Wednesday 30 January 2008

Redistribute the Bricks

More doom and gloom predicted on the UK Plc horizon as an estimated 103 houses will be repossessed on average day in merry little England (I don’t think its going to be a big Feature on Location!, Location!, Location!). I remember the last time the Market developed these teething problems at the beginning of the 1990s; houses (i.e. people’s homes) were repossessed in the thousands every week whilst the Major government stood idle, many were subsequently made homeless and trapped in negative equity.

If housing repossessions are going to increase over the coming months then surely it’s the responsibility of a good government to underwrite the risk and buy back the repossessed houses at auction, with the objective aim to rent back to the previous owner-occupiers at cheaper affordable rents. Furthermore, Local authorities would not have to re-house homeless families into expensive private bedsits, thus insuring the social fabric of society remains, as the doom and gloom rumbles back over the horizon and jam tomorrows return again.

Of course, many of our continental cousins do not have to contend with these types of problems, because firstly they appreciate that a house is a home and not financial investment; secondly they also understand housing should be equally distributed across many different sectors, i.e. owner-occupiers, voluntary, private renting and (public sector).

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Thursday 24 January 2008

Bearded monkeys floating in space

According to public school educated Branson (the people’s billionaire and bearded wonder), the commercial expansion into space technology being pioneered by his Virgin Galactic could remove a whole wall which has previously prevented the private sector from investing into space technology.No doubt the (potential) snapping up by the Virgin group of Northern Rock which was recently rescued for the very good price of £25 billion sterling by the UK tax payer;will also go a long long way to help subsidise the removal of this apparent barrier of the free Market. Of course, when reading the article on the BBC website, the impression given is that this is a self subsidising project of the global rat pack at $200,000 dollars per ticket, per space flight! I wonder if there will be standing room next to the toilets? It Seems to be a concurrent theme when using various forms of virgin transport.

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Wednesday 23 January 2008

So I will never get a job writing for the Daily mail!

[rant]I just got back my first university essay and I got... 50%!! 50 b l o o d y p e r c e n t ! ! ! The shock, horror and the very jimmy cheek of it sir! I don’t do 50%!! I am a late 60% early 70% kinda guy!! The marker does not like my style of writing, apparently far to intangible? (Reader, tell them its not so!!) I know it’s just a silly little subjective mark, which in the larger picture of my studies is a tiny drop in the big blue wobbly ocean, but (it pains me) and yes it has bloodied my nose. However, The gloves are now off!! and I am ready for a fight!![/rant]

The subject is closed. On guard sir!!

Tuesday 22 January 2008

market melt down

The US markets have dropped 400+ points upon opening today; this has been an obvious turn of events. The main catalyst for this looming global recession is of course the US housing market and the accrued debt (from minimal government regulation) which has been exchanged and sold by US banks; metaphorically speaking in the context of scale, imagine standing upon a glassier that’s going into hyper de-freeze and you can understand the repercussion effects. Unfettered self regulating markets really are a nursery rhyme fiction of an idealistically blinded neo-liberal right; alas, this really has been the policy pursued in both the US and the UK post Reagan and Thatcher eras, and its coming home to roost.

My heart felt condolences goes out to those low income families in both the USA and the UK (and indeed many other places around the world), who were unfairly induced by the undue influence of the private financial lending sectors into entering unfair agreements which swallowed up six, seven, eight times your annual combined incomes over the next thirty five+ years of your working lives; therefore transferring the bulk of risk to those who really are the most vulnerable amongst us (indentured young mothers and fathers of the new century). Poverty! Life chances! Diminishing expectations as ratio of deprivation…generation upon generation, it’s a familiar pattern but not a pretty one.

The alternative could be a responsible form of government which intervenes to the benefit of its people who in turn empower the political apparatus of a nation state on the mandate of Universal suffrage, the Vote. Please excuse me for making radical suggestions, but it seems to me that human history has been flawed and confounded. How much we have been concerned in western democracies with the problem of containing political corruption through the separation of the apparatus of the nation state into the distinct executive, legislative and judicial powers, we have totally neglected in turn the real threat which has bypassed “our” nation states, economic corruption.

All intelligent life on earth has a moral responsibility to get the fu*k out of its ivory tower and start cracking the whip. This could be a good starting point …

The world social forum

Keep it real!

Tuesday 15 January 2008

very late new year message

2008!! Bang another number!! And the UK is still Bingeing but certainly not Booming!!Nye Bevan once noted when he was Minister of Housing “I could never see anything wrong in a person owning their own house, but as socialist, I could see much wrong in other people owning other peoples houses” or words to that effect. And yes I agree with Nye.

So my resolution for the New Year is to bring the UK housing market to its Knees, and if not that, then i will stop drinking very strong coffee.

Happy New Year!! (resistance is fertile)