THE HOUSING CRISIS - OVERLOOKING THE OBVIOUS....

Another recent Government initiative to
solve the housing crisis is the ill-thought-
out proposal that pensioners should be
encouraged to move from the family
home into sheltered accommodation.
The plan would be to free up private
housing stock, with the local authority
passing on any profit from letting the
property to pay the rent of a small
apartment.

This somewhat panglossian figment of

Secretary of State, Grant Shapp's fertile
imagination, poses the following questions.
How much profit would be available to pay
the rent after legions of staff had been
employed to administer the scheme and
how could the values of family homes be
protected from being converted to rented
accommodation on long and secure
tenures?
A viable alternative would be for local
authorities to be more efficient in their
use of housing stock by refurbishing
and letting the nearly half million
dwellings that remain unoccupied. In
addition, the 62,000 retail shops
predicted to close by 2018 could be
converted for domestic use, thus 
helping to relieve a situation that is  
clearly out of hand.

THE FINANCIAL MARKETS - INTO THE UNKNOWN

The difficulties facing our political
leaders in deciding how to navigate the
perilous economic waters are manifest.

As George Soros asserts in his book

The Credit Crisis of 2008 and what

it means - 'the prevailing paradigm for

financial markets - that markets tend

towards equilibrium and deviations

are random - is both false and is

misleading'.

He describes his theory of reflexivity

- that in seeking to understand a

complex world, financial players base

their investment decisions on imperfect

knowledge, compensating for their lack

of understanding of what is happening

at lightening speed in the interconnected

global financial markets 'with guesswork

based on experience, instinct, emotion,

ritual and other misconceptions'.

While these weaknesses in understanding

leave us largely at the mercy of the

unknown, what is certain is that Gordon

Brown's huge increases in public

spending and state control, occurring

within his constantly changing economic

cycle, bring into question the future of

free-market economics, with bureaucratic,

severely risk-averse banks cutting the

ground from under small businesses,

which are the backbone of our economy.

 

SWIMMING AU NATURALE

Running on empty...

As the UK Serious Fraud Office                                 

continues to uncover more cases of
serious financial wrong-doing, those
in the US are interestingly resonant

of of a passage from J K Galbraith's
The Great rash 1929.
"To the economist, embezzlement is
the most interesting of crimes. Alone
among the various forms of larceny,
it has a time parameter. Weeks,
months, or even years may elapse
between the commission of the crime
and its discovery. (This is a period when
the embezzler has his gain and the man
who has been embezzled feels no loss).

"At any given time there exists an
inventory of undiscovered
embezzlement and it amounts at
any moment to many millions of
dollars. It also varies in size with
the business cycle. In good times
people are relaxed, trusting and
money is plentiful.

"In these circumstances
embezzlement grows, the rate of
discovery falls off and the bezzle
increases rapidly. In depression all
this is reversed. Money is watched

with with a narrow suspicious eye.

Audits are penetrating and meticulous

and the bezzle shrinks."

Warren Buffett once famously
remarked that it is only when the tide
goes out that you discover who's
been swimming without clothes.

VIVAT REGINA ELIZABETHA!

Age shall not wither her, nor stain her infinite variety.  

  

Queen Elizabeth celebrates the
sixtieth anniversary of her coronation
on 6th June. Her matchless performance 
of selfless dedication to the nation are
indeed a reminder of the value of the
hereditary principle.

In these troubled times, the Queen
symbolises the value of continuity
provided by a constitutional monarchy,
untainted by the rough trade of politics.

Since the time of Magna Carta, the
paradox of our royal dynasty co-existing
with the progressive, democratic rights
of man has always defied rationality.

However, what is clear to everyone,
except the republicans, is that the
monarchy is a unifying influence,
promoting harmony in our complex,
multi-cultural communities, which
reflect the global reach of Britain's
imperial past.

We gain immeasurably from an
unpoliticised head of state.Those who
say otherwise should be careful of
what they wish for.

Queen Elizabeth: age shall not
wither her, nor stain her infinite
variety.

A COALITION OF COMPROMISE



Policies are not necessarily formed in the cerebral cortex.

The Chancellor's travails over how to
squeeze more from less in the public

sector reminds us that when sorrows

come they come not as single spies

but in battalions.

Each Tory compromise to appease 

Nick Clegg increases the muddle and 

likelihood that Ed Miliband and those

all too familiar names that spell disaster

will form the next government.

This they will hope to do with the

possible support of the potentially

politically promiscuous rump that is

the Liberal Democrats.

Polling just 11% in opinion polls, it's

a case of the tail wagging the dog, of 

George Osborne attempting to achieve

the impossible with one hand tied

behind his back.   

The daily confusion that is damaging

the Conservatives and the country

comes from inconsistencies that can

arise in a political marriage of

convenience.

It is a coalition that is beginning to

resemble a pantomime horse, with

policy and strategy formed not in

the cerebral cortex, but more at the

rear end.

ECONOMY - ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Liam Byrne - "There's no more money..."

George Osborne's task of balancing
the Government's books by seeking

a further 10% reduction in

departmental budgets is made even

more difficult by those within, who

are hostile to the concept of a

right-of-centre government and the

free market economy. 

As one former Labour minister

revealed, there was collusion

between Labour ministers and civil

servants to get as many contracts

as possible signed off before the

last general election. Its success

in achieving this can be summed

up by a note left by former Labour

minister, Liam Burn, to his Coalition

successor; 'There's no money left,

it's all gone'. It certainly had - an

annual surplus in public finances

when Labourtook office in 1997

becoming an annual deficit of

over £170bn by the time of the

election in 2010.  

Vince Cable also remarked " I

fear that a lot of bad news has

been hidden and stored up for the

new government." The £38.8bn of

waste identified could have been

just one example of the many fiscal

elephant traps set by union-financed

Labour to ruin the Coalition's

economic policy in the lead up to

the 2015 election.

It is, of course, quite possible that

such a mindset is part of a wider

pattern with regard to the leaders

of other groups, whose unrealistic

pay demands are manifestly not in

the national interest, but part of a

political strategy.

There are those on the Left who call
for legal accountability for the
directors of publicly-quoted
companies. This clearly already
exists under the Companies' Act
and the penalties are severe,
unlike in the public sector, where
there are no such sanctions.

APPOINT ON MERIT, NOT QUOTAS

Feminists who periodically raise the of
female quotas in senior appointments might
well ask what Margaret Thtcher's viewa
would have would have been on positive
discrimination, gender quotas, all-female
shortlists.The answer to the feminist lobby
from the greengrocer's daughter from
Grantham would, of course, have been
entirely unequivocal. She was the
ultimate role model of what can be
achieved by anyone, man or woman,
from any background, through applied
intelligence, determination and clarity of
vision.

Those who think otherwise often point to the

so-called glass ceiling, which can be an

expression of a desire for preferment on the

grounds of gender, rather than merit. Such a

notion does not bear scrutiny in these

challenging economic times when talent,

wherever it exists, is the most critical

determinant for restoring the country's

fortunes.

As Mrs Thatcher remarked "Remember,
everything is achievable if you work hard
at it." - a sentiment with which the record
number of women who are being appointed
to Britain's boadrooms would doubtless agree.