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I used to keep Hamsters, and I used to note their desperate attempts to escape from their cage, despite all the clean bedding, water and the yummiest nuts I used to get for them. Then I thought, what’s different to their cage, to the very big one we have constructed for ourselves in the way we live and work and try to profit out of the essentials of life, like a home to live in, but with invisible bars? I no longer keep Hamsters.
just some personal thoughts, sounds a bit grand but have entitled this site as
I hope you might find some of this of interest,
Bob
Could I firstly suggest that Marx’s prediction that capitalism would eat itself through greed is in one sense coming true but not perhaps how he envisaged? Perhaps because the global ‘market’ is heading in the direction of what is seen as ‘perfect’ competition through improved forms of communication both between markets and increased knowledge of the consumer we are heading towards a World where people will enjoy more equal incomes and wealth both between Nations and within them, this is a very good thing.
It is increasingly difficult within a World with increasing levels of communication and improved knowledge of consumers for companies to charge a premium for a product; this is likely to continue until wage rates in different nations become more equal.
What will allow one nation to out compete another is where their cost of living is lower, hence allowing for lower wages than in states with which they compete.
I think it is vital for policy makers in more prosperous countries to realise that one of the principal factors that determines the cost of living is housing costs, and therefore this is yet another pressing reason to regulate how supply and demand sets the price of housing. A home to live in is something that we cannot do without. Business has a very good reason for our society not to allow the free market to set ever higher prices, because these will feed into higher costs for business through wage demands and our businesses will find it harder to compete with companies based overseas, or will simply do what many have done and ship the jobs to countries where cost, namely housing costs are a lot cheaper than perhaps in the West.
All people East and West and within Nations are Equal, this I believe to be a fundamental truth. Let’s embrace this rather than resisting it?
What separates peoples is not languages or culture but values. When the penny drops that the real ‘tribe’ is all the decent people living across all the nations of the World and the alien is those who live among us in all the nations, the destroyers who would hurt or take from others, though appearing to have common values and citizenship with us, they are a race apart. When that time arrives and this realisation drives our policies and behaviour then we may all live in peace in this World.
What is of deep concern is how many people we lose around the World before this utopian world arrives who have died needlessly because we did we did not help them. We often say how history will judge our actions today. I suggest that within living memory people in the future will judge us very harshly indeed to the extent that they will see our actions as incomprehensible and the cruelty more associated with the animal kingdom than what we could be.
Another truism perhaps is that nothing it really original in its own right, but wait patiently to be discovered, like artifacts in the ground that one day someone perhaps trips over? But perhaps we can help a little bit in this process of discovery by being audacious enough, taking a risk or two, perhaps to go to the areas where they may found in order to be ‘tripped up’, by them.
Perhaps the Dawn is breaking on a better World?
The positive from recent turmoil in the financial markets might be that unless something is broken first there isn’t the same motivation to fix it?
1) Could I suggest that we consider sharing work as a way of restoring full employment?
Through innovation and industrialization we have created ever more efficient means to produce products but we still assume that people should work a 37 or 40 hour week?
A Question?
Perhaps we might ask ourselves why it is assumed that we wish to maintain ever higher levels of production, which has to drive ever higher levels of consumption to absorb this increased production that in turn harms our environment as well as having serious social impacts on those still in employment, and those unable to find employment?
Our society is supposed to benefit from consuming ever larger numbers of unnecessary products, that in many ways are junk? Why is this? Perhaps one Effect is to paper over an emptiness or vacuum in our society which we Might choose to address and towards that end we might aspire to a society with lower levels of production-driven consumption?
We have sought to maintain a society geared to consuming the products created. Isn’t this the wrong way around? Becoming an end in itself, rather than a means to an end?
Although it might be very challenging for many people to spend fewer hours at work, although this is something people have aspired to in the past, could sharing work be the way to fully engage the population of our country and create a more cohesive society?
Producing fewer products might be beneficial to our environment.
We need to consider why the working week has not being shortened even though we are more efficient than ever before, here perhaps lies a clue to what we can do?
I feel that sharing work, and cutting peoples incomes proportionately might be the most efficient means to tackle the downturn.
The first economic priority should be the maintain full employment rather than allowing the pain to be borne by a minority -
Other ways to share national Income around
Inflation, Tax, Devaluation of the currency, Printing money can all reflect how the reduction of income of a nation can be shared around. Sharing Work and reducing people’s incomes proportionately may often be difficult so these mechanisms might be used to take money from some to employ others.
Borrowing represents taking income from those in the future to give to people now. I feel taking from future generations who have no say in the matter can only be justified in extreme instances such as in time of war when the very existence of the nation itself might be at stake.
Repaying ‘borrowed’ demand from the future
‘Borrowing’ demand from the future to maintain economic activity has to be paid back at some time. Perhaps this is justified sometimes by the suggestion that investment in the economy now will create the means to repay this borrowed money later, but perhaps we need to develop clarity and an honesty whether the money borrowed is merely fueling demand, providing short term palliatives possibly for political reasons but with no lasting or sufficient level of long term effect to enable future generations to repay this money.
My feeling is to use this money properly that has very literally being ‘borrowed without representation’, we need to be quite sure that this borrowed money is being put into funding projects where it can be clearly shown, that their construction now will directly lead to the means to pay off all or a good proportion of the money that has been borrowed from the ‘future’ for this project, and at a specified time in the future.
Examples of sharing the wealth of a nation in a Downturn in real time -Inflation and printing money represent a reduction in the currency but an increase in the quantity of money. The currency is worth less but there is more to go around. Similarly devaluing the currency can achieve the same result.
Taxing people to provide work projects represents taking money from some to employ others. I think this can be inefficient and lead to work being carried out which would not otherwise have being wanted.
Better to reduce hours and wages of people doing work where there is a demand, wherever it is practical to do this, like keeping a car in the right gear perhaps,
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How can we reduce hours, wages and yet maintain our standard of living?
May I suggest this can be done by controlling house prices and major unavoidable costs to people such as utility costs; electricity, gas or water.
gold
The Gold standard of the future underpinning the world’s financial markets might not be a metal
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Bricks and Mortar |
but bricks and mortar and this can be achieved by restoring price stability to house prices and rents.
I feel we need to recognize the conundrum of how demand and supply issues based on finite amounts of land and an increasing population will cause housing costs to increase usually more steeply than wage increases and against the interests of ordinary people and also business which finds its costs are increased through wage inflation driven by house price inflation making us less globally competitive.
In recent times House prices have being subject to south sea type bubble speculation based on greed rather than actual increases in production or wealth. Arguably it has being the rampant speculation in house prices and the readiness of financial institutions to take what they think is an easy route to ramp up profits, and to channel huge amounts of the money that they are responsible into this pyramid of asset values.
Restoring stability to house prices and rents and ending speculation both now and the future may be key to restoring stability to the World s financial markets
(The idea of Regulation by Government as a way of ‘nudging’ people away from poor decision making’ ie the irrational belief that house prices will always go up, is discussed in a very interesting article about Economics and Bubbles in the July 2009 edition of Scientific American; the Science of Bubbles & Busts.)
Problem –falling house prices
There is a need to protect the value of housing on the balance sheets of lenders,
- address the problems of affordability for people needing a home,
- and consider a long term strategy to release us from future house price inflation, that reduces our real standard of living.
No more house price falls. But no rises in the future.
Advantages
Restores stability to the market
Protects financial institutions
Finally ends house price inflation that has eroded our real standard of living over the years.
Notes to the Editor
Freezing house prices would mean:
The cost of paying for housing as a percentage of income would continue to fall year after year
This would mean that quite soon more than one person or family would have the money for a property so property in the future might be allocated by price and pointing according for example by proximity to employment and schools.
A House price freeze would be a great incentive for people to save for the future, which would be deflationary by taking money out of the economy.
Real income would rise as this process took place, boosting demand in the Economy
Employees would be under less pressure to seek pay increases as their real income is increasing so that with less wage inflation fuelled by increasing house prices, Exports would increase as UK products will become more competitive by price
Possible ways to increase Housing supply
Very high council taxes on second homes would reduce multiple home ownership, increasing supply and reducing prices, particularly in areas currently blighted by second homes
Rent controls similar to those abolished in the UK in 1989 would make renting a viable option again and save billions in Housing benefit. This has quadrupled to £12 Billion since rent controls were scrapped.
Establishing small communities of 5-8 people managed by psychologists rather than housing officers could provide lower cost accommodation and reduce social isolation.
There is an article describing how such communities might work in the Birmingham Post.
(if you would like further information on this please type ‘bob goodall’ in the search box on www.birminghampost.net
Parents could leave their homes to local councils in exchange for immediate housing rights for their children.
Our Campaign group would also like to see a debate on how the free market sets house prices based on supply and demand issues. Our group has called for house prices to be frozen as one way to stabilise the financial market and stop the haemorrhage in Banks balance sheets, and then for Governments to have the courage not to allow house prices to increase in the future when economic conditions improve.
Zero house price inflation might significantly improve our standard of living in the future? We suggest that all inflation is bad for living standards not least house price inflation.
We would like the Government to take the bold step of extending help with housing for all those who ask for it, instead of a few, and to take some of the creative actions to provide the social housing stock needed for this. We have suggested some of the ways this might be done on the www.housepricecontrol.org.uk website but are keen to hear about other ideas that could help with this.
Further benefits to business of regulating House prices
House price and rent regulation can help tackle a cause behind wage inflation while allowing employees to increase their real standard of living. Businesses would be boosted, less jobs lost overseas and share prices would rise. Also with less money being being invested in ways to make money out of a rising house prices, more would find its way into the stock market, and into real businesses, share prices would rise and so would pension funds,
Arguably there would seems to be some very powerful interest groups who would also benefit from the regulation of house prices and rents as well as ordinary people.
Curbing Inflation
Competition would need to be maintained to ensure that companies still offered the lowest prices despite the increased demand in the economy
Location of industry-Perhaps there is a need for a Review before further investment in our National infrastructure?
Rather than millions of people moving millions of miles to their places of employment which is harmful to them, their families and the environment, perhaps we might move to a society where work is near to where people live?
This might mean in time an end to commuting into major cities by rail or road, and perhaps decisions on major investments on our infrastructure such as the railways might be put on hold until a strategic review could be carried out?
Improving lending between Banks
I wrote to the Bank of England last year about ‘additional risk guarantees’ for banks as a way of reducing fear in the market and restoring the Libor rate.
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Could I ask if an organization like the IMf could use its fund to back such an insurance scheme for all major Banks in the World economy rather than this insurance coming from individual Governments to only support banks in their own countries?
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‘Perhaps some form of ‘additional risk guarantee’ so that if the loan was lost the Bank of England would immediately reimburse the lender, might reduce the level of fear at this time in inter Bank lending?’
Ie If there were such loan guarantees might the safest gold plated security for a banks money be when they put it to use, perhaps in the form of a loan to another Bank? Rather than when the money is squirreled away?
Might it be more effective for the Bank of England in meeting its objectives if they protected and underwrote Bank activities rather than the Banks themselves?
Ethics
Our new society needs to consider ethics in our financial system
We have seen what happens when we live without this
Two issues for ethical debate might be borrowing money from future generations to pay for the mess we have made, expecting our nations to get us out of the mess, and not least ideas that seem to be around that we needed worry about the size of the debt to china as through the machinations of finances this can be devalued in various ways. This is unethical and retrograde and should be resisted if we seek to claim to have learnt anything from previous behaviour, the Chinese has worked exceptionally hard for what they have and we should seek to repay the debt we owe them to its full value
Debt; A potential cause of future East West tension?
Conflict in the world or tension might arise if we ‘ratted on the debt to china in the future and we need to be careful that this indebtedness does not reach a level that cannot be repaid.
Perhaps there is a need for an International body to monitor the level of debt to China and to ensure that they do not rise beyond what can be repaid.
Bob Goodall
Coordinator
Campaign to regulate House Prices and Rents
Health
This might be of interest www.fiftymetrepool.org.uk www.letdoctorssetnhsbudget.org.uk
Thank youfor reading this
best wishes
Bob