Archive for Economic

My view on Labour and the Con Dem’s handling of the economy

21 March 2013 Jonathan Bishop No comments

We all know about the 2008 financial melt-down, and some claim they knew about it sooner. Working in the CAB from 2006 and 2008 I knew something wasn’t right with all the people coming in with debt problems. I told the Labour Party this at an interview to be a candidate for Parliament and they didn’t seem to think I was deserving of being a candidate for them.

What I want to know is; If people like Vince Cable knew what was going on, why did he not propose an amendment to Labour’s Banking Act when Northern Rock was short of capital? Why has it taken three years into his government for them to introduce new measures?

The fact is, the bankers lent more money than banks had for houses worth less than they were sold for to people who couldn’t pay the loans back, just so they could get bonuses. At the time, no one offered a better alternative to Gordon Brown’s Crass Keynesianism, which secured the country’s AAA rating, protected pensions, and protected savings. Even 5 years on, the best economists can’t work out a better way to solve the problem than Gordon Brown chose!

When the Con Dems got in with their austerity plans I laughed at how naive they were. We have now seen that borrowing has had to increase and there is more and not less need for public spending, with the out-of-work benefits bill being around the highest it has been. The fact is paying off our debts is not going to help the economy. There will have been penalties for paying them off early, and as any business owner will know paying off loans reduces cashflow and puts one more at risk of becoming insolvent. Could this be why the Con Dem Government lost the AAA rating that Gordon Brown preserved, even with high levels of borrowing?

But, this weeks budget was one that I had hoped the New Labour Governments would have had the courage to do. It does not ‘reward millionaires’ to the degree Ed Labour say. And if it does, do people not think if they became self-made millionaires that they would deserve to enjoy the fruits of their labour?

This budget did everything that needed to be done to grow the economy – incentives for businesses to use their patents, do research and development, and expand the gaming industry and social enterprises. They also introduced measures to improve the pensions for the self-employed. In other words, it was a budget for people like me – a budget for the aspirational who want to better themselves – the sort of people Tony Blair fooled into joining the Labour Party when it hadn’t changed the way he claimed it had.

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The future’s mobile

25 July 2012 Jonathan Bishop No comments

I feel I have to write to express my dissatisfaction with Carwyn Jones’ “next generation broadband deal” with BT (“BT deal promises faster broadband to nearly all”, July 20). From both a technological and economics perspective the plan is flawed.

The First Minister wants BT to install “fibre broadband” cables to give the fastest internet connections in 96% of Wales. What about the other 4%? Will it be the same 4% currently without internet access because it is not profitable enough to provide it? In my view it would make more sense for public investment in broadband to focus on the mobile phone network. There are so many people in Wales without mobile phone coverage, and if capacity in this network was increased then the problem of lack of broadband access would vanish as would other aspects of the “digital divide”. Mobile broadband is in many cases cheaper than fixed-line broadband.

When “fibre broadband” is no longer the best game in town, if anyone could afford it, we will be stuck with as outdated a fixed line network as we have with copper now. But it is much easier to update mobile phone masts to the latest technology, as we have seen with them going from “GPRS” to “HSDPA+” with only a short amount of service interruption on each occasion.

Carwyn’s grand plan for broadband looks to me like being another EU-funded white elephant.

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Religion doesn’t cause wars, fanatical Western governments do

31 March 2012 Jonathan Bishop 3 comments

I am not convinced that wars, are as most people say, caused by religion. They are in fact, in my view, caused by greed, and self-interests. This is why I think some recent wars were started:

  • WWI: Started when Germany invaded Belgium to get to France for territory
  • WWII (Europe): Started by Germany, again for territory, fuelled by an apatite among German people to eradicate the the Jews as a whole following the Zionist businessmen profiteering by denying German farmers a fair amount of return on investment, as I discuss and debate here.
  • WWII (Pacific): Started because the US was stopping Japan for accessing the oil they needed
  • Persian Gulf Wars: Started because the US needed more oil
  • Afghan War: Started because the US needed someone to blame for the Jihads attacking them because they were supporting Israel’s suppression of the Palestinians
  • Libyan War: Started because the UK needed to secure its oil supplies
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VAT on hot takeaway food will hit valleys jobs

29 March 2012 Jonathan Bishop One comment

As the elected town councillor for Treforest and Llantwit Fardre resident, I must express my concern for the local economies in these areas follow George Osborne’s budget.

Mr Osborne has decided to put VAT on hot takeaway food. Llantwit Fardre and Treforest are dependent on takeaways for local jobs and ‘exports’ to other wards use the home delivery services. This will hit us more.

Can local Conservative councillor, Joel James, who is standing for re-election, tell us whether he supports this hike in goods prices? His party is in effect creating an inflation rate of 5% on hot foods.

Can he explain how this is going to help the local economy grow when it is common economic knowledge that an increase in prices at this level significantly reduces consumption of those products?

It seems to be that the only firms that will benefit from this budget are the supermarkets for which hot takeaway food is not even 1% of their turnover. Coun James and his party need to seriously consider their economy policy, for which it will be the families of the children on the playing fields of Llanilltud Farerdref that will be paying the price.

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Proved right over using reserves

15 March 2012 Jonathan Bishop No comments
As someone with a Masters in economics and advocate of New Labour’s choice and competition agenda, it was quite strange to find myself agreeing with Old Labour stalwart Graham Stacey, with regards to the amendments posed to the RCT budget by Plaid Cymru’s leader Pauline Jarman (March 8). I agreed 100% with his view that taking money out of the reserves to fund the budget was not the best thing to do in difficult circumstances.
This is exactly what I said from day one on the Pontypridd Town Council’s Finance committee when I was elected in May 2008, before coming off and opposing it two years ago. The ruling Labour regime didn’t listen even though I warned them (that) using reserves to fund a budget freeze would mean tax rises or more drastic service cuts would be needed – I was proved right.
It was good that RCT has been able to keep its service provision as Graham said. However, this is at the expense of the communities of Pontypridd and Llantwit Fardre. While RCT’s proportion of the council tax precept has been rising, the precepts for these two councils have been falling it real terms. This is why over the last four years the number of playschemes in Llantwit Fardre has been halved, and the funding of the fireworks display and regeneration projects virtually slashed to nothing in Pontypridd.
Is it right that budgets focussed on our local communities are being cut so the rest of RCT can keep their services?f
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What is the purpose of the bureauclass?

28 February 2012 Jonathan Bishop One comment

In any failed political system are what I call the ‘bureauclass’. These are people whose job it is to get in the way of people who are doing proper jobs.

I came across one today at my local take away. They were an official from the local authority asking why the shopkeeper had not post a poster up which displayed some information that the law said they must. Why are we the tax payers paying for people to go around inspecting whether businesses are displaying posters or not? The Bureauclasses are getting their lifestyles subsided by the businesses who are paying the corporation tax so they can have a job that serves no real purpose!

These bureauclass workers in the public sector are getting good pensions and unnecessarily high wages though union negotiations when they produce nothing but paperwork. Printed matter can’t be so essential to our GDP than we need the bureauclass to exist to fund it?

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How Labour and the Trade Unions Destroyed the Construction Industry’s Marxist Utopia

6 February 2012 Jonathan Bishop 2 comments

Pre-2007 many workers in the construction industry of which I was part were de-facto Marxists – they were self-employed and could decide when they worked and when they didn’t, and how much they were willing to work for and which they wouldn’t.

But then at the request of the trade unions, the Labour Government forced nearly all these workers to become employed by the private firms. In effect, they were working against the Marxist ideal of the workers controlling their own lives without being dictated to by business owners, by forcing them onto employment contracts that meant private business owners had more say over their working terms and conditions than before! Whereas before they could take a holiday whenever they wanted, now they had to do it whenever it was best for the firm. They may have had more employment rights, but this was at the sacrifice of other perks, like having allowable expenses and paying a flat 20% tax. So, a Labour Government in effect, in order to please the unions and get a few more bucks for the tax man, took the dreams of its party’s founders, of an end to domination of people’s lives by big capitalist firms, and replaced it with further domination by capitalist firms by taking away the rights of workers to withdraw their labour on their terms without having to ballot a trade union for the right to do so.

Any Marxist sympathisers who would rather willingly work for someone else’s private firm than set up their own on either a self-employed or sole-shareholder limited company basis therefore, is too much talk and not enough action. How exactly do they expect capitalism and the state to fall if they are each day of their working lives sucking their metaphorical teet?!

Any socialist who willingly works for a private firm that they or their family don’t own are capitalist sell-outs also. If they truly believed in their ideology they would do what I have done:

Take control of the means of production, distribution and exchange by becoming self-employed and the sole shareholder of their own firm, while co-operating with others through mutually owned co-operatives.

It seems to me on most issues, the people who claim to believe that the workers should own the means of production, distribution an exchange, are all too happy  for the status quo of a government, trade union, and big business oligopoly to continue rather than take the risk of going it alone as Marx envisaged.

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Policy on Women’s Rights

5 February 2012 Jonathan Bishop No comments

It is my view that women should not seek to treated the same way as men but should assert their own identity and expect to be treated equally to them by their differences being taken into account.

Consider for a moment this jovial comment:

My wife is so funny – so typical of women. She always gets me to put the toilet seat down. Why doesn’t she put it up for me?!

Would you say this was sexist? If yes then you need to question your ethics. By not accepting that women have different needs to men, then people are being institutionally discriminatory on the grounds of sex. Treating women equally means treating them differently. One would treat women the same if they were made to use the same urinals as men – but they would not have equal access to relive themselves as men unless there were WC cubicles installed.

I set out below my policies in relation to women’s rights.

The Status Quo

These are a number policies that are currently law relating to women that I agree with:

  • All women-short-lists are a proportionate means to acheive a legitimate aim of increasing the number of women in public life.
  • In the case of interviewing people for employment, where there is a tie between a man and a woman, the woman should be treated more favourably, except if the man is disabled and she isn’t.
  • Women who have new born children should be allowed to bring them into the workplace and be able to breast feed them if they wish providing they are never left unsupervised, for their own protection as any.
  • Women with young children should be allowed to ask for flexible working in order that their job supports their family life rather than detract from it.
  • Women should have the right to abortion – It is inhuman and degrading treatment to expect her to carry a foetus she doesn’t want.

New Rights

These are a number of new rights I want women to have:

  • When a woman is the best person for the job, she should be given the right to request that the second best candidate be offered the chance to job share with her if she wants flexible working.
  • Women who are in self-employment should have the same access to maternity pay and other rights as women who are employed.
  • A woman should have a statutory right to have her embryos frozen so that she can have her career without the risk of sacrificing her chance to found a family afterwards.

Taking up parenthood should not mean giving up one's career

These are the rights I want women and parents/guardians in general to have:

  • Where a parent has a child with behavioural difficulties they should immediately qualify for a Blue Badge and be able to park in disabled parking spaces.
  • All ‘accessible toilets’ currently for disabled people should be fitted with baby changing facilities and other essential features a mother (or other parent) and child might need.
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More powers for Wales’ interests

28 January 2012 Jonathan Bishop No comments

I must contest F S Wusteman’s claim that an independent Wales would not have an independent voice in the EU (Letters, January 26).

If one were to look at the current EU Treaty (TFEU) there are 62 areas in which every EU country has to agree unanimously before that law can be passed – one of these is Article 113 relating to indirect taxation like VAT so no member state has to give up its tax regime as they suggested.

The problem Wales has is we are not properly represented in the EU Council of Ministers in which only David Cameron and his UK Ministers have a right to vote on behalf of the UK. This body must agree to every piece of EU legislation before it is made law – and in many cases it can completely overrule the European Parliament if it disagrees with them.

Wales has no right to veto EU law that could, for instance, affect our manufacturing – we are at the mercy of the UK Government.

Readers will recall me calling for a British Isles Customs Union of the four British nations, which while all independent, would agree to common laws which could include a common position on EU law (Letters, October 22, 2011). If England voted to leave the EU but join the EEA it would have to implement EU law but have no say in making it. But with the BICU Council of Ministers they could do both.

In the meantime, while the argument for independence is being won in principle even if not in detail, as looks likely in Scotland, there is a way all British nations can get an equal voice in the EU decision making processes without any new primary legislation from Westminster.

Section 109 of The Government of Wales Act 2006 gives the Welsh Government the power to ask for new powers from Westminster, which could include the right to direct the UK Prime Minister to veto any EU directive that does not meet Wales’s interests. Scotland and Northern Ireland could be granted the same power.

These provisions could lead to a more united British Isles, where each nation can represent its own citizens’ interests while co-operating where this is in the interest of all citizens in the British Isles.

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Does the European Convention on Human Rights Protect Children from DNA Thieves?

9 January 2012 Jonathan Bishop One comment

I will look at how the European Convention on Human Rights should protecto minors who have been abducted by a parent, who I shall call a DNA Thief, in order to stop them from associating with their other parent, who I shall call a Forced-Donor-Parent. On this basis, I shall call such a child a ‘Forced-Donation-Child’.

ARTICLE 3 – No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

If a Forced-Donation-Child is being told by a DNA Thief that their Forced-Donor-Parent is such that this would constitute defamation against the Forced-Donor-Parent then that is an abuse of the human rights of both the Forced-Donor-Parent and their Forced-Donation-Child.

ARTICLE 4 – No one shall be held in slavery or servitude.

If a Forced-Donation-Child is being denied access to the Forced-Donor-Parent and they want to associate with them, then this is an abuse of their human rights.

ARTICLE 5 – Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person.

This is except in this case: The lawful detention of persons for the prevention of the spreading of infectious diseases, of persons of unsound mind, alcoholics or drug addicts, or vagrants;

One could define a DNA Thief as a vagrant if they are always moving the Forced-Donation-Child from place to place, denying them a stable life, in order to prevent them for accessing the Forced-Donor-Parent.

ARTICLE 8 – Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

There is an exception to this: For the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. This means that if a DNA Thief is denying the Forced-Donation-Child access to the Forced-Donor-Parent and vice versa, they have no right to privacy.

ARTICLE 9 – Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion

If a DNA Thief tries to indoctrinate a Forced-Donation-Child with hatred for their Forced-Donor-Parent of that First-Donor-Parents beliefs, then this is an abuse of the Forced-Donation-Child’s human rights and that of the Forced-Donor-Parent.

ARTICLE 10 – Everyone has the right to freedom of expression

This is except where, among other reasons: for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or the rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence.

One can see many ways in which a DNA Thief can indoctrinate a Forced-Donation-Child against a Forced-Donor-Parent.

ARTICLE 11 -Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

A DNA Thief who keeps denying a Forced-Donation-Child access to their Forced-Donor-Parent is breaching both Forced persons’ human rights.

Taking Articles 12 to 14 together:

ARTICLE 12 – Men and women of marriageable age have the right to marry and to found a family, according to the national laws governing the exercise of this right.

ARTICLE 13 – Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in this Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority

ARTICLE 14 – The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground

A Forced-Donor-Parent has the right to access a fair hearing to regain access their Forced-Donation-Child. By the DNA Thief denying the Forced-Donor-Parent access to their Forced-Donation-Child which was created by virtue of Article 12 and that Forced-Donor-Parent has committed no crime, then they are breaching Article 5, as they are denying the Forced-Donor-Parent the liberty to access their Forced-Donation-Child that they gained under Article 12. If the reason for the Forced-Donor-Parent being denied access to the Forced-Donation-Child was on the grounds of sex, such as any ‘maternal’ relationship then this is discrimination. By a tribunal making such a decision, they are breaching the rights of the Forced-Donation-Child and Forced-Donor-Parent to impartiality of the judiciary.

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