Volcanic Ash Compensation – absolutely not

Apr 202010
 

No compensation should be paid by governments for costs and loss of business caused by the recent volcanic ash emitted from a volcano in Iceland.

Those who are affected personally and as a business would be too long a list even if it were correct to do so.

Airlines have so far, the loudest voices, but let’s look at all those who would “deserve” compensation for losses, in addition:
Cheese importers in Japan, flower growers in Kenya, hotel and travel company owners in Crete, Mallorca, Sicily, Lisbon, and hundreds of other regions towns and villages across Europe, business start-ups worldwide, business travelers and their employers, individuals and individual families, the list goes on and on.

Governments could not even print (even though they love printing) enough money to compensate all who have a “right” to compensation – a “right” just as much as airlines or any other entities.

What government can do is adopt patient and sympathetic policies to individuals and businesses (of every size) whose possibly fragile existence before ash reached the skies, was already challenged and in some cases will now reached the end of an inelastic rope.

Anyway – I want my share too!

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On ash, debts and volcanoes – oh Iceland

Apr 162010
 

Oh Iceland

Now we receive your ash

After that big spending bash

You won’t pay back the lenders

We can smell the sulfur in the air

Why turn us all bear

The sky is grey

The airlines stay

Upon the ground

What no snow

No fog

No ice

can do

Your ash has won the weapons run

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The best choice for Britain we endorse Cameron

Apr 062010
 

When the man who presided over the inception of recession and who spent Britain heavily into debt even when the country was in growth and bubbling prosperity phase says “The people of this country have fought too hard to get Britain on the road to recovery to allow anybody to take us back on to the road to recession,” – you know he maketh no sense…just nonsense. These were the words of Gordon Brown – the man who can bring a country down.

Let David Cameron show his worth and let us also keep an eye on him, urge him on, let the party which “should” be a little closer in taking us towards free enterprise, invention, creativity, discovery and prosperity take the reigns.

Any old fool can spend. But few take the time to build, to be bold, to lead and look forward. We know the fool, we are not sure about the new guy – but it’s a better bet than the Big Brother embracing, spend-out-of-your-pocket controlling creature of the past.

So we endorse David Cameron as the next Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – with our support comes a watchful eye, and a warning – so not be mealy-mouthed, do not be wishy-washy but lead and restore the liberties of a country of liberty, encourage enterprise amongst the nation of shopkeepers, have the strength to stand back and let the people prosper and remove the cancerous tendrils of diseased government meddling.

Upon England’s green and pleasant land.

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Wish 2010

Jan 192010
 

May this be a big year
Let it be a special year
Make it a splendid year for you
In some way – you can
And once decided
You will!

Me too!

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Greetings true, greetings new

Dec 242009
 

Oh yes, Merry Christmas
You have been selected
Oh and a Happy New Year
You could be elected
Oh do say it now be true and be you

We have freedom in our hearts
We have truth in mind

Don’t eat too many tarts
These words are really kind

Oh yes, see the road as clear
It’s always a change when the date is changed
We know what is good and we know what is not

Have a good repast
What is better can be bested
Say goodbye to – every day – at least one fear

Now, you can proceed in fabulously good cheer !

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Voting for the ones you do not want – Greece falls again

Oct 082009
 

Hardly anyone, perhaps nobody, got what they wanted in Greece in last weekend’s national elections.

Only a brain-dead bacteria who has spent more than a few year’s in Greece could imagine that anyone really “wants” the new government and its politicians in power.

Greeks voted against the previous New Democracy government in large part because of the total lack of action at a time of nation-wide enthusiasm for change and improvement, a touch of honesty in a dishonest country. Kostas Karamanlis and his party failed more miserably than any failure in the past century to do anything, to lift a finger, to even twitch, towards the changes in a rotten state which they had been given a mandate for by a small majority of voters.

They had a chance those few years ago to erase some of the granite mountains, the marble walls of insane bureaucracy that prevent most progress, enterprise and signs of real life in a corrupt, nepotistic society. They acted not at all. They acted as if men of marble, or like frightened feeble creatures. They inspired not one bit, they disappointed very much. They showed courage and leadership, not at all.

Greeks live in a self-delusion that the one or two cousins in each extended family who are given favours by the party or candidate they vote into power makes up for the brutally incompetent, rude and ignorant majority of public sector employees who impoverish their daily lives, monetarily, spiritually and emotionally. A vastly inflated number are employed by the public sector, paid for out of the pockets of those who actually work and pay taxes. A number which should be swiftly cut in half (or more).

The country has close to no sense of enterprise en mass. The young are generally taught that any type of success is ill-gotten and not earned by effort, intelligence, use of imagination, courage, or effort – something also believed by far too large a number of adults.

The only way the country will rise above being a huge disappointment (occasionally diluted by a huge dollop of misplaced national pride) to all, is when Greeks decide to “own” their country again. To refuse to suffer the indignities and pathetic incompetence of their civil servants, to throw rotten tomatoes at the corrupt officials and members of parliament, to refuse to vote for a candidate just because he promises to pave the road up to their house, or promises to place their son in a public sector job with lifetime tenure (but surprise, surprise, a lifetime of wasteful pointlessness is the unseen freebie that goes as part and parcel of public sector employment in Greece). It will rise when an ingredient of being a successful politician is at least, the perception of being honest and forthright (currently no-one but a fool considers any politician in Greece to be honest until proven other than bent and gnarled by perverse dishonesty).

Time to wake up? There is always a new day, always a chance for better, brighter futures….perhaps you owe it to your children whom you claim to love so much, what about their futures?

Awake from your rotten, stale sleep and pave the way for the sweetest of dreams….a new and better reality.

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Let’s make it simple, let’s make sense

Mar 312009
 

With all the shenanigans of governments let’s do one simple thing.
Let us simplify a big aspect of people’s lives.

A flat tax must be introduced in the USA and UK and for my benefit ( ! ) in Greece.

The excessive costs, bureaucracy, angst, agony and time consuming nonsense that has to be born by every individual, certainly every money earner – of interpreting and complying with tax rules and regulations, concessions, allowances, exemptions, exclusions is a waste and it is unnecessary.

One exemption begets an imbalance in the economy which begets a plea for another exemption or special treatment which begets another special treatment or exemption.

A 10-15% tax on all income over a minimum livable level (that of course has to be argued over, debated, defined and decided upon). That’s it, that simple.

No vested interest concessions, no fooling around… a simple let people get on with their lives and do better things idea whose time has come. whose time is now.

The complexity and conflicting, confusing tax structures must go, only a lunatic could have created this monster with endlessly growing matrix, maze and tentacles. A very warped lunatic (sic!).

Why oh why do we all put up with it.

Now – when money itself seems to be at risk of risk of….

Flat Tax, freedom and prosperity built on a solid foundation.

It IS possible.

Say yes to it. embrace it, push it, welcome it and get on with your life – once and for all unfettered by the rising damp, the rot-setting-in nature of politically motivated tax manipulation.

Flat Tax – if you care.

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Timothy Geithner – to be Treasury Secretary ?

Jan 222009
 

Yes.
If you think Timothy Geithner has the right stuff for the job as Treasury Secretary – say yes to his nomination on the condition that he simplifies the US tax code. After all he would have NO excuse for his mistake on his tax return if things were simple – as they should be.

What has not been raised is the obvious. The tax code is laughably (if we can laugh about taxes) complex, if created from scratch to be in its current form only a lunatic could be responsible for such ridiculousness.

Cut out the crap…simplify.

A flat tax. A simple minimum amount anyone can earn without paying any tax on their initial income, then 12% (or similar suitable figure) on everything excluding obvious work expense or business deductions.

The result will be simplicity, a gain in revenue raised (this has happened every time a flat tax at a low rate has been tried), a vast increase in man-hours available for work more productive than for the calculation of taxes, a massive increase in incentive to work, to create, to start new businesses, to invest.

The number of tax officials and tax employees needed would fall, releasing them to more productive and creative employment, costs in paying tax advisers and tax attorneys would almost disappear and this would be a major contribution to national prosperity, to inspiration and enterprise.

So whether Timothy Geithner is confirmed or not – let’s understand this lesson and get some benefit from his error. Progress!

It’s simple…simplify!

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Now Dollar, Now Pound

Jan 112008
 

A thought pops to mind (more than that really, but here goes…).

Now the pound sterling is weakening and the UK economy is showing shaky signs of an overblown whale near sharp rocks, the poor dollar may soon return to its currency-of-the-world status.

The dollar has probably never lost that status amongst those responsible for the biggest money movements, trades, switches and flips around the world. The constant flow of dollar-impoverishing news has just been adding enough fuel to the prevailing winds of a dollar economy (USA) with many cyclical and bubble-formed weaknesses, to keep it in the discount bin at the money supermarkets.

This is very likely to change.

When and why?

If the UK pound sterling continues to show weakness (there are definitely some serious rusting/leaking/structure-failing/wishful-thinking of past years, ingredients which may show up soon, adding to the “”hanging-on-to-the-end-of-a-rope”” housing market…commercial property to follow soon) this will avert some fixed gazes from the US dollar to the pound, relieving or diffusing some of the dollar negativity.

But this alone will not change everything. There are always many wild cards, many unlikely or unpredicted events that could add to or subtract from this direction.

The big change would happen if the old Euro zone countries start to be seen as weak, as suffering from the same maladies or similar-in-effect ones, as the USA and the UK.

In the end the USA has the currency of world trade, has a monumental and dynamic enterprise-fuelled economy with less snuffing-out bureaucracy than all the old European economies And Europe is not isolated by some magic economic airbag, no country is nor are any group of countries.

So if Euro-using countries get some bad press as they one-by-one appear to have problems, if this happens, we then have the UK pound and the Euro looking bad….well, that alone is a huge image-inflating boost for – in contrast – the, yes, US dollar.

A thought.

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