Shoemaker makes Shoes: Something that does not apply to the present government

When you have people who have never ever been in business and don't have a clue about running a business, when you have people making decisions about farming when the closest they have been to managing a farm is standing near the shelves of a supermarket, you know that the country is in trouble.

Ideology does not replace knowledge and expertise, but we have got politicians driven by blind ideology deciding what is best for the country. So, if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong.

First thing you learn about economics is that the closest the factory is to raw materials the lower production costs will be, but then comes Ed Miliband and decides to prevent new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea.

How old was he when Britain was going over the edge because of lack of oil and gas? In the 1970s, Britain was saved by the discovery of oil and gas in the North Sea, but now the all knowledgeable Marxist politician wants to prevent any more exploration for oil and gas.

Britain buys already too much foodstuff abroad so reducing the number of farms on British soil will force Britain to buy even more foodstuff abroad as population keeps growing. What does Labour do? Implements tax measures that will put more and more farms out of business thus reducing production in the United Kingdom.

Every step of the way, Labour policies are based on ignorance, ideological hatred and misconceptions and the alternative is, as it always have been, to borrow more and to produce less. When Labour talks about growth, Labour is not talking about economic growth. Labour is talking about indebtedness growth. And then when they can borrow no more, they will propose massive cuts that will leave people ever poorer.

The consequences of economic mismanagement will be worse than the Covid Pandemic and the energy crisis combined and this could become a very long Winter of Discontent that will end up with tears, and even spilt blood.

The Truth shall set you free: You cannot promise salary increases and all kinds of improvements without putting up taxes, borrowing or both borrowing and putting up taxes

 

As July 4th 2024 approaches, both of the main contenders in the UK General Election are promising cakes and promising that you can eat your cake, and that you will have the same cake after eating it. They will have to put up taxes and borrow ever more and most probably print monies in what has been known as 'quantitative easing'. 

The Unions are already making noises and saying that they will request that promises made by Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves are delivered. She has already spoken about salary increases in the public sector and this includes the most fundamental services like the NHS, the biggest employer in Europe and possibly the biggest employer in the world.

July 4th, 2024 happens to be Independence Day in the USA, but in Britain it might become Dependence Day if prices get out of control and people end up seeing the buying power of their income reduced. The Covid Pandemic and the energy crise generated by geopolitical decisions kicked in inflation and force the Bank of England to put up interest rates, but in spite of interest rate rises prices paid for basic items of the family basket are high and rising. How much people need to earn to have a roof over their heads? How much do they need to earn to feed themselves properly?

Funny to see on the pages of The Guardian comments about working families and pensioners as if they were part of different species. The reality is that more and more people already retired are returning to work to make ends meet and therefore they are part of working families. Most people could not possibly survive if their sole income was a pension.

ULEZ: London ULEZ has national repercussions

With London being the capital city and with millions of people coming to London for all sorts of reasons, the impact of ULEZ will be felt nationwide. People from far across the United Kingdom will be impacted and this has severe connotations for all involved.

Think about commercial transportation and this includes food supplies coming to London. If transport companies have to pay for every single vehicle that comes to London every single day then the cost will reach consumers with the speed of light. People have been complaining that food prices in shops and supermarkets are going skyhigh.. Well, from the day ULEZ is implemented those prices are going to go up, making London a very expensive city to live in. This is actual inflation. The pint of milk that farmers get very little from is going to be more pricey. Distributors will not lose any money. They will just pass the cost onto customers.

If driving electric vehicles is going to be charged by the mile then, yet again, costs will go up. And then you add up all additional costs. Parking spaces, parking permits, commercial permits for companies working in London. If you come from Surrey or anywhere else in the UK and you come to work in London, you will have to pay all additional costs. The loft conversion or refurbishment that you have been saving for will be a lot more expensive. What about gas, electricity, water, telephones and Internet? If service companies have to pay to move around London, they are going to pass the costs to you. Energy costs migth be going down, but as taxes go up the savings of lower energy costs will be lost several times - and especially because bringing fuel into London will cost more. Fuel is transported with tankers and if driving a tanker into London costs more then the cost will be added to you fuel bill. If electricity prices go up, then driving your vehicle is going to be more expensive.

Wherever we look at, there is a multiplier effect. How much in terms of salary rises will people need to have to afford to live in London? And even if you don't live in London, but you need to come to London, then you will have to be able to afford it.

What about key staff that commute? What about hospital restaurants? If transportation goes go up, the National Health Service will have to charge extra to feed its own staff that the moment eat with subsidized prices. 

The impact impact of ULEZ is massive and it goes well beyond London boundaries.

 

Permacrisis: new word officially added to the English language

From now on, we live in a state of permacrisis or permanent crisis. The word has been officially added to the English language. Events of the last two years and whatever is there to come more than justify the new addition. 

Despite the fact that the BBC, Sky and other media constantly fail to report what is happening not just in Britain but also abroad and especially in Continental Europe (for whatever reason they choose to 'blackout' the news and fail in their duty of care), Europe as a whole is in crisis. In Spain, hundreds of thousands went to the streets to demand better healthcare in Spain. The situation is critical due to mismanagement and lack of medical staff. Strike is the word across Europe. 

Unfortunately, those in power seem to be more interested in geopolitics than in real politics and ordinary people will suffer as a consequence of mismanagement and short-sighted approaches. Politicians appear to be acting first and thinking later, completely oblivious to the consequences of the decisions that they are taking. Some say that we need to cut down taxes to restore financial health. Others say that we need to increase taxes to restore financial health. The summary of it all is, nobody knows with any degree of certainty what is going to happen.

Flipping a coin in the air is all we have left to do. As a consequence of it, we are paying enormous amounts of money to people who are just guessing and don't have a clue about what is going to happen. This is Democracy for you. They sit inside a debating chamber, make a few speeches about things they know nothing about and we have to accept political gambling because this is what Democracy has become.

The ones making the decisions have little or nothing to lose and it is up to ordinary members of the public to deal with the consequences of their decisions.

Utility bills go up and grocery bills go up and this is very much what leads to inflation. Now, in order to reduce inflation we raise taxes that will make utility bills and grocery bills to go up faster and lead to more inflation, but 'those who know say that increasing utility bills and grocery bills will reduce inflation'. You know that it does not make any sense. You are going to be more often than not completely out of pocket and you will have to cut down vital expenditure or get into additional and higher levels of debt. The most vulnerable stand to suffer most from what is happening but because the most vulnerable stand at the bottom of the pyramic there is a domino effect. Suddenly, the hospitality sector detects that less and less people are using their services because they cannot really afford to use their services. Balance sheets go into the red and unemployment raises its head. Not only that, is the hospitality sector suffers others sectors that provide services to the hospitality sector suffer and follow a similar paths. More unemployment is added to the pile and tax receipts start falling. So the Chacellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt MP has formally declared that Britain is in recession and recession means that from now on unemployment is guaranteed.

Paralizing the economy with more and more taxes, fuelling inflation while not promoting added economic activity, will lead us to a permacrisis with higher levels of debt, unemployment and social ills. Before we had health lockdown. Now we will have economic lockdown leading to social breakdown and political instability.

  

 

British Farming: 70% of Britain's land mass is dedicated to farming

Farming is done on 70% of Britain's land mass and this is not little achievement.

There are about 220 farm holdings in the United Kingdom, raging in size from 20 hectares to 100 hectares. But despite highly skilled farmers, advanced technology, the high quality of soil and financial subsidies, the income farmers receive in low due to market prices, the cost of land and the scarcity of land for rental.

The age average of farm holders is 59 and this is why it is vital to keep people in agriculture. The total area devoted to agricultural holdings is about 171 thousand square kilometres and this rises to about 180 square kilometres if we include areas devoted to grazing.

British farming is heavily mechanised and intensive but given the size of Britain's population the country cannot meet food requirements and much of the food consumed in United Kingdom has to be imported.

The lion in terms of agricultural yield is England because in Wales 80% of farmland is classified as Less Favoured Area (lower agricultural yield) and the percentage of less fertile lands rises to 84% in Scotland.

In fact, the country produces barely 59% of the food it consumes and this is happening because of rising population. Therefore, if you wish to make an argument against Flood Immigration, your argument would be 'we cannot afford Flood Immigration because we already are under huge stress to try and feed the population that we already have'.

To counter Liberalism and Marxism, the best argument is built on irrefutable facts and the facts coming from Farming are irrefutable. With the quality of land that we have got and despite the technological advances and know-how, the country should be working on the basis of Zero Immigration, at least.

Seven years ago, the country exported £14 billion worth of food and had to import £32.5 billion worth of food. Therefore, we were £18.5 billion in the red in order to feed those living in Britain. Farming does not seem to appear in the Liberal and Marxist political discourse. Liberals and Marxists look at farmers with disdain because in their minds Farmers are allies of the Ruling Elites or of the rich landowners, when in fact the country depends on farming for its own survival and very often farmers have to struggle to stay afloat. It must be said that most of what Liberals and Marxists know about farming is what they see when they visit a local supermarket.

"We need more housing, they say. We must build more houses." Why? To keep bringing in more and more people that will destabilise even more what is already a very precarious existence. If the land cannot sustain a bigger population, then population should be reduced towards the production optimum. If we can only manage to produce about 59% of the food the country needs, this means that the country is grossly over-populated.