Archive for the ‘comment’ Category

Lords are leaping

Monday, May 17th, 2010

It sounds like an episode of Blackadder, but there will be 707 Lords to help the new coalition get its way.

Question: How long does it take to get a system that works?

Answer: Longer than the existence of politics.

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Political economics

Monday, May 17th, 2010

Today the FTSE 100 closed at more or less the midpoint between its all-time high at the end of 1999 and its lowest point in 15 years. As the economic outlook is not too rosy for the short term, which way will the market be going from here? Well there are bound to be some purple patches, but downward would seem like a reasonable bet. This is a disaster for workers and their dependents, school leavers, those leaving university, savers, those coming up to retirement, and those depending upon interest for retirement income. In fact it is not good for anyone. I recall some rubbish talked about preventing a return to a boom and bust economy. The trouble is that hot air came from Gordon Brown, who can now settle into comfortable retirement at the nations expense, along with that other money grabber Tony Blair and their friends. Through incompetence and self-interest these people made fools out of the people of this country. I am amazed that anyone voted for them at the last election. I suspect they have done more to create a class of takers than any politician before them. Massive debt, the hugely privileged useless public sector, and pointless wars are their legacy. Let no one forget it.

Naturally, those people who created this economic disaster will not have to worry about money. They have awarded themselves nice big indexed link pensions for life, as well as a nice exit bonus for their trouble. And we should not forget the large amounts they decided they should help themselves to, for just about anything they wanted really. Do I have much confidence the new lot of self-serving fools will do any better for us. No! Until we get rid of politicians we will always be destined to repeat this folly.

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What political reform?

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

It was promised, to assuage the masses who know these politicians are servants only of their own greed and ego. Few can be surprised that it has been watered down and pushed to one side, eventually to be forgotten and undermined. They will never provide effective reform, because this system suits them well.

The only viable way forward is to take the opportunity for self-serving away. It is not just these politicians, human nature is corruptible. Any system that does not recognise that will always suffer from concomitant failings. That is why Expert Government makes non-hierarchical influence structures a central principle of its system.

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No way to run a country

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

More evidence, not that we needed any, that politicians are very ready to abuse the system for money. Political government is an appallingly bad way to run a country. It allows self-serving people into positions of influence which they then exploit to their own financial benefit. Taking money to advantage a ‘client’ is not compatible with the best representation of the people of this country.
Any system that invests high levels of influence in a few people will be corrupted. It is very well known that the nature of people is corruptible. So to ignore this fact and construct a system that has no safeguards to prevent abuse is an extremely bad idea. Who would come up with such a poor system? Obvious really, the politicians, yes, the ones that stand to gain the most from the system. Asking politicians to form a government is like asking an alcoholic to run an off-licence. The only way to prevent abuse of power is through a non-hierarchical influence structure as advocated by Expert Government.

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Misdirected Spending

Monday, March 1st, 2010

It is easy to look successful when one is spending someone else’s money, especially when one can also spend what they have yet to earn. Regardless of the sanity of that government policy, it is misusing the revenue from current and future taxation. Government spending is poorly directed toward encouraging retail spending and funding a bloated, overpaid, and inefficient public sector.
As much of what we purchase comes from other countries, some of that money flows out of the country and so retail spending is not good value for money. The public sector is notoriously bad value for money and some of it is not involved in fulfilling needs and wants. The public sector is funded by the private sector and so it should reflect the ability of the private sector to pay for it. Savings from downscaling the public sector should be redirected to stimulate the private sector. The most direct way would be to reduce costs to operate businesses, especially in employing people. This could include suspending the minimum wage and many other employment rights that discourage companies from employing people. While infrastructure projects improve the short term prospects of some companies, their total value is spread over a long period, so they do not achieve the best immediate effects.
Encouraging already highly indebted people to spend more on products that worsen the balance of payments, and using their future earnings to do so is not a sane policy. It seems the obvious needs to be stated, debt is not good. In broad terms, the reason we have problems now is because of excessive debt being used to inflate asset bubbles and the lack of confidence in the ability to service those debts. We need to deflate those asset bubbles, reduce debt, and diminish the chances of both recurring in the future. Policy needs to recognise the basic human traits of greed and hubris to restrain those that succumb to them. Free markets will always allow some to take advantage of others. They enable high wealth disparity which leads to a range of problems.
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Update 2010-03-09
Confirmation from the Office for National Statistics via the BBC that encouraging spending is not the panacea.

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Hungarian expert government

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

It came to my attention, and here, that in Hungary the idea of Expert Government has received some consideration.
Perhaps Hungary can show the world the way forward.
The examples of expert government mentioned in this article were mostly weak transitional arrangements, where political government had broken down. They lacked the vision proposed here. This form of expert government advocates many experts in narrow local and central specialisations, and critically maintains the integrity of expert decisions with a non-hierarchical influence structure.

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Better government – the big idea

Monday, January 11th, 2010

Good visionary ideas are not easy to create. Even when one has created a paradigm shifting idea, it can be difficult for others to see. Most people can only see the value of the idea when more open minded and visionary people have endorsed it.
This idea takes a big step, it abandons politics entirely and so demands more of those prepared to open their minds to new ideas. In doing that it poses a communication challenge. This is more than constitutional change, it is a completely new form of government. Try to be open to looking afresh at the huge problems it solves and how they are endemic to the current systems of government.

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The cost of war

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

The costs of war to the UK are far more than monetary, but money is very relevant in these difficult times. In February 2009 The Guardian reported that the total cost for 2009 would be in the order of £4.5bn. It will be interesting to know how much these wars ultimately cost us.
While we spend huge amounts to fund war in countries which are no threat to us, our universities are cutting spending, and less of our future workforce is taking the education we were told is so vital for the future prosperity of this country and the social mobility of its people. Many of the unemployed young people who did commit their time and money to preparing themselves for work through education must be feeling very cheated by this priority.
Iraq and Afghanistan are no danger to the UK, our presence there was/is making things worse for us. It is now clear that our involvement in those wars was initiated by Blair regardless of its legality. Blair has said he would have found another excuse to promulgate war if necessary. Whether it was egotism, or religious crusading, or for money from the US, or whatever else, it was it was wrong and shameful for this country. Brown had the opportunity to get us out of these wars when he became PM, but like his financial mismanagement of the economy, he failed that test too.
Power corrupts… These extremely poor decisions demonstrate clearly that power should never be concentrated in the hands of a few.

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Blair – war because he wanted it

Saturday, December 12th, 2009

At long last Blair has admitted what we all suspected about the Iraq war.
He wanted to get rid of Saddam Hussein and would have found another excuse if he had to.
He chose a strange place to admit it, the Guardian reports it was on a TV chat show. That shows the untouchable status he believes he now has. Indeed, very few have the ability to pursue him for war crimes, but probably none of those will.
His outrageous misuse of power, going to war ‘because he wants to’, is indicative of the faults in hierarchical government structures. The old saying haunts that system, ‘power corrupts …’. It is also the reason why even as he admits his reason he feels safe. Those that have sufficient power will not pursue him, because that would undermine their own power and put themselves at risk by setting a precedent.
Perhaps no person is able to safely use that kind of power, and that is why government should not be hierarchical.

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The Taxpayers Allliance recognises the need for government reform

Friday, November 27th, 2009

A useful report by the TaxPayers’ Alliance highlights many failings of UK government and suggests structural reforms.

Interestingly the report states:
“Ministers have little or no knowledge of the areas for which they are responsible. John Reid, for example, when appointed Secretary of State for Health, publicly said “I am a novice in this field”. Yet he was responsible for the health care of the nation and the third largest organisation in the world.”

Referring to the administrative domain for government it also states:
“…management should be contracted out to harness the expertise and innovation of civil society…”

The report clearly recognises a problem we are concerned with; the lack of expertise in government.
However, the report’s solution is a set of recommendation for adjusting the structure of government.
Our solution is more potent because we believe that the current system of government can never be ‘fit for purpose’. It is based on giving power to people that in effect are administrators, not the experts that in fact should be in control.

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