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A plan for Europe...and a future for us all
9th December 2008
There is so much bad news in the economy that I for one have almost been paralysed over the last few weeks and concentrated on writing about technology which on the whole tends to be pretty black and white.
William Blake's Song of Los 1
But the future in terms of economic and to be frank World stability seems very grey rignt now. It seems that even the politicians who normally have plenty to say are just concentrating on arguing what should or should not be done to take away some of the pain right now. But pain is not the biggest problem it is fear. When everyone seems to have got it wrong over the last 5 years across the whole world and no one seems to have any answers to where the bottom is, what the landscape will look like and when we are likely to get there, what can we do?
David Cameron speaking today is just undermining Brown's quick fixes and blaming him for creating FUTURE problems. He does not appear to understand basic economics, and by the way I not sure I do either, because it seems the old rules have failed. Robert Peston as written a brilliant piece on his blog outlining the past 6 months and almost making sense of the whole sorry mess. It does appear, however, that our elected politicians have not yet read this inspired overview.
But tinkering with deck chairs, reducing VAT and fiddling with tax and NI is not the answer. So this is my plan:
I think we need a snap general election in January, as low cost as possible and we then need a coalition government of the best brains all working together. We need to join the Euro currency immediately and start working more closely with Europe on everything.
Starting with energy. We need a European energy plan and policy to create a European Grid linking up all the nuclear power stations and building a new age of sustainable solutions covering wind, wave and solar.
We need to give power to a new central European Super bank and change the rules on debt financing. E.g do not allow it unless the source is known verified and controllable from a European Bank perspective.
Armed forces should become a European controlled solution with a all resources shared and each country contributing to a single managed budget.
The car industry should only be supported if all R&D stops on everything except non fossil fuel based solutions across the whole of Europe
The airline businesses should have pricing controlled and the actual cost of a flight calculated in relation to the true cost of fuel, staff, asset. Any airline that cannot remain competitive should be allowed to fail. There should be one class and one price based on the above. Emmission and noise control should be servere to ensure old planes are taken out of service at the earliest opportunity. No new airports or new runaways should be planned or built- period.
Shipping. All new ships should comply to a european emissions standard and size controlled. A European law on obsolence should be put into law and any fleet owner not complying should not be allowed into European waters.
Railway system should be nationalised and a huge electrification project put in place to remove all diesel locomotives within 5 years.
NHS should remove the Trust system and return to a centralised command and control model with General practitioners paid a fixed salary and the pharmaceutical companies nationalised if they refuse to sell drugs at a price which is deemed unfair.
Schools and further eduction. We should return to a two tier systems rather like the old CSEs and O levels and ensure that students are streamed correctly and given the opportunity to learn pratical skills in more technical based colleges and get away from this idea that every one should spend three years studying for a degree... this is has been nonsense.
Windfall tax. The oil industry should be taxed to return all the money created due to the artificial price increases over the last 3 years. A new European central oil company set up and each country should nationalise their largest oil supplier to join it. This then will have the power to join with the super Euro grid to provide a mixed source energy solution controlled centrally.
Farming and food production. Tesco should be nationalised and profits ploughed back into food production and farming. All packaging using non sustainable materials made illegal.
Housing. Mortgages will be made illegal to purchase without a 25% minimum deposit and a government verified income controlled by a new department. All mortgages must be repayment and linked to a central European controlled rate.
Minimum wage and benefits should be set across Europe and based on regional climatic and food availability criteria.
OK - this is an incredible list of changes and may look like a new Socialist World but the USA will also have to acknowledge the new Europe as will the middle east and China/India. What it does acknowledge is that Thatcherite ideals of market forces and no Government intervention has not worked and we need democratic central and apolitical management to create a fair and sustainable future.
The first step is to remove the current Governement and start communicating with Europe.
email me with your views stuart@greenfield.co.uk They will be posted immediately on this blog
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