Real Money, Local Money

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The revolutionary government will need to think very carefully about the monetery system. Britain has been the world leader in many things in the past, certainly railways as we have already mentioned, but also ship building, car, motor-bike, and push-bike manufacture, canals, aircraft manufacture, my father was still carying a tiny prototype piece of concorde that he had made over 40 years earlier, when he died. Many things were invented in Britain, from the spinning jenny to ultrasound and the hover-craft. From this inventiveness and skills came world leading products, and the structure behind the industrial devopment. Lloyds of London was the world leading insurer, the city of London was the worlds financial centre, when it served enterprise. The Pound was made of gold and heald a steady value.
Why can’t England compete anymore? Because the international monetary system is rigged against it. There is a real problem in that workers in many counties have less social protection than in England, and I have already proposed many measures to counteract the effec tof this. There is also a problem caused by the monetry system itself. Several towns in Britain and elswhere have introduced local money, in a bid to keep money circulating in their own town. Examples are Bristol, Lexes, Brixton, and Stroud. All of them become worth less with time, either along with sterling or at a faster rate. The loss in value encourages a quick turn around of the money, and funds the costs of the system and maybe local charities. Many transition towns also encourage ecological projects.
These are brave attempts to support small business  against international business and government tolerence of their massive tax avoidance. But for the economy to flourish properly, government action is required. Stability and fairness probably sums it up.

Wage levels.

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Wages should be at a level than an ordinary person can live on. On the other hand a global market place employment will tend to move to counties where wages are lowest. Free market forces should lead to a reasonable balance, but that’s not what’s happening. Markets aren’t free, they are manipulated. The price of commodities is fixed by futures and options markets, and curency exchange rates are fixed on the forex market in the US. Because of leverage, often a far greater amount of an item is traded on the exchanges than actually exists in reality. David Cameron once said that England couldn’t compete in the manufacture of ordinary clothing, and wouldn’t want to, but there is a place for English
business in the higher end of the market. No-one wants a job in a clothes factory that pays £ 400 a week + 4 silver shillings? The skills still exist, and keen workers could be trained in a few months, and the average pay in the textile industry in the UK is £ 612 a week. So surely £ 400 is reasonable to start rising to £ 600 for skilled efficient workers, and more for the more difficult jobs. English workers have better social conditions than Bangladeshi workers. The UK consumer should pay the same towards pensions, heath cover etc. wheather the item is made in England or not. The revolutionary will lower Nation insurance contributions for English workers and their employers and charge the equivalent in customs duties on goods arriving from countries where the workers have no such cover.
Countries that provide reasonable cover for their workers will be exempt. This should help to improve conditions in the far east whilst providing employment at reasonable rates in England.

The diet appears to work. update

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This morning I was 77.3 Kg, so, so far so good. I think the key to success, at least so far, is to have a wekly allowance of key foods, so that, a bit less now means more later. Don’t buy anything just because it’s cheap, because then you’ll eat it, buy what is on your list. The limit for meat is 7 euros, about £5.60 so that means if it’s a pack at £ 6, you can’t buy it. Our bill is less than it was, at around 60 euros a week, including non-food items. We don’t buy any take-aways or spend any other money on food.

Economic theory, how to deal with banks. 3

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The revolutionary government will allow the bank of England rate to rise by up to 0.5% per month for the first year if market conditions require such an increase. Artificially low interest rates for the banks are a major cause of economic bubbles. Quantitive easing is another. Payday loan for you 4000 % or more, loan to a bank 1% or less. The Revolutionary government policy of 6% for banks and an absolute maximum for you of 26% is, apparently, truely revolutionary. The maximum rate for paying of you credit card will be 1% per month, around 13%. It will be the lenders job to check your ability to repay any loan, and this will be retrospective. If they should have reasonably known that you would be unable to pay the loan, when they gave it to you, and you have made reasonable efforts to pay, then the amount you owe will be fixed as though the rate was always 13%, the rest will be written off by the loan company.
So what is the Economic theory?
Wholesale Interest rates should lead to a balance of savings and loans, and stability of the currency. Usuary should be illegal. The solution to unemployment in the longer term is to be found by providing stable conditions for industry, reasonable levels of taxation on industry and workers, savings to be encouraged and loans to be directed to productive use  and not to speculation.

Economic theory, how to deal with banks. 2

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The great shame is that banks can no longer be trusted to give good advice. Power tends to corrupt, but the power to make money simply by tapping figuers onto a computer screen is an irrisistable temptation. The great fear polititians have is high unemployment, and they are led to believe that increasing money supply will create unemployment. To make money the banks must lend money first, this results in people being slaves to their bosses, because they must have money to pay their debt to the bank so that their credit card will work to pay for food. Then having stocked up with cash, the banks withdraw the credit, and prices of houses and shares fall, so now they or their friends can buy houses and busineses cheap, or indeed, simply repossess them. They also demande aid from the     workers because otherwise they won’t be able to give savers back their money.
The revolutionary government policy will be to provide alternatives, and leave banks to shrink in size and power. The initial shock may lead to a rise in unemployment but the railway project and many other measures will create employment. The key to long term steady employment, paying wages high enough to live on, is stability, and sound money. Interest rates should be  fixed by market forces depending on the supply and demand of savings and credit. In the 1950s most workers made goods or provided services that they wanted to buy, and a man’s wage could keep a family, now it takes 2 wages to keep a family.

Economic theory, how to deal with banks. 1

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This is intended as a guide for the leader of the revolutionary governement. He or she will need some understanding of economics in order to stand up to the banks and the rich in general. It’s not that hard, but they will try to convince you that it is. Banks have the power to create money and charge interest on it when they lend it to you. They just have to lodge about 10% of the amount they loan with the central bank, (Bank of England). They gamble with your savings on the markets. They collude to rig the markets, remember the LIBOR scandel. Banks were accused of lying about the interest rate for inter-bank loans.
There are 2 main economic theories, one says the government can manage the real economy by borrowing in the bad times, adjusting interest rates and printing money.
The other theory is that anything a government does is almost certain to make things worse in the medium term. Leave the free market free and it will work. Both have a point, though neither work well, but the UK has tried both at different times, and seems to be trying both at once at the moment. It is also cutting normal peoples incomes, robbing their savings with inflation and  interest rates of less than 1%, whilst allowing companies to charge 4000%  interest on loans to the poor, and now needs to make further cuts in govenment spending so as to lend money to the international monetary fund, yes really.

Railways and coal mines 4

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The success of the project requires that when complete that it runs profitably. Much has changed since the 1960s when many of the lines were closed. The price of oil has risen greatly and will very likely rise more, and certainly it will rise faster than coal, as oil is in short supply but coal is not. This should allow fares to be set at a reasonable rate. Businesses will be encouraged to locate at or near the stations. Any travel that is subsidised or given tax breaks by the government will be required to use the railway. The holiday scheme will include very low priced rail tickets. The rolling stock will be new and of a modern design. Employers will be able to give their workers train tickets to travel to work and this will be free of tax and national insurance. The railway will operate a station to station parcel service, and also carry the royal mail. Provision for a rail connection will be a  consideration for the granting of planning permission for large new developpments.
It will be very desirable to get freight currently carried by lorry onto the railways instead. Just building facilities for this and hoping that it will arrive is not enough. Supplies for supermarkets are perhaps a good starting point. A rail-link could be built to connect with the central depot in the midlands and gradually rail links could be built to the major suppliers and major destinations such as shopping complexes. The existing haulage firms and the supermanket chains would have to participate and perhaps would own their own rolling stock, even engines.

Railways and coal mines 3

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It is important for the new railway to have a good ticketing system. It must be possible to go to any station and buy a through ticket to anywhere in the country, and to major places in Europe. This should also be possible on the internet, and of course to be able to buy a through ticket from Europe. The prices need to be reasonable, I would think about 10 pence a mile on average, except for peak times.
All government aids and tax breaks for travel will be confined to train travel where this is possible. Pensioners free travel will of course be allowed on the train.
The post office will use the train, and will offer a service of 2 day delivery, by train and not by air. The railways will offer a parcel service for collection at the station. This is a great convenience  when no-one is at home all day for a parce to be delivered, much easier to collect it from the station on the way home from work. All professional internet and catalogue sellers will be required to offer this service as an option. They will have to arrange to deliver their parcels to their nearest station. Foreign sellers can just send by post as normal, addressed to the customer c/o the station selected. There will be a requirement for coal to fuel the trains and this will be provided from British mines, private or publically owned if neccessary. The investment neccessary for the building of the railways and purchase of the Engines and rolling stock can be financed by the issue of a railway bond by National savings, paying interest at 3% free of tax, with a limit per person of 50000 pounds. The railways will be owned by a company whos share will be wholly owned by the government, so the bonds will be a loan to the company but guaranteed by the government.