Let the Earth breathe .. Wouldn't it be lovely if ..

Who do you believe?  part 1 Wouldn’t it be great if all that we read or heard was written honestly, and declared the agenda of the person writing it? There is a great line going around now that says the best-informed people in the USA are those that do not buy newspapers or watch TV!    These people listen, watch, reflect and then make up their own minds. The BBC is universally known for its’ balanced reporting.   Yes, it does get attacked by the Right wing for being too socially biased, and Yes, it does get attacked by the Left wing for being too elitist.   It somehow must be there or there abouts. Therefore, when you hear or read a report from the BBC the journalist and source is invariably named.   And in those occasional times when they are reporting on rumour/briefings the BBC makes it absolutely clear that the source is un-named, but how I wish they would not give in to these briefings and solely report what has actually been announced.   By doing such un-named

Re-righting the Role of Companies and Other trading entities Wouldn’t it be nice if trading companies had a social purpose, in addition to making profits for their shareholders? The legal entity of a company was established about 400 years ago as trading routes opened up across the world.   The limited liability status was added in the early 1800s.   Since then the role of the company has been the primary form of wealth generation by manufacturing, transporting, and selling goods and services. There has probably never been a time when all of the stakeholders were allocated a share of the profits i.e. after the owners paid the lowest amount they could to the workers, then they kept the remainder.   Maybe now is the time for this to change. However, since the proliferation of tax havens in the early 20 th Century, the manipulation of profits and taxation has become an industry in itself, and to some has become a completely acceptable face of capitalism.   Indeed, most

Wouldn’t you LOVE ACTUALLY to choose how much tax you want to pay? Wouldn’t it be nice if every company paid the UK tax that ‘the hard-working man/women’ would expect them to pay? In 2019 Google avoided paying its estimated £1,500m tax bill, and instead paid just £67m.   Amazon did the same paying just £220m against its’ estimated £2,000m tax bill.   Likewise, Facebook. How did they do achieve this?   Well they did nothing illegal, but who might you guess has been resisting tightening the tax rules.   Well, it is the old-style ruling elite bunch of politicians.   Yes, the same ones that brag about looking after the ‘hard working’ people of the UK, despite putting them through Austerity for 12 years. Two tricks are commonly employed.   Firstly, these companies book sales in the UK through a lower tax regime country.   For example, Amazon book all sales via their Luxembourg subsidiary.   Secondly, they transfer ‘in’ costs not incurred in the UK or for their benefit of the UK oper

A Letter from Africa Wouldn’t it be nice, if when we look back on 2020, we see that the ‘Rich T’ (Rich T being the 3 territories that have 81.6% of the World’s wealth of North America, Europe and Chine/Japan) responded to not only their own Country’s needs, but all were generous to the Poorest of the Poor. This letter arrived on Monday. *** Dear Kevin. We are incredibly grateful for all the blessings on us, but times are very hard here in The Gambia. We ran out of normal food 2 weeks ago, and I have been feeding my girls on roots, and any scraps that I can gather.   We hear that there is a small amount of rice held here by the EU AID team, but there is not enough to feed us all.   There is also a problem with food deliveries. We were put into lock-down 5 weeks ago, and all emergency and government services have stopped.   Some small shops can stay open, but the shelves are almost empty.   When our staple food of rice is available, the price has risen by about

The Role of the UN – How to end Wars and Oppression Wouldn’t it be great if countries resolved differences by referring disputes to the UN, without a single weapon having to be fired? There are still several regional disputes e.g. Palestine/Israel and Yemen/Saudi Arabia, and whilst it is sad to hear of the deaths of soldiers, it is usually the weak, poor and vulnerable that suffer most.   Children with no means of lifting a hand and asking for help. If we wanted to, we could work on the following 8 point plan to enable the disgraceful tolerance of wars outside of the big 3 territories (3T North America, Europe and China/Japan), and the vast expenditure by the 3T in ‘defending’ themselves.            1.  Agree a UN Charter that establishes the limits of every Country’s powers, and expectations of how Leaders rule their country, especially if oppressive power is abused.   There needs to be acceptance that the UN decision is final, albeit challenges can be mounted say ev

Quantitative Easing?  Nurses take note of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Wouldn't it be great if those that controlled us, were honest about their intentions? Let's also bring forward one of the main points discussed below.  Nurses have seen a real fall of 13% in their wages over the last 11 years.  Whilst at the same time the number of UK billionaires has almost quadrupled to 151 and their combined wealth has increased 3.5x by £438,000,000,000 to £605bn.  A tad shocking eh ?  So much for All In It Together.  Quantitative Easing (QE) is a bit of a mouth full, but let’s take away some of mystery. UK Gilts-These are issued by the Debt Management Office within the Treasury and are intended to fund Government shortfalls in revenues over expenditure.  These are sold into the wealth market and the Government receive cash to finance their shortfalls. The Bank of England (BoE) has been buying these gilts since 2009 in exchange for cash, called QE.  This cash is n