For those that watched tonight's Channel 4 documentary (see http://www.channel4.com/greenmovement) this is my quick response :
The debate revealed that the film alone - without the debate - would have been a disaster. The documentary was ideologically driven, contained serious factual errors, and omitted key information.
The debate revealed that the 'green movement' left its hippy origins behind 20 years ago and has grown up, whereas documentary makers are still stuck in the past.
The debate revealed that the green movement is broad, more united than the documentary suggested, and much more interested in solutions than personal point-scoring and partisanship.
In fact the documentary itself was largely unnecessary.
Thursday, 4 November 2010
Friday, 22 October 2010
Overpopulation
Recent Guardian headline: "Baroness Amos: Population growth could lead to non-stop food crisis . .
Returning from Niger, the UN humanitarian chief says education on family planning must be part of the development agenda."
Overpopulation causes poverty and environmental degradation and it is right to draw attention to this fact; but above all (surely) it's the other way round : poverty causes overpopulation and environmental degradation.
If there is no financial security in old age, children are your 'pension' and your support system in old age. If infant mortality is high, and you don't know know until your child has safely reached ten years old that it will survive into your old age, you have an incentive to keep having children. War and disease increase this pressure.
So although education and empowerment for women is essential, and there are cultural and religious pressures that are no longer appropriate, the most effective way of stabilising population growth is good health care available to all (but especially children), ditto support systems for the elderly.
Isn't this why population growth has slowed significantly in Europe. I believe that Italy - a Roman Catholic country - has a negative indigenous population growth rate.
Returning from Niger, the UN humanitarian chief says education on family planning must be part of the development agenda."
Overpopulation causes poverty and environmental degradation and it is right to draw attention to this fact; but above all (surely) it's the other way round : poverty causes overpopulation and environmental degradation.
If there is no financial security in old age, children are your 'pension' and your support system in old age. If infant mortality is high, and you don't know know until your child has safely reached ten years old that it will survive into your old age, you have an incentive to keep having children. War and disease increase this pressure.
So although education and empowerment for women is essential, and there are cultural and religious pressures that are no longer appropriate, the most effective way of stabilising population growth is good health care available to all (but especially children), ditto support systems for the elderly.
Isn't this why population growth has slowed significantly in Europe. I believe that Italy - a Roman Catholic country - has a negative indigenous population growth rate.
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
A waste of time and effort?
I suppose councillors get used to it and stop questioning it, but reflecting on last night's Full Council meeting it seems to me that only about a quarter of the meeting time was spent doing anything that might make a difference to anyone in Oxford. Three quarters of it was largely a waste of time. That's if you include in the quarter reports from the administration telling us what they are doing or planning to do - but all the opposition can do is praise or criticise it. Such is the system, they're not going to change anything by doing so. A one-seat majority means the Labour administration will do it anyway. Probably the most productive time of the evening was sharing a meal together half-way through.
It's a far cry from the church meetings I'm used to where something more akin to consensus decision making happens. Does any actual decision-making actually happen in Full Council meetings, or is it simply a bit of political theatre?
I used to think that the advantage of political parties is that when people vote they can have some idea what they might be voting for. They might not know the individual whose name is on the ballot paper, but they would have some idea what they might stand for. Many who voted LibDem will be wondering about that, now. And when the elected renege on their manifestos within weeks of being elected . . That's where the other side of it - the candidate as a person with their own integrity (rather than as party stooge) - is important. Has the party system become so degraded that we'd be better off all standing as independents? Certainly, from last night's experience, we'd have had better decision-making if there had been no whip. (The Green Party isn't 'whipped'). Is it cynical to say that it wouldn't last, and that parties would inevitably re-emerge? They don't in my own national church - alliances and coalitions happen all over the place, but they shift according to the issue in hand.
I'm also used to more tightly-chaired meetings where people who speak at great length off the point are invited to either address the issue in question and not stray - or sit down. We had a lot of lengthy irrelevant speeches last night, and it's hard not to believe that there was filibustering going on, in the hope that my motion on Temple Cowley Pools would be 'talked out'.
By withdrawing my motion on the need for better cycle routes under the railway at Frideswide Square we were able to claw back the time necessary to address it. But the suggestion that closing, demolishing and selling off the Temple Cowley Pools site for housing - probably another hall of residence - will further downgrade a Temple Cowley District Centre that needs enhancing and improving, not being pulled to pieces, well - it fell on deaf ears. It's all about a quick fix and money, not about long term strategy for people and communities.
It's a far cry from the church meetings I'm used to where something more akin to consensus decision making happens. Does any actual decision-making actually happen in Full Council meetings, or is it simply a bit of political theatre?
I used to think that the advantage of political parties is that when people vote they can have some idea what they might be voting for. They might not know the individual whose name is on the ballot paper, but they would have some idea what they might stand for. Many who voted LibDem will be wondering about that, now. And when the elected renege on their manifestos within weeks of being elected . . That's where the other side of it - the candidate as a person with their own integrity (rather than as party stooge) - is important. Has the party system become so degraded that we'd be better off all standing as independents? Certainly, from last night's experience, we'd have had better decision-making if there had been no whip. (The Green Party isn't 'whipped'). Is it cynical to say that it wouldn't last, and that parties would inevitably re-emerge? They don't in my own national church - alliances and coalitions happen all over the place, but they shift according to the issue in hand.
I'm also used to more tightly-chaired meetings where people who speak at great length off the point are invited to either address the issue in question and not stray - or sit down. We had a lot of lengthy irrelevant speeches last night, and it's hard not to believe that there was filibustering going on, in the hope that my motion on Temple Cowley Pools would be 'talked out'.
By withdrawing my motion on the need for better cycle routes under the railway at Frideswide Square we were able to claw back the time necessary to address it. But the suggestion that closing, demolishing and selling off the Temple Cowley Pools site for housing - probably another hall of residence - will further downgrade a Temple Cowley District Centre that needs enhancing and improving, not being pulled to pieces, well - it fell on deaf ears. It's all about a quick fix and money, not about long term strategy for people and communities.
Thursday, 7 October 2010
Myths about the cuts
short notes from Red Pepper Aug/Sept 2010 recirculated by Sarah Lasenby :
Economists have spelt out with alarming clarity the dangers of a double-dip recession increasing cost of unemployment benefit and lowering the tax take.
The International Monetary Fund has also warned that the proposed cuts are too rigorous and will lead to an economic crisis in the UK
Myth – the debt is the highest it has ever been
At 70% of GDP [the total of goods and services produced in one year] this is high but far from unprecedented.
From 1920 – 1960 our debt never fell below around 100%
At the end of WW11 our debt reached 250% and the Welfare State was set up plus nationalisation of the health service and major industries.
Myth – the UK's debt is the worst -
UK has the lowest percentage of Government debt of all the G7countries.
Myth – Our Government debt is unsustainable
Interestingly the nature of our debt is helpful as 70%- 80% of our debt is held within Britain and held on a long term basis – over 12 years on average. This makes our debts more sustainable than those of Greece and Portugal.
Myth – Public spending got out of control under Labour.
Levels of public spending are at the same level as in the early 1990s, during the last economic crisis. This is usual as spending always rises during a recession as result of welfare spending on unemployment and lower tax take.
Myth- UK has a bigger public sector compared to other countries
UK public spending is lower, as a proportion of the economy, than in France, Italy, Austria and the Scandinavian countries.
On Health UK spent 8.4% of GDP in 2007. roughly half of that spent in USA and well behind Germany and France.
Dr Alex Nunn of Leeds Met. Uni.+ Transpennine Working Group wrote the article this comes from.
Unison's Alternative Budget
£4.7 billion could be raised by a 50% tax on incomes over £100,00
£5 billion from tax on vacant housing.
£25 billion could be raised by closing tax loopholes. The Tax Office says its more like £42 billion and some experts say its £120 billion.
All these taxes would be progressive in contrast to the increase in VAT
Economists have spelt out with alarming clarity the dangers of a double-dip recession increasing cost of unemployment benefit and lowering the tax take.
The International Monetary Fund has also warned that the proposed cuts are too rigorous and will lead to an economic crisis in the UK
Myth – the debt is the highest it has ever been
At 70% of GDP [the total of goods and services produced in one year] this is high but far from unprecedented.
From 1920 – 1960 our debt never fell below around 100%
At the end of WW11 our debt reached 250% and the Welfare State was set up plus nationalisation of the health service and major industries.
Myth – the UK's debt is the worst -
UK has the lowest percentage of Government debt of all the G7countries.
Myth – Our Government debt is unsustainable
Interestingly the nature of our debt is helpful as 70%- 80% of our debt is held within Britain and held on a long term basis – over 12 years on average. This makes our debts more sustainable than those of Greece and Portugal.
Myth – Public spending got out of control under Labour.
Levels of public spending are at the same level as in the early 1990s, during the last economic crisis. This is usual as spending always rises during a recession as result of welfare spending on unemployment and lower tax take.
Myth- UK has a bigger public sector compared to other countries
UK public spending is lower, as a proportion of the economy, than in France, Italy, Austria and the Scandinavian countries.
On Health UK spent 8.4% of GDP in 2007. roughly half of that spent in USA and well behind Germany and France.
Dr Alex Nunn of Leeds Met. Uni.+ Transpennine Working Group wrote the article this comes from.
Unison's Alternative Budget
£4.7 billion could be raised by a 50% tax on incomes over £100,00
£5 billion from tax on vacant housing.
£25 billion could be raised by closing tax loopholes. The Tax Office says its more like £42 billion and some experts say its £120 billion.
All these taxes would be progressive in contrast to the increase in VAT
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
the Root of the Problem?
Unashamedly nicked from James Robertson's website and newsletter at http://www.jamesrobertson.com/newsletter.htm :
The UK Coalition Government's Emergency Budget proposals of 22 June ignored a huge potential source of expenditure saving and public revenue. It has been estimated at £200 billion (click here).
It consists of: the hidden subsidies that we all pay to commercial banks because our governments give them the privilege of creating our national money supply as part of their profit-making business; and the lost money we would be benefiting from if new money was created as public revenue and spent into circulation by the government on purposes that meet public needs.
Political and media reporting and debate about the recent UK budget has been limited to conventional questions: does it strike a proper balance between rich and poor, between tax increases and public spending cuts, and between a Keynesian and a Thatcher/Reagan economic response to our potentially disastrous prospects? Decision-makers and mainstream commentators appear to be totally unaware that monetary reform could change our prospects dramatically for the better by providing a very significant contribution to paying back our huge deficit.
As well as that contribution to our immediate needs, there are other overwhelming arguments for monetary reform. They require no academic economic teaching to understand, just common sense. They include the following.
(1) In a more "normal" context, if the banks are allowed to create over 95% of our money as interest-bearing debt, the only way to maintain a financially sustainable situation is to let them create more money continually, in order that borrowers can pay the interest on the debt already created. That systematically creates inflation, a more indebted society, and a growing gap between rich and poor.
(2) "Normal" situations can't last very long when money is created that way. As profit-making businesses competing with one another, commercial banks are inevitably under pressure to create too much money; that causes recurrent booms which end in busts; in busts the banks will not create enough money to meet society's needs; then they can hold the government to ransom to bail them out with enough taxpayers' money to enable them to lend us what should be our own!
(3) Allowing the banks to decide how almost all the money in society is used on its first entry into circulation, and to be paid interest on it as it circulates until it is repaid,
- distorts the economy in favour of activities profitable to the banks,
- imposes a hidden charge on everyone who uses money, and
- subsidises the banking industry, and so reduces the efficiency of the services it offers.
All these problems could be avoided by transferring to an agency of the state (the Bank of England) the function of:
- creating all the national money debt-free to meet the monetary objectives laid down by the government; and
- giving it to the government as public revenue to be spent into circulation under democratic budgetary procedures.
The present out-of-date, undemocratic way of managing national money supplies is a central part of how the world's money system now operates perversely as a whole, nationally and internationally.
Citizens of other countries also suffer unnecessarily from it, as the G8 and G20 meetings last month in Canada confirmed.
The UK Coalition Government's Emergency Budget proposals of 22 June ignored a huge potential source of expenditure saving and public revenue. It has been estimated at £200 billion (click here).
It consists of: the hidden subsidies that we all pay to commercial banks because our governments give them the privilege of creating our national money supply as part of their profit-making business; and the lost money we would be benefiting from if new money was created as public revenue and spent into circulation by the government on purposes that meet public needs.
Political and media reporting and debate about the recent UK budget has been limited to conventional questions: does it strike a proper balance between rich and poor, between tax increases and public spending cuts, and between a Keynesian and a Thatcher/Reagan economic response to our potentially disastrous prospects? Decision-makers and mainstream commentators appear to be totally unaware that monetary reform could change our prospects dramatically for the better by providing a very significant contribution to paying back our huge deficit.
As well as that contribution to our immediate needs, there are other overwhelming arguments for monetary reform. They require no academic economic teaching to understand, just common sense. They include the following.
(1) In a more "normal" context, if the banks are allowed to create over 95% of our money as interest-bearing debt, the only way to maintain a financially sustainable situation is to let them create more money continually, in order that borrowers can pay the interest on the debt already created. That systematically creates inflation, a more indebted society, and a growing gap between rich and poor.
(2) "Normal" situations can't last very long when money is created that way. As profit-making businesses competing with one another, commercial banks are inevitably under pressure to create too much money; that causes recurrent booms which end in busts; in busts the banks will not create enough money to meet society's needs; then they can hold the government to ransom to bail them out with enough taxpayers' money to enable them to lend us what should be our own!
(3) Allowing the banks to decide how almost all the money in society is used on its first entry into circulation, and to be paid interest on it as it circulates until it is repaid,
- distorts the economy in favour of activities profitable to the banks,
- imposes a hidden charge on everyone who uses money, and
- subsidises the banking industry, and so reduces the efficiency of the services it offers.
All these problems could be avoided by transferring to an agency of the state (the Bank of England) the function of:
- creating all the national money debt-free to meet the monetary objectives laid down by the government; and
- giving it to the government as public revenue to be spent into circulation under democratic budgetary procedures.
The present out-of-date, undemocratic way of managing national money supplies is a central part of how the world's money system now operates perversely as a whole, nationally and internationally.
Citizens of other countries also suffer unnecessarily from it, as the G8 and G20 meetings last month in Canada confirmed.
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
Cuts : the Big Lie
On radio the other day I was treated to a clear explanation of ConDem economic theory. (I can't remember the name of the speaker, who I think was an economist). He said "It's only the private sector that creates wealth". i.e. the public sector doesn't; the public sector consumes wealth. So in order to get us out of the enormous hole in the country's wealth that, er, the private sector has created, we've got to swing an axe through the public sector and stop it consuming so much.
The private sector, you see, is good (according to the ConDems) because it produces all the things that people want (like cars and gadgets and entertainment) and is subject to the honest discipline of the market which makes sure that companies make the maximum profit for their shareholders who can award enormous bonuses to the bosses (for them to bank offshore to avoid paying taxes) whilst at the same time keeping prices competitive by employing as few people in this country as they possibly can and paying producers the least they can get away with.
The public sector is bad (say the ConDems) because it takes people's money away against their will to produce all the things they don't want (like health care and social services, roads infrastructure, schools, rubbish collection, oh - and benefits for all the people the private sector doesn't feel it needs any more). And of course the public sector is so undermining of freedom, isn't it? : Whereas in the private sector you can rejoice in the freedom to choose from fifty different brands of yoghourt in your supermarket (but don't worry your little heads about who is appointed to run the company or at what salary, or whether the company trades ethically, uses its weight to crush other small businesses or any of that 'do-gooder' stuff) the nasty public sector just takes your money away and you have no choice. Don't worry about citizen rights or voting or anything like that - "they're all as bad as each other", your vote is worthless. (Anyone who finds themselves agreeing with that has just swallowed the big lie).
So here's a brilliant idea for getting us out of the deficit. Take the city council's leisure facilities, say, and privatise them (as Oxford has done). At a stroke, a £700,000 "saving" in that nasty public sector spending (except that, being no fools, the private company refused to take responsibility for those leisure centres that the council had failed to maintain properly - so the council tax payer is left to pick up the 'toxic assets'). At a stroke, the leisure service is now creating £700,000 of wealth rather than consuming it. That's a net swing of £1,400,000 to the country's wealth for doing nothing except passing the buck. Yay! Brilliant!
But hang on a minute, the company is 'non-profit'! Doesn't that mean it isn't generating any wealth? Now I'm getting confused.
Oh well, it's still £700,000 shifted off the council's books, isn't it? It still means the country isn't spending £700,000 that it was before. Doesn't it . . ?
No it doesn't. The whole idea that only the private sector produces wealth is utter rubbish. Worse, it's a lie told to justify passing on the costs of gargantuan failure in the spoiled and unaccountable upper echelons of the private sector to the most vulnerable in society by way of cuts to essential services. "Firm but fair", Mr Cleggeron? It's morally, spiritually, economically bankrupt. It's a lie propagated by most of the mainstream media, including the BBC. It's a lie that most of the population has been manipulated to believe. There is plenty of actual wealth in this country, most of it generated by the public sector, on which the upper echelons of the private sector are nothing more than a parasite. It's that parasite that needs cutting out. Never mind selling off Oxford City Council assets : I wonder what those buildings in the City of London are worth?
The private sector, you see, is good (according to the ConDems) because it produces all the things that people want (like cars and gadgets and entertainment) and is subject to the honest discipline of the market which makes sure that companies make the maximum profit for their shareholders who can award enormous bonuses to the bosses (for them to bank offshore to avoid paying taxes) whilst at the same time keeping prices competitive by employing as few people in this country as they possibly can and paying producers the least they can get away with.
The public sector is bad (say the ConDems) because it takes people's money away against their will to produce all the things they don't want (like health care and social services, roads infrastructure, schools, rubbish collection, oh - and benefits for all the people the private sector doesn't feel it needs any more). And of course the public sector is so undermining of freedom, isn't it? : Whereas in the private sector you can rejoice in the freedom to choose from fifty different brands of yoghourt in your supermarket (but don't worry your little heads about who is appointed to run the company or at what salary, or whether the company trades ethically, uses its weight to crush other small businesses or any of that 'do-gooder' stuff) the nasty public sector just takes your money away and you have no choice. Don't worry about citizen rights or voting or anything like that - "they're all as bad as each other", your vote is worthless. (Anyone who finds themselves agreeing with that has just swallowed the big lie).
So here's a brilliant idea for getting us out of the deficit. Take the city council's leisure facilities, say, and privatise them (as Oxford has done). At a stroke, a £700,000 "saving" in that nasty public sector spending (except that, being no fools, the private company refused to take responsibility for those leisure centres that the council had failed to maintain properly - so the council tax payer is left to pick up the 'toxic assets'). At a stroke, the leisure service is now creating £700,000 of wealth rather than consuming it. That's a net swing of £1,400,000 to the country's wealth for doing nothing except passing the buck. Yay! Brilliant!
But hang on a minute, the company is 'non-profit'! Doesn't that mean it isn't generating any wealth? Now I'm getting confused.
Oh well, it's still £700,000 shifted off the council's books, isn't it? It still means the country isn't spending £700,000 that it was before. Doesn't it . . ?
No it doesn't. The whole idea that only the private sector produces wealth is utter rubbish. Worse, it's a lie told to justify passing on the costs of gargantuan failure in the spoiled and unaccountable upper echelons of the private sector to the most vulnerable in society by way of cuts to essential services. "Firm but fair", Mr Cleggeron? It's morally, spiritually, economically bankrupt. It's a lie propagated by most of the mainstream media, including the BBC. It's a lie that most of the population has been manipulated to believe. There is plenty of actual wealth in this country, most of it generated by the public sector, on which the upper echelons of the private sector are nothing more than a parasite. It's that parasite that needs cutting out. Never mind selling off Oxford City Council assets : I wonder what those buildings in the City of London are worth?
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Haven't posted for a while because life's been so busy. The issues I've been immediately drawn into :
* the closure of one of the busiest swimming pool and leisure centres in Oxford despite massive public opposition (6,500 petition signatures so far) and public consultation that tried as hard to avoid actually consulting as it could, leaving it until they hoped the plan was a fait accompli. The feasibility study will only be published days before the Executive Board plans to make the decision. In the midst of the heat generated, a very interesting proposal for a replacement pool using reed-bed water filtration has emerged.
* the issue of nightmare all-night parties in student houses. My researches reveal that the Environmental Development people do have the power to act with fixed penalty fines whilst the problem is occurring, but that a call-out involves young female staff being summoned from their bed 20 miles away at 3:00 in the morning after having done a day's work, to deal with the problem on their own. It's a serious matter : there are signs that long-term residents are starting to move out of the areas with high student concentrations, which will destroy the delicate balance that makes East Oxford great.
* the turning-over by the Council of a large chunk of the only publicly-owned green space in East Oxford for a builder's compound for two years, again without consulting the East Area Parliament as they were obliged to do.
* the proposed licensing of HMOs (houses in multiple occupation) and discussions about what anti-social behaviour conditions might be applied to the licences.
* a series of public meetings about the problems of far too many cars in East Oxford, which was not designed for cars at all. Is a Controlled Parking Zone the way forward? The more one goes into the issue the more complex it gets.
* I have created and started to build an online resource - an interactive website along the lines of Wikipedia, facilitating the building-up of an information base that members can add to and search. Up to now, a lot of key information has been locked in the heads of a very few people. It's at www.wolffs.info/tikiwiki but most of its content is restricted to Party activists.
* how to get a missing section of what could be a very valuable cycle route into the city from the south established. Unfortunately it runs across Christ Church College land, and previous attempts have not been successful.
* membership of the Standards Committee (currently examining complaints the City Council receives), the Value & Performance Scrutiny Committee (equivalent to a parliamentary select committee) and a sub-group of that, the Asset Management Group, which is currently scrutinising proposals for a radical reordering of the council's ways of working, introducing home working and hotdesking, selling off two of its offices and pulling all the staff into two places, and restructuring the council to create a single customer interface (instead of people having to find out which department they need and deal direct).
Alongside this is the more routine 'casework' - dealing with complaints and planning applications. All in all, it's been a bit of a shock. It hasn't helped that I've only just managed to get the IT equipment I wanted, and still don't have access to the Council intranet. But I'm glad to be involved and feel I can be useful.
* the closure of one of the busiest swimming pool and leisure centres in Oxford despite massive public opposition (6,500 petition signatures so far) and public consultation that tried as hard to avoid actually consulting as it could, leaving it until they hoped the plan was a fait accompli. The feasibility study will only be published days before the Executive Board plans to make the decision. In the midst of the heat generated, a very interesting proposal for a replacement pool using reed-bed water filtration has emerged.
* the issue of nightmare all-night parties in student houses. My researches reveal that the Environmental Development people do have the power to act with fixed penalty fines whilst the problem is occurring, but that a call-out involves young female staff being summoned from their bed 20 miles away at 3:00 in the morning after having done a day's work, to deal with the problem on their own. It's a serious matter : there are signs that long-term residents are starting to move out of the areas with high student concentrations, which will destroy the delicate balance that makes East Oxford great.
* the turning-over by the Council of a large chunk of the only publicly-owned green space in East Oxford for a builder's compound for two years, again without consulting the East Area Parliament as they were obliged to do.
* the proposed licensing of HMOs (houses in multiple occupation) and discussions about what anti-social behaviour conditions might be applied to the licences.
* a series of public meetings about the problems of far too many cars in East Oxford, which was not designed for cars at all. Is a Controlled Parking Zone the way forward? The more one goes into the issue the more complex it gets.
* I have created and started to build an online resource - an interactive website along the lines of Wikipedia, facilitating the building-up of an information base that members can add to and search. Up to now, a lot of key information has been locked in the heads of a very few people. It's at www.wolffs.info/tikiwiki but most of its content is restricted to Party activists.
* how to get a missing section of what could be a very valuable cycle route into the city from the south established. Unfortunately it runs across Christ Church College land, and previous attempts have not been successful.
* membership of the Standards Committee (currently examining complaints the City Council receives), the Value & Performance Scrutiny Committee (equivalent to a parliamentary select committee) and a sub-group of that, the Asset Management Group, which is currently scrutinising proposals for a radical reordering of the council's ways of working, introducing home working and hotdesking, selling off two of its offices and pulling all the staff into two places, and restructuring the council to create a single customer interface (instead of people having to find out which department they need and deal direct).
Alongside this is the more routine 'casework' - dealing with complaints and planning applications. All in all, it's been a bit of a shock. It hasn't helped that I've only just managed to get the IT equipment I wanted, and still don't have access to the Council intranet. But I'm glad to be involved and feel I can be useful.
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