providing a service or are privately taxing another human. And should go and do some useful work. If after 2 years your tenant feels that you are not providing a service they have the right to purchase the house from you at the going rate. Using avoidance tactics *kicking out 2 days before, selling to a mate, must be made to be 'not worth trying'. In the same breath the administrative costs of the transaction must be negligible.

Land hoarding businesses holdings to be be subject to death duty. So if you hold shares in several businesses where. 

Alternatively scrap death duty and introduce a wealth tax. e.g. 1%.

But don't expect this to happen without some kid of change to what we demand of politicians when we vote. Here is a list of some large political donations financial sources.

http://www.richest-people.co.uk/articles/who-owns-london/ 

Why the world won't change? G4S a good example.

If we had a democracy his would be  a prison sentence

If you want to represent your country you will have to accept that opportunities like these MUST become illegal.

http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=339

John Reid, Director, G4S Regional Management (UK & Ireland) Limited
John Reid, or Lord Reid of Cardowan, as he prefers to be known, joined G4S in 2009, having previously been Tony Blair's Home Secretary and Secretaries of State for Health and Defence. The £50,000 a year it is giving the New Labour hard man quickly paid off for G4S as it landed a multi-million pound, four-year contract to supply private security guards for around 200 Ministry of Defence and military sites across the UK just three months after it took him on.[14]i Since then he has been diligent in ensuring the hi-tech security used by his employers is a feature of parliamentary debates whenever possible.[15]

One of Tony Blair's war cronies now a peer employed by a private firm that profits from and and is therfore insensitivised to promote war and fear. He was an MP in 2010. Love to know what his BVI account holds.

Apparently 30% of world trade goes through tax havens. HSBC 1billion. Just a show to put us off the scent?

Oh. The Olympic G4S olympic staff are on £8.50 per hour. Did they get paid for their training. Did they get their £20 travel card paid for?

Not a living wage.

Thought for food

Sustainability is about using things at or below the rate they can regenerate. And it is the absolute primary fundamental to economic longevity.

UK sustainability just for food. (Figures used are first finds in google) please do own research and post me.

1.235 acres / person.

43 million acres of farm land currently in UK.

= Sustainable population of 35 million.

Our population is nearly double that.

Many developed countries in same boat.

Food export nations are generally have a much lower local cost of living, salaries and populations. But they are developing and this will change quickly. Our #overlyfreemarket as it is forces innovators to fully exploit labour and tax advantages abroad or fail as a business. 

Lets call a generation these days 30 years (not that many 30 year old can afford a family home.) How many more generations of your family will be able to rely on shipping food from poorer countries?

2 . . 3?

When does man turn violent on his fellow man? When he is  trapped, desperate and protecting his family.

Will your family be safe. Will they choose to try to leave the UK on mass. Will you wish for your children to leave you hear while they seek a better life for their children? Unable to assist you in their old age.

Perhaps some horrific cataclysmic event will wipe many of them or scare them into enforcing one child per family?

This is not doom doom. This is cold logic and what I see as 'probabilities'. I do not believe that if we resolved continue as is our 2063 population will be less than 90 million, I believe that our children's rat race will be faster still, the pleasure of raising a family missed out, even more than what we experience now. Their happiness and indeed sanity must reduce in proportion to it. 

We may find that wind turbines and hydrogen energy storage provide all our energy needs, inter home conferencing eliminates the need to fly abroad to get a good dose of family and scientifically grown nourishment resolves our food problems.  If those technologies are realized then what is 'sustainable' will have altered. In which case we could have a higher population and prosperity for most. They would still need to sort out the wealth and land hording cartels in politics today.

But those technologies are not yet realized  I see them as probable also. But to continue as if they were there before they exist is gambling with a later generation on the brink. And for what reason? The rat race is damaging us. In the race for GDP the business men who run our economy have forgotten that the nation should not be run as a business hoping to grow exponentially. There is no long lasting site expansion without invading others.

Can we please plan for this like a mature civilization. Not children playing a game of monopoly. Let our grand-kids live in a fairer and more humane way than we do?

http://www.permies.com/t/12422/community/community/Amount-land-per-person

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_the_United_Kingdom

Two tier education system. Yes please. But call it two path.

I'm not a fan of Gove. I think he's in it to maintain the status quo like most senior Tory. But I am not going to let that cloud my judgement of his actions. I believe educating all the same is the wrong way. A multi-tier education system would be better. But can we call it multi path?

Guess what - I can't spell for toffee and do not remember words well, or names. There is no chance in hell of me learning another language and my punctuation is atrocious. Plus when I read I often see what I expect so spell checking is largely impossible.

I have a friend called Pete who is very good at those things who has admin access to my blogs. And if he has been here before you read this it will seem less . . . I'm not going to be politically correct. Less retarded.
But I am not retarded. Pete please confirm. . . fine . . sod you Pete.

I personally find it easy to understand how things work, including people, and invent solutions. I pick up most physical skill activities easily, am quick witted in conversation, and comparably good at maths. 

Now ask me to sit in an exam room and regurgitate information using a pen and paper.

I have long complained that the education system is flawed. It channels many of the talents a person might have through the narrow field of the written word.

The point I am going for is that while we must be able to read, write, and do basic maths, and time must be dedicated to these areas throughout our education, we should separate the learning paths to suit the talents of the learners.

I suspect that the people who decide how we should learn were invariably those for whom exploring the beauty of language was a skill and a joy. They won spelling competitions and composed magical phrasing and were praised greatly for their skill and their behaviour in a typical classroom setting.

That same person who may struggle with IT can't put a cupboard together, and has possibly never had an inventive thought in their life, potentially put in a position of management where intuition and inventiveness are of more value. A role to which they may be poorly suited, but confident of their cognitive intellect thanks to the affirmation they received while regurgitating information throughout their education.

Those same people also turned IT into the use of Microsoft Word for an entire generation.

Some children with keen cognitive intellects should be coming out of school knowing how to make an alternator. Having actually made one with loops of wire and magnets. They should understand the workings of a combine harvester. The reading and the writing for which they may have little aptitude carefully infused into the functional learning from which they may become an actual benefit to society, be happy and prosper.

But they can not prosper. Not while lawyers and tax dodgers run parliament. Rules creation and manipulation are the most significant competitive edge a company can hope for. Keeping business and politics tied. Making the masses work harder for less security. While ironically the few work harder still, just to grow an already impossibly large trust fund.

But I digress. We can't fix everything in the same breath.

So yes. I do seek a multi tier education system. Separate the learning styles of scholars, the technicians, the scientists and the artists and let all prosper doing things they have talent at and learning in a way that suits their mind. It makes them happy.

And that's really why we are here.

What is affordable housing?

People are up in arms about developers lobbying and applying to build on every bit of the south east.. But what we do not know is they have to give something back.

I heard on twitter that for the #wokyregen the princely sum of £28k per dwelling was to be paid to the council for each planned dwelling.

There is also a requirement for ‘affordable housing’. So that clears that up.

Regarding the £28k. How much is the land worth with and without planning permission. Much more than £28k. That puts a lot of money behind influencing planning decisions. Where there is a way there is a will. Also 28k is the highest I've heard.

But then there is the affordable housing the developers build for our low paid and needy.

But what does ‘affordable housing’ really mean.

Here is the council's own information on what ‘affordable housing’ is. Have a look. See if you can find out what it means from a cost to the developer point of view?

http://www.wokingham.gov.uk/planningcontrol/planning/planningpolicies/housing/adoptedaffordablehousingspd/

Hard to put in into a nutshell as there are lots of options and there are a lot of discretionary work arounds. However.

Most significant developments will make 40% affordable housing of which.
20% will be 1 bedroom flats and houses.
15% 2-bed flats
30% 2 bed houses
20% 3 bed houses (some as bungalows for dissabled)
15% 4 bedroom +

Shared ownership. Part owners rent the councils / housing association / registered providers stake for 1.5%.
Intermediate affordable housing. Prices and rents are above social prices but below market prices but can be privately owned. What is to stop the developer from selling these houses to friends and landlords I don’t know.
Social rented housing. Guideline target rents
Affordable rent. No more than 80% of local market rates

The provision of affordable housing will be based on ‘70% social rent 30% intermediate housing model of the Lewel’s Affordable Housing Visibility Study paragraph 4.32 of the core strategy. No I have not bothered. But it is discretionary anyway.

At a council meeting I attended recently a developer was trying do get 126 developments into an area where 100 is supposed to be the maximum and it was clear that some of our representatives were keen to just ignore, since it is discretionary notably Mark Cupif, Head of Development Management who even suggested the council might loose an appeal and have to pay costs, even though there were glaring ‘may’ statments in the application. When questioned about the £16k / dwelling section 106 that was suggested in the deal Mark also said that the figure was 'normal'.

The application had 5 members back the a rejection of the application and it was clearly to me that it was a significant disappointment some of the other speakers? Why?

There is a lot to read here and a lot of it is confusing waffle so it would be great to get some clarification on the following questions.

The transfer of affordable housing to the council, housing association or registered provider. Is that free i.e. developers are building 40% of properties to ‘give’ to whoever is providing the care? Or do ‘we’ the borough simply buy those properties for the affordable housing schemes?

There is a Subsidy payment to developers. Appears to be about 5% of the project sell value irrespective of affordable housing. What's that about?

If a property is given to an approved provider. How does that work. I assume they don’t just keep the money they make on the partial rent on a house they did not pay for?

If an ‘affordable’ home ends up in the 80% market rate privately owned category. What is to stop these from being sold cheap to profiteers?

Call me old fashioned but I think affordable homes is for houses to cost  4 to 5 times a working salary. About half what they are now.

That’s not going to happen without one of these.
1. A very nasty war (no thanks)
2. A financial revolution that no-one can predict the outcome of (no thanks but if we must)
3. High inflation (perhaps 7% for ten years, iin all things, including salaries but not property, achieved by the government getting rid of all these easy ways to continue to pay too much for property and making renting out property except the most exclusive unprofitable.

So I go for option 3.

Any other options please let me know.