It would be a surprise to most, if not all, the people who know me to hear me agree with George W. Bush but in one instance it is indeed true, however let me qualify that statement before you all pack up in disgust. Bush's famous "You're either with us or against us" was something of a defining moment of a president who attempts to make up in sound-bites what he lacks in intellect. Bush attempts with his use of the word 'us' to galvanise the Western World into an alliance against those 'he' defines as the enemy. The actuality of the 'us' he is using is the US corporate political establishment and when one realises this it becomes a lot easier to see how the polarisation that Bush almost prophesied has in fact come true. The Iraq war has had a practically unprecedented unifying effect on people across the world as normally disparate groups are united in their condemnation of US involvement in Iraq.
It has also unified the violent insurrection against the US aggressor in a way that was not the case when they invaded Iraq in the first place. More and more the US has put itself up as a target to be shot at, Blair as Bush's faithful poodle has been happy to lead Britain down the same path and there are increasing signs in Basra that the attempts to project a harmonious relationship in the British sector are far from the truth.
According to former US diplomat Peter Galbraith - in Jan 2003 Bush invited 3 members of Iraqi resistance to watch Superbowl with him. During this meeting these 3 realised that Bush was not aware at this point that there was a difference between Shia and Sunni Muslims. Whilst this is unsurprising that Bush himself is so ill-informed it seems staggering that none of his advisors had sought to rectify the fact. Galbraith goes on that since most people do not consider themselves Iraqi before they consider themselves Sunni or Shia or Kurd the idea of forming a united Iraq is Mission Impossible. We must not forget that Iraq is a modern construct of territories in Mesopotamia and Kurdistan, their is no sense of long handed-down national identity like we know in Europe. Suffice to say it was a mess the British made last time they buggered about with it. Much the same can of course be said for Palestine and Ireland!
In March 2003 US war planners met to discuss the practicalities of the ousting of Saddam - Phase 4c for reconstruction of Iraq had not nearly as much depth as Phase 3 which was combat, which is curious when you think that the vastly superior US military should have had little problem overcoming the Iraqi resistance in the initial phases of a rebellion, and certainly if the propaganda was true and the Iraqis would be welcoming the US with open arms then there would be little insurgency thereafter.
However it would be wrong to assume that it was only in the US that such idiocy was going on. On the eve of the invasion Toby Dodge of London University gave a likely case scenario to the Labour government which in fact detailed almost exactly what did indeed happen based on the historical precedent as well as the prospected operations. George Joffe of Cambridge University had similar meeting, whilst Joffe tried to explain the potential problems of such an attempt to follow the Americans in their crusade against Saddam, Blair responded “...but he’s evil isn’t he?” And this appeared to be enough justification for him.
Whether simply ridiculous naivety or a calculated facade, US expectation was that they would be met by rejoicing in the streets of Baghdad and Basra according to Cheney. I have already documented a quote that was reported by journalists at the time the US forces moved into Iraq where one Iraqi man in response to the journalist's question "Are you pleased to see the Americans come to liberate Iraq" stated "Americans, Saddam, we don't care who as long as you bring peace." This tempers the euphoria somewhat. It also goes some way to explain the situation now.
The reality in Iraq is not exactly what the US and UK administration flanked by their 'embedded' media acolytes would have us believe. It is, even now still difficult for non-embedded Western reporters to get around in order to report what is genuinely going on in Iraq, embedded journalists whilst having a greater degree of security by virtue of their military escorts get a state department view of events from Washington and London and not Iraq. Journalists like Robert Fisk who are not embedded illustrate that this state department view is either hopelessly out of touch or criminally negligent to the point of being no better than right-wing state-sponsored agit-prop.
Elections and constitutions are “theatrical events staged for US media consumption disregarding everyday state of Iraq for Iraqis” in response to mass civilian casualties one US source stated "Such tragedies only happen because Zarkawi and his thugs are driving around using car bombs." This staggeringly insensitive and ill-conceived notion serves only to elucidate the real feeling of US officials as to the state of Iraq.
The news mentions less the situation currently in Sadr City, as if it has all gone rather quiet. The reality is that the US have left Shia militia in charge, Iraqi police and the US army have “reached agreements” with the Mahdi army the group of Moqtada Al Sadr but they claim these are agreements with local representatives as civilians and not as a massed group. The British have done the same in Basra. The result of this has been to allow fundamentalist Shia leaders to create a political theocracy the like of which has not existed in the region in such a way before. The same situation exists with the Peshmurga in Kurdistan. The US is even trying to negotiate with the Ba’athist militia in areas that are still showing signs of resistance in Baghdad and Fallujah, the same insurgents who, according to US military sources in the media are, working with Al Queda. So much for helping bring democracy to Iraq the US is intent on a quick sell-out. The second part really of what has been a simple ram-raid operation for the oil in the shop window. .
For many Iraqi women the current era marks for the first time them being forced to wear veils etc. and be subjected to a fundamentalist interpretation of Sharia law the like of which in Iran has been the subject of much condemnation by the US and UK establishments. Women are being executed for “prostitution” when this could mean nothing more than suspected adultery. These executions are not of course the result of any recognised judicial proceedings but the rough justice that fundamentalists of any variant are likely to favour.
Peter Oborne, political editor of The Spectator, concluded in a problem for the Channel 4 series Dispatches that the invasion of Iraq has failed. I believe this is far from the case because one has to evaluate what the actual goal of the invasion was.
If one believed, like I suspect Oborne does, that the goal was to remove a dangerous dictator and bring about a Western style democracy in Iraq then yes, it is clear this will not be the end result for Iraq. This seems a rather simplistic and establishment viewpoint on the matter though. Contrastingly if one believed, as I do, that US has no desire to have full functioning democracy in Iraq as this would bring about a stable secular country which would unquestionably constitute far more of a threat to the access to oil for the US and its companies involved in Iraq and beyond. Interestingly the US army operatives in Iraq are not permitted to arrest Al-Sadr despite him being wanted for murder. Al-Sadr, is the perfect young pretender to Saddam, left in place just in case the US army should need a bad guy if the whole Al-Zarkawi story ever falls apart.
This sort of conflict is likely to become ever more likely and ever more desperate as it is clear that the US domestic and foreign policy would far rather cling to the old order based on their dominance and control of oil. This means any country that has oil production or is integral to the stability of an oil producing region is going to have to watch itself for a while lest they find Uncle Sam on the borders. However US power is not what it is and it has already over-reached itself by attempting to fight battles on too many simultaneous fronts hence the debacle in Iraq. It would certainly be foolish to attempt any operations against countries such as Venezuela.
Finally one must not forget that the US never signed up to the International War Times Tribunal nor the International Criminal Court. This gives US operatives whether open or covert carte blanche to commit any acts of atrocity necessary to achieve the military objective whilst undermining the legitimacy and efficacy of the 2 supra-national judicial institutions. That is not to say that the US will not use them to moot out its brand of victor's justice of course as we have seen in the case of Slobodan Milosevic. The US is quite happy to manipulate all sorts of laws to its own ends, for example Rumsfeld was quick to condemn the footage of US captives in Iraq as being contrary to the Geneva Convention. Al Jazeera were quick to point out of course that Guantanamo Bay and the detention of prisoners of war without due process or rights of any kind, the abuses in Abu Gharaib and Baghram, the invasion of a country against the UN security council, if not all directly in contravention of the Geneva Convention they are certainly fundamentally against the very principle.
US operations since the declaration of war on terror have become increasingly more worrying and outside the law. One only needs think of the aforementioned incarceration in Guantanamo Bay, the systematic abuse of prisoners of war in American custody both in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond and I will be covering the strategy of 'extraordinary rendition' later. The CIA operations across the world and the failure of the US to hold any of its active personnel responsible for any conduct is an international scandal. I'm afraid as the US's grip on power rescinds proportional to the oil reserves left in the world we can expect to see more of the US's failure to conform to any standards of decency and humanity. The question only remains, which country will be next on their list?
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Sunday, November 27, 2005
The Health Of Nations - Future Shocks - Part 4
Yes, another of these thorny issues that we have had under constant scrutiny in the media and government is that of healthcare provision. Whether it be the current Labour government seeking to make Messers Atlee and Bevan turn in their grave by the slow dismantling of the National Health Service the 1946 Labour Government established, or the Conservatives who would in their dreams do away with the NHS entirely and seek an insurance system to ensure that their supporters got the best provision available and those that didn't support them were slowly killed off, a sort of Tory political darwinism!
One way we can see that governments completely misunderstand what the public want has been graphically illustrated by Tony Blair responding to questions at the House of Commons liaison committee, (which is made up of the chairmen of all its select committees - rather like the Politburo!) Blair recognises that principle voter concern is that there has been systematic under-investment in public services spanning countless administrations, however he makes a serious misjudgement when he continues, "At the same time, the public is saying: 'If you put more money into these services, we want them to be more responsive to us as consumers'. We should respond to that as a government and do it fairly." This is not people's primary concern about public services, responsiveness and accountabilty are all very important but the most important is that public services provide functioning services and that these should be of the highest calibre only after they have suceeded in that endeavour does it become important for the behind the scenes operations to run smoothly. Blair thinks otherwise, his emphasis is made clear by the statement "The idea is to get to the situation where people see that the money we have put into public services is matched by change and reform," Again this is not the most critical thing in most people's lives. The fact that there is still a postcode lottery and their hospital does not have an A&E department or the specialists it needs will not be assauged for most people even if the Customer Complaints department is second to none. The same is true of services such as libraries, public transport and the like, it is no consolation if you have a shit bus service if the company running it is accountable and responsive.
Now I'll grant you what Blair may be referring to is responsiveness etc. to deal with the provision of a service etc. etc. at least I hope that's what he means beneath that mountain of spin, one can't really know for sure. But herein lies the problem, what the public want more than anything else is not to have to put up with the political bullshit anymore.
I have never quite understood why the focus for healthcare appears to be with far greater weighting on cure rather than prevention. For all the negative aspects of what people perceive as a nanny state one of the areas that could be most easily justified would be a strong attitude on prevention of disease and malaise. If we take the various notions of drug abuse as a prime example one has to be very careful to draw a line between an individual's right to choose how they live their life and the potential drain on the resources of healthcare that this person may be. This line is already drawn in society with the outlawing of certain narcotics and the licensing and taxation of others. At the moment though the individual's right to choose seems more like a euphemism for an abdication of responsibility by the state.
For example, in the case of smoking the government would stand to lose a substantial amount of money were they to genuinely wage war on smoking and treat smokers as proper drug addicts who need to be given rehabilitation. Thus they play a game of cat and mouse whereby tobacco is readily available whilst the areas in which it is permissable to smoke it are whittled down. This is simply unacceptable as it hands initiative to the freedom of choice lobby whilst not offering any defence as to the government acting in the population's best interests.
Rather like the pensions, education and energy issues we are told that there are tough choices to be made and yet it always seems outlined that there is no actual choice and it wouldn't be for us to make it if there were. Hospitals and their departments are still being closed and/or moved. Despite huge opposition there appears to be no way of halting the steady progress to foundation hospitals and an even greater postcode lottery than there is now. Foundation hospitals appear to be a way for governments again to avoid the big issue which is that all the NHS needs funding, not just the shiny fashionable parts of it. Whether or not this is intentionally the precursor to the privatisation of the NHS is not important because the end result is likely to be this anyway especially if after the end of this or the next Parliament the Tories were to get in. The Tories are only of the opinion that the NHS should remain free for as long as they feel they cannot get away with dismantling it. Ideologically they do not stand for free public utilities and therefore to make an exception for the NHS is nothing more than temporary political expediency.
What appears no longer to be en vogue is for every person in the country to have local access to all essential healthcare free at the point of use and this should encompass all everyday forms such as access to General Practice Doctors, Dentists, medicines, homecare for the elderly, paedeatric care for children and accident and emergency services. More specialist care should be provided within at least a regional level, it is perhaps optimistic initially to assume that every hospital in the country would have the specialist cardiac units and orthapedics and the like though this should without question be the goal of a state healthcare system. This is most certainly not the case at present. Access to good general practice is often sketchy with patients having to ring up at a particular time of day along with everyone else that wants to book an appointment with their doctor on that day, it is a first come first served basis there is no dispensation for the type of patient or the seriousness of the complaint. Dental care is so prohibitively expensive that it is impossible for most people to even consider all but the very basic of checkups. Prescription charges are such that I have on many occasions decided that I'll whether the storm of an infection or such like reather than pay £12.50 for 2 sets of tablets. How a parent on low income may cope if more than one child over age 16 comes down with something I don't know.
Again, though what I have just outlined as a 'blue sky' scenario is very much all tailored around a strategy of curing ills rather than stopping them occuring in the first place. Therefore these measures should be in place as a final safety net when all else fails and not an everyday occurance to mop up for the failures in other areas of general health and well-being. It is well known that poverty is a major cause of many very curable diseases, furthermore poor dental hygiene leads to many other problems and general malaise. If poverty is too great a cause for the government to tackle (though heaven knows if the government won't who's job is it?) then why not look at some of the other root causes of problems in order to try to stop them before they start. Smoking, obesity, TB, sexually transmitted diseases, heart disease, addiction-related illnesses and some forms of cancer are far better treated by addressing the causes than having to try to address the symptoms.
So why is this not being done? Tobacco companies make large amounts of money and cigarette sales account for a lot of tax revenue. Fast food companies are also creaming large profits at the expense of the taxpayer as the demands of modern life force people to concentrate less on good food and more on the time it takes for them to eat meals before getting back to work. Big business has a knack of being able to ensure they have enough lobbying pressure not to be legislated against so that sorts out why the first two remain a problem. STDs, heart disease and addiction-related illnesses all require effort to ensure that lifestyles are conducive to health rather than problems and this is clearly not being done. Furthermore the sort of screening programs and equipment that would be required to catch many of these diseases in their infacy are high-cost in the initial stages without yielding profit or often tangible results in the short-term. This is exactly why it is paramount that such things stay in public hands without the introduction of the nature of profit which cannnot have any positive bearing on increasing the likelihood of the prevention of disease.
If the nature of the prevention of disease is taken seriously and invested accordingly over time more and more of the budget will be available into medical and scientific research into diseases for which we currently have no cure. At the moment people are dying all over the world both developed and developing of diseases that are perfectly curable and indeed preventable if only the medication and environment existed to do so. Whilst this travesty persists we will be doomed to be fighting the battle from 3 steps behind and never even making it to the front line.
One way we can see that governments completely misunderstand what the public want has been graphically illustrated by Tony Blair responding to questions at the House of Commons liaison committee, (which is made up of the chairmen of all its select committees - rather like the Politburo!) Blair recognises that principle voter concern is that there has been systematic under-investment in public services spanning countless administrations, however he makes a serious misjudgement when he continues, "At the same time, the public is saying: 'If you put more money into these services, we want them to be more responsive to us as consumers'. We should respond to that as a government and do it fairly." This is not people's primary concern about public services, responsiveness and accountabilty are all very important but the most important is that public services provide functioning services and that these should be of the highest calibre only after they have suceeded in that endeavour does it become important for the behind the scenes operations to run smoothly. Blair thinks otherwise, his emphasis is made clear by the statement "The idea is to get to the situation where people see that the money we have put into public services is matched by change and reform," Again this is not the most critical thing in most people's lives. The fact that there is still a postcode lottery and their hospital does not have an A&E department or the specialists it needs will not be assauged for most people even if the Customer Complaints department is second to none. The same is true of services such as libraries, public transport and the like, it is no consolation if you have a shit bus service if the company running it is accountable and responsive.
Now I'll grant you what Blair may be referring to is responsiveness etc. to deal with the provision of a service etc. etc. at least I hope that's what he means beneath that mountain of spin, one can't really know for sure. But herein lies the problem, what the public want more than anything else is not to have to put up with the political bullshit anymore.
I have never quite understood why the focus for healthcare appears to be with far greater weighting on cure rather than prevention. For all the negative aspects of what people perceive as a nanny state one of the areas that could be most easily justified would be a strong attitude on prevention of disease and malaise. If we take the various notions of drug abuse as a prime example one has to be very careful to draw a line between an individual's right to choose how they live their life and the potential drain on the resources of healthcare that this person may be. This line is already drawn in society with the outlawing of certain narcotics and the licensing and taxation of others. At the moment though the individual's right to choose seems more like a euphemism for an abdication of responsibility by the state.
For example, in the case of smoking the government would stand to lose a substantial amount of money were they to genuinely wage war on smoking and treat smokers as proper drug addicts who need to be given rehabilitation. Thus they play a game of cat and mouse whereby tobacco is readily available whilst the areas in which it is permissable to smoke it are whittled down. This is simply unacceptable as it hands initiative to the freedom of choice lobby whilst not offering any defence as to the government acting in the population's best interests.
Rather like the pensions, education and energy issues we are told that there are tough choices to be made and yet it always seems outlined that there is no actual choice and it wouldn't be for us to make it if there were. Hospitals and their departments are still being closed and/or moved. Despite huge opposition there appears to be no way of halting the steady progress to foundation hospitals and an even greater postcode lottery than there is now. Foundation hospitals appear to be a way for governments again to avoid the big issue which is that all the NHS needs funding, not just the shiny fashionable parts of it. Whether or not this is intentionally the precursor to the privatisation of the NHS is not important because the end result is likely to be this anyway especially if after the end of this or the next Parliament the Tories were to get in. The Tories are only of the opinion that the NHS should remain free for as long as they feel they cannot get away with dismantling it. Ideologically they do not stand for free public utilities and therefore to make an exception for the NHS is nothing more than temporary political expediency.
What appears no longer to be en vogue is for every person in the country to have local access to all essential healthcare free at the point of use and this should encompass all everyday forms such as access to General Practice Doctors, Dentists, medicines, homecare for the elderly, paedeatric care for children and accident and emergency services. More specialist care should be provided within at least a regional level, it is perhaps optimistic initially to assume that every hospital in the country would have the specialist cardiac units and orthapedics and the like though this should without question be the goal of a state healthcare system. This is most certainly not the case at present. Access to good general practice is often sketchy with patients having to ring up at a particular time of day along with everyone else that wants to book an appointment with their doctor on that day, it is a first come first served basis there is no dispensation for the type of patient or the seriousness of the complaint. Dental care is so prohibitively expensive that it is impossible for most people to even consider all but the very basic of checkups. Prescription charges are such that I have on many occasions decided that I'll whether the storm of an infection or such like reather than pay £12.50 for 2 sets of tablets. How a parent on low income may cope if more than one child over age 16 comes down with something I don't know.
Again, though what I have just outlined as a 'blue sky' scenario is very much all tailored around a strategy of curing ills rather than stopping them occuring in the first place. Therefore these measures should be in place as a final safety net when all else fails and not an everyday occurance to mop up for the failures in other areas of general health and well-being. It is well known that poverty is a major cause of many very curable diseases, furthermore poor dental hygiene leads to many other problems and general malaise. If poverty is too great a cause for the government to tackle (though heaven knows if the government won't who's job is it?) then why not look at some of the other root causes of problems in order to try to stop them before they start. Smoking, obesity, TB, sexually transmitted diseases, heart disease, addiction-related illnesses and some forms of cancer are far better treated by addressing the causes than having to try to address the symptoms.
So why is this not being done? Tobacco companies make large amounts of money and cigarette sales account for a lot of tax revenue. Fast food companies are also creaming large profits at the expense of the taxpayer as the demands of modern life force people to concentrate less on good food and more on the time it takes for them to eat meals before getting back to work. Big business has a knack of being able to ensure they have enough lobbying pressure not to be legislated against so that sorts out why the first two remain a problem. STDs, heart disease and addiction-related illnesses all require effort to ensure that lifestyles are conducive to health rather than problems and this is clearly not being done. Furthermore the sort of screening programs and equipment that would be required to catch many of these diseases in their infacy are high-cost in the initial stages without yielding profit or often tangible results in the short-term. This is exactly why it is paramount that such things stay in public hands without the introduction of the nature of profit which cannnot have any positive bearing on increasing the likelihood of the prevention of disease.
If the nature of the prevention of disease is taken seriously and invested accordingly over time more and more of the budget will be available into medical and scientific research into diseases for which we currently have no cure. At the moment people are dying all over the world both developed and developing of diseases that are perfectly curable and indeed preventable if only the medication and environment existed to do so. Whilst this travesty persists we will be doomed to be fighting the battle from 3 steps behind and never even making it to the front line.
Friday, November 25, 2005
No Exploitation Without Education - Future Shocks - Part 3
No looking to the future series would be complete without a look at the real future, namely the generations to come, our children and their children. The perils that are facing them across the world are magnified by virtue of the fact that even before they have to clean up our mess they must first navigate the education system, and this is for those that have that as an option let alone the millions without adequate food and water.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation has just published a report saying that the 1996 targets of halving the number of the starving by 2015 will not be met. At present 6 million children die every year from malnutrition or starvation, many deaths are actually caused by diseases like diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia, but victims would survive if they were not already weakened by a lack of food. At the present rate of development only South America and the Caribbean are on course to meet Millennium Development Goal targets. The FAO reports estimate that 852 million people were undernourished during 2000-2002. In fact the proportion of those in sub-saharan Africa has risen from 170.4 million around 1990 to 203.5 million, which makes something of a mockery of the gesturing of the G8 leaders at the summit in Edinburgh last summer.
In Uganda in 1997 primary education was made free and the primary school population rose from just under 3 million to over 7 million almost overnight. However secondary school is not free and costs around 60,000 Shillings (around £20) per term. This is around 6 weeks wages for the average Ugandan, which is more than enough for earning parents let alone parents who are ill with HIV/AIDS or TB and that doesn't begin to cover the orphans. The fees cannot be waived because if they are the schools do not have the money to pay the teachers who generally are paid months in arrears.
Children not educated in secondary school are likely to become domestic servants. Female "housegirls" are like as not to be used for sex. Ugandan schools therefore witness a sight alien to those of us in the west, where students are trying to break into school rather than out. Hardly surprising when it is considered that school fees not only comprise the access to education and a future but also include a meal at lunchtime, in a country where 23% of the population are malnourished.
To see some of these children talk about how important school and education is for them one cannot help but feel that for every one who is unable to go a spark of hope is snuffed out. It's not as if children in Uganda don't have enough to worry about 100,000 children in Uganda alone die of malaria every year. In Africa as a whole a child dies of malaria every 30 seconds. Malaria has killed more people throughout history than all the other causes of human death put together. There may not be a quick fix for such a disease because simple antibiotics and the like will only be effective for a certain period of time before the disease mutates and develops resistance.
It is easy to think that it is just in the developing world where this burgeoning education system requires investment to allow it to benefit the whole population in time and over the generations. This would be a false assumption and either a naive or an arrogant one were one to properly examine our education system in the West. Here the social and financial apartheid of the state and private school systems creates division almost as soon as it is possible to do so. Some local authorities have good nursery education but free nurseries do not start in Britain until age 3. Well-off parents of course have the option of sending children to often facility-rich private nurseries which are often the only institutions pre-secondary school to offer a modern language. At primary school level the postcode lottery comes to the fore again. Offsted reports are scrutinised for every primary school in an area and the good ones affect house prices of the catchment area drastically, once again favouring the more affluent.
Of course results in primary school are seen as the best indication of progress and potential for future direction. Britain's schools do not respond well to non-conformity of any kind, most of the state schools do not have the resources to, and the private schools can choose children that don't exhibit it in order to keep the results high and overhead costs low. Of course the better the school the greater the likelihood of a broader range of subjects and sporting facilities etc. The broader the range of subjects on offer the increase in chances that a pupil be given the opportunity to find ones that s/he excels in. Aptitude generally leads easily to success in schools whilst students offered a narrow selection are far more likely to respond with ambivalence.
I have raised the question many times before of who benefits if all children get the best quality of education? It is not just the child nor even the parents but the whole of society, the more children whose aptitude can be assessed the greater the possibilities that they can find a direction that is of interest and benfit to them in later life and this will invariably lead to them feeling more part of society and society gaining the more for such. The inequitous state of education in this country and others like it is a national and international disgrace. That in the 21st century we are unable to adequately guarantee a good and consistent level of education to every child in the land should be something that shames every government that leaves office with the situation unresolved.
In the West currently there is ever more disenfranchisement from society as the education system fails more and more people within it. If one is not of academic normality and this can mean too compentent as not gifted in this area, the education system has little option. To add insult to injury we have been taught over many generations to prize academic excellence above all other and thus for those who fulfill it the possibilities are far greater than for those who do not. One could be the best mechanic in the country but would receive less plaudits from most than a mediocre Dr. On account of the postcode lottery even the academically gifted have no guarantee of receiving the education that will bring out their talents if their parents are not wealthy. The well-off have rather more options, the academic children can be sent to good private or "public" schools to receive a far better level of education than most state schools can offer, whilst the less academically-able child of rich parents can be sent to the sort of institution thaat will look after its own in order that alumnii can rely on a degree of old school tie support to see them right in later years. Private schools are not bounded by the same curriculum restrictions as state schools and therefore have a far greater degree of autonomy to be able to offer that broader range of subjects that can mean so much. Thus even the less well-able can prosper if they are born of the well-off and hedge their bets so as not to come across as 'unacademic'.
So, as we have seen in both Africa and Britain the differences are not so great, if you are schooled academically you are perceived as being of greater value than if you are not. This must change across the world, there can be no real progress without it. The weighting of the bookish above the dextrous is holding back the progress of human society. Every child without exception must be provided with the best education possible to provide and the broadest range of experiences, only this way can we tackle ignorance and apathy and create people with both social awareness and social responsibility.
In the light of this, to see hundreds of billions chucked on warfare is tantamount to seeing governments dismantle schools that haven't been built yet. it is our responsibility to reverse that trend.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation has just published a report saying that the 1996 targets of halving the number of the starving by 2015 will not be met. At present 6 million children die every year from malnutrition or starvation, many deaths are actually caused by diseases like diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia, but victims would survive if they were not already weakened by a lack of food. At the present rate of development only South America and the Caribbean are on course to meet Millennium Development Goal targets. The FAO reports estimate that 852 million people were undernourished during 2000-2002. In fact the proportion of those in sub-saharan Africa has risen from 170.4 million around 1990 to 203.5 million, which makes something of a mockery of the gesturing of the G8 leaders at the summit in Edinburgh last summer.
In Uganda in 1997 primary education was made free and the primary school population rose from just under 3 million to over 7 million almost overnight. However secondary school is not free and costs around 60,000 Shillings (around £20) per term. This is around 6 weeks wages for the average Ugandan, which is more than enough for earning parents let alone parents who are ill with HIV/AIDS or TB and that doesn't begin to cover the orphans. The fees cannot be waived because if they are the schools do not have the money to pay the teachers who generally are paid months in arrears.
Children not educated in secondary school are likely to become domestic servants. Female "housegirls" are like as not to be used for sex. Ugandan schools therefore witness a sight alien to those of us in the west, where students are trying to break into school rather than out. Hardly surprising when it is considered that school fees not only comprise the access to education and a future but also include a meal at lunchtime, in a country where 23% of the population are malnourished.
To see some of these children talk about how important school and education is for them one cannot help but feel that for every one who is unable to go a spark of hope is snuffed out. It's not as if children in Uganda don't have enough to worry about 100,000 children in Uganda alone die of malaria every year. In Africa as a whole a child dies of malaria every 30 seconds. Malaria has killed more people throughout history than all the other causes of human death put together. There may not be a quick fix for such a disease because simple antibiotics and the like will only be effective for a certain period of time before the disease mutates and develops resistance.
It is easy to think that it is just in the developing world where this burgeoning education system requires investment to allow it to benefit the whole population in time and over the generations. This would be a false assumption and either a naive or an arrogant one were one to properly examine our education system in the West. Here the social and financial apartheid of the state and private school systems creates division almost as soon as it is possible to do so. Some local authorities have good nursery education but free nurseries do not start in Britain until age 3. Well-off parents of course have the option of sending children to often facility-rich private nurseries which are often the only institutions pre-secondary school to offer a modern language. At primary school level the postcode lottery comes to the fore again. Offsted reports are scrutinised for every primary school in an area and the good ones affect house prices of the catchment area drastically, once again favouring the more affluent.
Of course results in primary school are seen as the best indication of progress and potential for future direction. Britain's schools do not respond well to non-conformity of any kind, most of the state schools do not have the resources to, and the private schools can choose children that don't exhibit it in order to keep the results high and overhead costs low. Of course the better the school the greater the likelihood of a broader range of subjects and sporting facilities etc. The broader the range of subjects on offer the increase in chances that a pupil be given the opportunity to find ones that s/he excels in. Aptitude generally leads easily to success in schools whilst students offered a narrow selection are far more likely to respond with ambivalence.
I have raised the question many times before of who benefits if all children get the best quality of education? It is not just the child nor even the parents but the whole of society, the more children whose aptitude can be assessed the greater the possibilities that they can find a direction that is of interest and benfit to them in later life and this will invariably lead to them feeling more part of society and society gaining the more for such. The inequitous state of education in this country and others like it is a national and international disgrace. That in the 21st century we are unable to adequately guarantee a good and consistent level of education to every child in the land should be something that shames every government that leaves office with the situation unresolved.
In the West currently there is ever more disenfranchisement from society as the education system fails more and more people within it. If one is not of academic normality and this can mean too compentent as not gifted in this area, the education system has little option. To add insult to injury we have been taught over many generations to prize academic excellence above all other and thus for those who fulfill it the possibilities are far greater than for those who do not. One could be the best mechanic in the country but would receive less plaudits from most than a mediocre Dr. On account of the postcode lottery even the academically gifted have no guarantee of receiving the education that will bring out their talents if their parents are not wealthy. The well-off have rather more options, the academic children can be sent to good private or "public" schools to receive a far better level of education than most state schools can offer, whilst the less academically-able child of rich parents can be sent to the sort of institution thaat will look after its own in order that alumnii can rely on a degree of old school tie support to see them right in later years. Private schools are not bounded by the same curriculum restrictions as state schools and therefore have a far greater degree of autonomy to be able to offer that broader range of subjects that can mean so much. Thus even the less well-able can prosper if they are born of the well-off and hedge their bets so as not to come across as 'unacademic'.
So, as we have seen in both Africa and Britain the differences are not so great, if you are schooled academically you are perceived as being of greater value than if you are not. This must change across the world, there can be no real progress without it. The weighting of the bookish above the dextrous is holding back the progress of human society. Every child without exception must be provided with the best education possible to provide and the broadest range of experiences, only this way can we tackle ignorance and apathy and create people with both social awareness and social responsibility.
In the light of this, to see hundreds of billions chucked on warfare is tantamount to seeing governments dismantle schools that haven't been built yet. it is our responsibility to reverse that trend.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Energy Matters - Future Shocks - Part 2
It is November and the weather is getting colder much quicker than anticipated after a fairly mild October by comparison. The cold winter has been forcast for some time so it is not a sudden freak snap.
In spite of this the price of gas per unit has nearly doubled in the last week from 43p to 80p per therm. This is having an obvious knock-on effect to energy companies who will of course pass on these rises to consumers, it is also a potential problem for businesses that rely on gas for production. The chemical industry have already spoken about the possible ramifications of a cold winter meaning jobs will be threatened as production costs rise. Perfect for workers in that industry in the run up to the festive season, there will doubtless be a few parents hoping that their children's wishes for a white Christmas do not come true, at least not this year.
The reason that this is a particular problem here is that where once Britain had a degree of energy self-sufficiency from the North Sea gas an oil pipelines the reserves have been nearly exhausted enforcing the importation of gas from continental Europe. Britain is now considered a net importer of gas. This situation is not one that is likely to recede it is to increase more and more and prolonged periods of cold weather will only serve to exacerbate the problem. We only need look at the US to see what happens in the case of a country with an energy deficit, were there to be any interruptions in the gas pipeline from Europe for any reason it is difficult to see what course Britain would attempt to take in order to preserve the current energy consumption.
There are of course alternatives to gas as a fuel medium, one set of methods has been on the agenda for some time but it would take time, effort and a lot of research money with initially low chance of return and this is why the cause of renewable energy has been lagging behind for decades. There has been far too much pussy-footing around when it comes to the construction of wind farms and the like due to allegedly "aethesthetic considerations". This argument I'm afraid is a non-starter, to be honest the same people complaining about the proposed effects of a wind farm on their environment should be given the option of either having said wind farm or being responsible for generating their own power. New homes should all have modern solar panel fitted as standard and that should be a statutory requirement the same way the type of glass in windows is enshrined in legislation. Modern solar panels work best in bright sunshine but not exclusively they also generate energy from light in general.
We are told that there isn't time to put all the necessary research and development into renewable energies and it has been reinforced by reports this week that in the mind of Tony Blair only nuclear power can best fit the bill in terms of both reducing reliance on fossil fuels and reducing carbon emmissions as per the Kyoto treaty, this is not a very good run-in to the announced review of policy by the government to be completed next year. (The last review was only concluded 2 years ago and had reported that renewable energy and improving efficiency were the best ways to ensure future energy provision was met.) The option of nuclear power seems ridiculous if being discussed for a short-term measure because the costs of building the power stations and obtaining the raw materials are high, it would cost £9 billion to upgrade to retain the current 20% power coming from nuclear rather than ramping down and obviously far more if the percentage is to be increased to lessen the impact of Britain being a net importer of gas. One cannot debate nuclear power without mentioning that the costs both financially and environmentally of the disposal of nuclear waste are astronomical. However the nuclear option does not make sense in the long term either because it too is a power based on the use of a certain material of finite global quantity. Have we learnt nothing from the fossil fuel situation? For us to change from one non-renewable source to another would be a serious policy based on the principle of fingers in the ears and la-la-la I can't hear you!
According to Labour’s Minister for Energy Malcolm Wicks who claims to be ‘Nuclear Neutral’, renewable energy also has a role to play in New Labour's vision, in 2020 20% of energy could be provided by renewable sources. This means that in light of the gradual, becoming ever increasingly steeper, decline of fossil fuels we are, like as not, to end up in the situation of France where nuclear makes up 80% of the electricity production.
Why the change of heart from the Labour party? Let's have a look at some figures and see if we might be able to fathom it: power stations account for 29.7% of the UKs carbon emission (a quarter of this is nuclear) This is only 1/3 of the country's total emission and whilst it is the biggest single contributor there are others that provide cause for concern such as transport at 22% and there hasn't been such a furore about reducing the emissions from this source as there is from power stations. Which is interesting because you cannot break the link between transport and fuel. Whilst we may not have oil power stations and coal buses, I cannot see even this ostrich-like government suggesting we embark on nuclear buses. Government carbon emissions targets for 2010 and 2020 will not be met by renewable alone, so purely in order to meet these targets, which are above those required for Kyoto and not for long-term environmental considerations is nuclear being considered. In fact doubling nuclear power provision would only reduce carbon emissions by 8% and so clearly it's long-term consideration.
Of course Sir Digby Jones and the CBI and Business community support nuclear, let's bear it very much in the forefront of any study that it is a commodity based form of power production, money can be made in all the forms of the process, the supply and distribution of the raw materials to the disposal of the waste. You cannot sell the wind or the sea or the sun and perhaps this is the true reason why renewables have never really been at the top of the political or economical agenda.
It is all very well to chide and look on the fact that we should have acted decades ago to prevent this from becoming the crisis that it unquestionably now will but that does not remove the responsibility to pressurise those in control to change now to lessen the impact of such a catastrophe. It is also important to tackle the issue of targets. Some may say how could I be against targets that are in excess of those required under the Kyoto treaty? To be honest it is all very well to set targets but this has to be based on sustainable solutions, to be using a form of power that is still heavy on emissions albeit slightly less so than the ones we are currently using but where the flip side is that the half-life of the waste has to be safeguarded for generations to come seems not to be a panacea to me. I would far rather an integrated system where we look at the way we live our lives and acknowledge that regardless of how we might like to dress it up we are going to have to radically alter the way we do things. Yes there may be a country like Iraq to be invaded for the oil reserves, even perhaps Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan for the same, or Russia for the gas reserves but at the end of the day IT IS GOING TO RUN OUT IN THE END. That is irrefutable, I haven't even heard the trained chimp disputing that one. Surely then the best solution is the one whereby we generate our electricity by renewable sources and run our transportation systems accordingly to bring them into line. This way we drastically reduce both carbon footprint and dependence on finite resource fuel.
As for nuclear, well, I have to leave that debate with the words of Roger Higman of Friends Of The Earth “Until we’re happy to see Iran doing it, we shouldn’t be doing it.”
In spite of this the price of gas per unit has nearly doubled in the last week from 43p to 80p per therm. This is having an obvious knock-on effect to energy companies who will of course pass on these rises to consumers, it is also a potential problem for businesses that rely on gas for production. The chemical industry have already spoken about the possible ramifications of a cold winter meaning jobs will be threatened as production costs rise. Perfect for workers in that industry in the run up to the festive season, there will doubtless be a few parents hoping that their children's wishes for a white Christmas do not come true, at least not this year.
The reason that this is a particular problem here is that where once Britain had a degree of energy self-sufficiency from the North Sea gas an oil pipelines the reserves have been nearly exhausted enforcing the importation of gas from continental Europe. Britain is now considered a net importer of gas. This situation is not one that is likely to recede it is to increase more and more and prolonged periods of cold weather will only serve to exacerbate the problem. We only need look at the US to see what happens in the case of a country with an energy deficit, were there to be any interruptions in the gas pipeline from Europe for any reason it is difficult to see what course Britain would attempt to take in order to preserve the current energy consumption.
There are of course alternatives to gas as a fuel medium, one set of methods has been on the agenda for some time but it would take time, effort and a lot of research money with initially low chance of return and this is why the cause of renewable energy has been lagging behind for decades. There has been far too much pussy-footing around when it comes to the construction of wind farms and the like due to allegedly "aethesthetic considerations". This argument I'm afraid is a non-starter, to be honest the same people complaining about the proposed effects of a wind farm on their environment should be given the option of either having said wind farm or being responsible for generating their own power. New homes should all have modern solar panel fitted as standard and that should be a statutory requirement the same way the type of glass in windows is enshrined in legislation. Modern solar panels work best in bright sunshine but not exclusively they also generate energy from light in general.
We are told that there isn't time to put all the necessary research and development into renewable energies and it has been reinforced by reports this week that in the mind of Tony Blair only nuclear power can best fit the bill in terms of both reducing reliance on fossil fuels and reducing carbon emmissions as per the Kyoto treaty, this is not a very good run-in to the announced review of policy by the government to be completed next year. (The last review was only concluded 2 years ago and had reported that renewable energy and improving efficiency were the best ways to ensure future energy provision was met.) The option of nuclear power seems ridiculous if being discussed for a short-term measure because the costs of building the power stations and obtaining the raw materials are high, it would cost £9 billion to upgrade to retain the current 20% power coming from nuclear rather than ramping down and obviously far more if the percentage is to be increased to lessen the impact of Britain being a net importer of gas. One cannot debate nuclear power without mentioning that the costs both financially and environmentally of the disposal of nuclear waste are astronomical. However the nuclear option does not make sense in the long term either because it too is a power based on the use of a certain material of finite global quantity. Have we learnt nothing from the fossil fuel situation? For us to change from one non-renewable source to another would be a serious policy based on the principle of fingers in the ears and la-la-la I can't hear you!
According to Labour’s Minister for Energy Malcolm Wicks who claims to be ‘Nuclear Neutral’, renewable energy also has a role to play in New Labour's vision, in 2020 20% of energy could be provided by renewable sources. This means that in light of the gradual, becoming ever increasingly steeper, decline of fossil fuels we are, like as not, to end up in the situation of France where nuclear makes up 80% of the electricity production.
Why the change of heart from the Labour party? Let's have a look at some figures and see if we might be able to fathom it: power stations account for 29.7% of the UKs carbon emission (a quarter of this is nuclear) This is only 1/3 of the country's total emission and whilst it is the biggest single contributor there are others that provide cause for concern such as transport at 22% and there hasn't been such a furore about reducing the emissions from this source as there is from power stations. Which is interesting because you cannot break the link between transport and fuel. Whilst we may not have oil power stations and coal buses, I cannot see even this ostrich-like government suggesting we embark on nuclear buses. Government carbon emissions targets for 2010 and 2020 will not be met by renewable alone, so purely in order to meet these targets, which are above those required for Kyoto and not for long-term environmental considerations is nuclear being considered. In fact doubling nuclear power provision would only reduce carbon emissions by 8% and so clearly it's long-term consideration.
Of course Sir Digby Jones and the CBI and Business community support nuclear, let's bear it very much in the forefront of any study that it is a commodity based form of power production, money can be made in all the forms of the process, the supply and distribution of the raw materials to the disposal of the waste. You cannot sell the wind or the sea or the sun and perhaps this is the true reason why renewables have never really been at the top of the political or economical agenda.
It is all very well to chide and look on the fact that we should have acted decades ago to prevent this from becoming the crisis that it unquestionably now will but that does not remove the responsibility to pressurise those in control to change now to lessen the impact of such a catastrophe. It is also important to tackle the issue of targets. Some may say how could I be against targets that are in excess of those required under the Kyoto treaty? To be honest it is all very well to set targets but this has to be based on sustainable solutions, to be using a form of power that is still heavy on emissions albeit slightly less so than the ones we are currently using but where the flip side is that the half-life of the waste has to be safeguarded for generations to come seems not to be a panacea to me. I would far rather an integrated system where we look at the way we live our lives and acknowledge that regardless of how we might like to dress it up we are going to have to radically alter the way we do things. Yes there may be a country like Iraq to be invaded for the oil reserves, even perhaps Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan for the same, or Russia for the gas reserves but at the end of the day IT IS GOING TO RUN OUT IN THE END. That is irrefutable, I haven't even heard the trained chimp disputing that one. Surely then the best solution is the one whereby we generate our electricity by renewable sources and run our transportation systems accordingly to bring them into line. This way we drastically reduce both carbon footprint and dependence on finite resource fuel.
As for nuclear, well, I have to leave that debate with the words of Roger Higman of Friends Of The Earth “Until we’re happy to see Iran doing it, we shouldn’t be doing it.”
Crisis What Crisis? Future Shocks - Part 1
So there is a pensions crisis over here, there probably is where you are too that is if you are in a country that still has such socially-progressive things and has not some Dickensian workhouse ethic.
It has been reported for some time that things could not continue the way they have been and the options given were simply a) either raise the retirement age, or b) save more money over a longer period of time. Both companies and people are being blamed for not saving enough money, and additionally at fault is the fact that we are supposedly living comparitively longer (as if this is somehow a bad thing) and therefore are more of a drain on the financial resources. Companies are being told to contribute more or the government will be forced to bring in legislation and individuals are being told that they must start saving much more of their income much sooner. It is interesting that the legislative process will clearly be brought into place over the individual before it will be considered for the companies.
OK when it comes to money I have always been kind of short-termist, but then I have never really had the sort of money that would allow me to be otherwise. At the moment I earn what would be classified as a reasonable sum of money for the first time in my life, I am in a job that would be classified as graduate and white collar, it isn't in a higher tax bracket or anything close but most people would think you'd be alright with that as your salary. Now whilst my situation is a little out of the ordinary in so far as I have both children and ostensibly 2 houses to support accordingly not to mention large debts as a result of tertiary education, it is not so unheard of that I am somehow a special case, in fact as time goes on and the cost of University education increses my position will be seen evermore as moderate. And yet paying 6% of my monthly salary into a pension is almost more money than I can afford to be without. So what about those who have similar outgoings to me and only fractionally less money, it must tip them over the edge. And those who have similar outgoings but substantially less income how the hell are they going to manage to be without more of their money?
As for business, well to my mind not agreeing with private industry myself I can to an extent hold my hands up and say well that is always going to be what happens, companies will siphon off what they can to keep the board of directors and investors happy before employees get anything However clearly in the short-term one must look at provision for those who are going to be retiring from such positions within such companies. Of course there are some who's pensions are more than ample. Take the former bosses of the MG Rover group who managed to award themselves pension plans in the multi-millions shortly before the company went bust due to lack of funds. John Towers, the Phoenix chairman, deputy chairman Nick Stephenson, Kevin Howe, its chief executive and directors John Edwards and Peter Beale received salaries totalling £9.7m since they bought Rover. They also set up a pension fund for themselves and their families estimated at between £16.5 and £40 million whilst they controlled the company. It hardly takes an economist to work out why the company didn't have any funds when you look at the salaries of the directors and their pension plans. The workers at MG Rover are in a slightly different state - instead of being offered a share of the assets of £50 million (the pension plan ended £470 million in deficit) they have been offered an ex gratia settlement by the former directors of £5000, however this is not £5000 each which would be precious little enough it is £5000 between them, working out to 82p each. To be honest such a derisory sum is an absolute insult and taken in comparison with the relief package by the taxpayers which is expected to be around £50m one cannot help but think there is something very rotten in the system that this should be allowed to happen.
As I have mentioned in my last post the top 400 company directors in the UK paid themselves £1 billion in pensions last year alone, which illustrates that the Rover example is by no means the exception but the rule. It seems staggering that as the gap between the richest and the poorest continues to grow in the "developed" world the issue of the redressing of the balance by taxation means is not tackled. The same solution exists for the pensions crisis if only the political will did. Ultimately the problem can be broken up as follows: You have a population most of whom will require some form of state pension once they get to retirement age. If as a hypothetical figure we say that of the 75 million in the country 10 million are past the retirement age. If we take as a fair sum to live off in the modern world as £20,000 this would mean one would need £200 thousand million to pay for it. It's a lot of money and yet this is not money that would have to be found instantly if it were planned for properly. A contribution system which most countries in the West employ would be able to cope with this sort of requirement with some ease. Furthermore it is not as if this sort of money isn't pissed down the drain into wars and newer nuclear deterrents and yes, religious institutions if you press me. There's no question the money IS available because if you were to take a simple figure of a working population of 40 million earning an average wage of £10,000 and taxed at 30% this brings in well over £1 billion and therefore more than 5 times the amount needed for pension provision which naturally is just as well for the provision of healthcare and welfare benefits. It is true this is very basic economics using simplified figures for my own understanding rather than any desire to patronise my readership who, I am sure have a greater comprehension of economics than I.
Working longer should not be necessary, even this is an area which fundamentally favours the well-off. Firstly the rich are more likely to have been to university and thus not starting work until their early 20s whilst their life expenctancy is approximately 18 years after the age of retirement whilst in stark contrast the less well-off are more likely to have left school at 16 or 18 and their life expectancy is only approximately 13 years of age after the age of retirement. This means a disparity of anything up to 11 years between the classes. Are we saying in the 21st century that if you are more or not of academic bent that you must work for 50 years until you can rest?
This is not to say that there should not be provision for those that would like to work beyond the age of retirement, it has always struck me as a little ludicrous that I know of many forced to retire against their will whilst the government and financial institutions bash on about us having to work longer in the future. But, sadly in this society we do not see the old as the wizened, experienced mages, holders of our history and what we are indeed to become, instead they are a drain on resources such as the NHS and council housing and national insurance.
It is time now to face up to stark choices. Those in power currently represent the old order, funding fossil fuels, wars to prop up the dominance of the capitalist economic cycle, big businesses and the industrial era. This era will soon be the past the question is will we be ready for it or plunged into chaos due to the inactivity in this area from governments. Whether it be our pensions or energy policy the Western governments have made an error of catacylismic proportions not making any funding or research to safeguard the future. What they seem incapable of grasping is that this is not simply a problem that can be circumvented, the future is going to happen, the question is will we have any idea how to cope with it?
It has been reported for some time that things could not continue the way they have been and the options given were simply a) either raise the retirement age, or b) save more money over a longer period of time. Both companies and people are being blamed for not saving enough money, and additionally at fault is the fact that we are supposedly living comparitively longer (as if this is somehow a bad thing) and therefore are more of a drain on the financial resources. Companies are being told to contribute more or the government will be forced to bring in legislation and individuals are being told that they must start saving much more of their income much sooner. It is interesting that the legislative process will clearly be brought into place over the individual before it will be considered for the companies.
OK when it comes to money I have always been kind of short-termist, but then I have never really had the sort of money that would allow me to be otherwise. At the moment I earn what would be classified as a reasonable sum of money for the first time in my life, I am in a job that would be classified as graduate and white collar, it isn't in a higher tax bracket or anything close but most people would think you'd be alright with that as your salary. Now whilst my situation is a little out of the ordinary in so far as I have both children and ostensibly 2 houses to support accordingly not to mention large debts as a result of tertiary education, it is not so unheard of that I am somehow a special case, in fact as time goes on and the cost of University education increses my position will be seen evermore as moderate. And yet paying 6% of my monthly salary into a pension is almost more money than I can afford to be without. So what about those who have similar outgoings to me and only fractionally less money, it must tip them over the edge. And those who have similar outgoings but substantially less income how the hell are they going to manage to be without more of their money?
As for business, well to my mind not agreeing with private industry myself I can to an extent hold my hands up and say well that is always going to be what happens, companies will siphon off what they can to keep the board of directors and investors happy before employees get anything However clearly in the short-term one must look at provision for those who are going to be retiring from such positions within such companies. Of course there are some who's pensions are more than ample. Take the former bosses of the MG Rover group who managed to award themselves pension plans in the multi-millions shortly before the company went bust due to lack of funds. John Towers, the Phoenix chairman, deputy chairman Nick Stephenson, Kevin Howe, its chief executive and directors John Edwards and Peter Beale received salaries totalling £9.7m since they bought Rover. They also set up a pension fund for themselves and their families estimated at between £16.5 and £40 million whilst they controlled the company. It hardly takes an economist to work out why the company didn't have any funds when you look at the salaries of the directors and their pension plans. The workers at MG Rover are in a slightly different state - instead of being offered a share of the assets of £50 million (the pension plan ended £470 million in deficit) they have been offered an ex gratia settlement by the former directors of £5000, however this is not £5000 each which would be precious little enough it is £5000 between them, working out to 82p each. To be honest such a derisory sum is an absolute insult and taken in comparison with the relief package by the taxpayers which is expected to be around £50m one cannot help but think there is something very rotten in the system that this should be allowed to happen.
As I have mentioned in my last post the top 400 company directors in the UK paid themselves £1 billion in pensions last year alone, which illustrates that the Rover example is by no means the exception but the rule. It seems staggering that as the gap between the richest and the poorest continues to grow in the "developed" world the issue of the redressing of the balance by taxation means is not tackled. The same solution exists for the pensions crisis if only the political will did. Ultimately the problem can be broken up as follows: You have a population most of whom will require some form of state pension once they get to retirement age. If as a hypothetical figure we say that of the 75 million in the country 10 million are past the retirement age. If we take as a fair sum to live off in the modern world as £20,000 this would mean one would need £200 thousand million to pay for it. It's a lot of money and yet this is not money that would have to be found instantly if it were planned for properly. A contribution system which most countries in the West employ would be able to cope with this sort of requirement with some ease. Furthermore it is not as if this sort of money isn't pissed down the drain into wars and newer nuclear deterrents and yes, religious institutions if you press me. There's no question the money IS available because if you were to take a simple figure of a working population of 40 million earning an average wage of £10,000 and taxed at 30% this brings in well over £1 billion and therefore more than 5 times the amount needed for pension provision which naturally is just as well for the provision of healthcare and welfare benefits. It is true this is very basic economics using simplified figures for my own understanding rather than any desire to patronise my readership who, I am sure have a greater comprehension of economics than I.
Working longer should not be necessary, even this is an area which fundamentally favours the well-off. Firstly the rich are more likely to have been to university and thus not starting work until their early 20s whilst their life expenctancy is approximately 18 years after the age of retirement whilst in stark contrast the less well-off are more likely to have left school at 16 or 18 and their life expectancy is only approximately 13 years of age after the age of retirement. This means a disparity of anything up to 11 years between the classes. Are we saying in the 21st century that if you are more or not of academic bent that you must work for 50 years until you can rest?
This is not to say that there should not be provision for those that would like to work beyond the age of retirement, it has always struck me as a little ludicrous that I know of many forced to retire against their will whilst the government and financial institutions bash on about us having to work longer in the future. But, sadly in this society we do not see the old as the wizened, experienced mages, holders of our history and what we are indeed to become, instead they are a drain on resources such as the NHS and council housing and national insurance.
It is time now to face up to stark choices. Those in power currently represent the old order, funding fossil fuels, wars to prop up the dominance of the capitalist economic cycle, big businesses and the industrial era. This era will soon be the past the question is will we be ready for it or plunged into chaos due to the inactivity in this area from governments. Whether it be our pensions or energy policy the Western governments have made an error of catacylismic proportions not making any funding or research to safeguard the future. What they seem incapable of grasping is that this is not simply a problem that can be circumvented, the future is going to happen, the question is will we have any idea how to cope with it?
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