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mariansummerlight

Listed below are comments made by mariansummerlight between Wednesday, 22nd April 2009 and Monday, 6th July 2009.

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Will anyone ever cull the quangos? 12:26pm on 06 Jul 2009 I think Cameron is going for an easy target with Quango's but he at least opening the debate about where the government is spending money.

Given that Labour throws money around with litte evidence of improvement in services other than the figures fiddled to meet targets and a high level of opacity to stave off criticism the debate is long over due.

There has been little attempt away from the unions affected to evaluate the costs of PFI's and contracting out of essential services. Or any questioning of the increasing expectation of business to be subsidised or bailed out.

Privatisation of the utilities is another area of huge subsidy £9bn to the energy companies - rail operaters recieve millions etc. Again no evaluation of this policy or questioning of whether is is acceptable for for profit making companies to pay shareholder dividends when they can't make a profit without huge subsidies.

If business wants a free market then they should operate in one and that means they survive or not by the rules of the free market i.e. competition.

If essential services cannot be met in the free market ( and there is no evidence they can) then we need to find another way.

At the moment the cpaitalism rather than being wealth creating is acting as a cancer - drawing all resources to propping it up and the rest of us just pay a great deal more for a great deal less.

Quango's are just only one of the wasteful areas of public finfnaces. Lets oopen the whole area up to scrutiny and evaluation. Not jsut cherry pick as Cameron is doing.

Time to analyse the evidence of the Thatcher experiment and sound the death knell for private profit at public cost.
Bank of England wins victory - but for what? 12:12pm on 06 Jul 2009 Surely the issue is conflicting goals - we want growth and we want to be competitive so we can win. We also want stability.

The reality is we can't have both so we have to choose.

If we choose stabiltiy then we have to restructure a very different financial sector. One based on mututality and a return to the conservatisim of pre Thatcher banking and credit availability. We would have greater stability and a financial sector more tied to the real economy.

We wouold also have lower growth and therefore increased presssure to re - equalise society.

Or we can fiddle about with the current system and accept that the price of growth is instability.

This new radical solution just does that - it's about as radical as a garden tea party.
Seem to be doing sonething without actually doing anything very much - then when the heats off back to business as usual.
Does climate cloud the bigger picture? 2:01pm on 04 Jul 2009 A good article about the interconnectedness of the damage we are doing and it's implications. I agree talking about over populaton has become non PC. Population control has to move back up the agenda to where it was in the 60's and 70's.

It is frustrating because we know what the problem is and we have a good idea how we can put it right - or least stop it getting worse. But there is simply no political will to do so. Lots of talking in summits just adds to the problem with all the hot air produced. Setting targest without following through with couragious policies taking on vested interests and doing what's right rather than what's popular.

Ironically biting the bullet and doing the right thing might solve more than the climate problem.

Reducing our reliance on consumer durables and tackling our addiction to growth might make us happier and more fulfilled. An economy based on local production for local need might make work more satisfying and creative, not just in the developmemt of new and lost skills but also seeing the contribution made to the local community. Less mobility may encourage people to invest in their communities and neighbourhoods building the social connections we are losing that contribute to higher happiness levels in less developed countries. Greater equality, more cooperation and less competition may reduce stress and the ill health that develops as a consequence. As long as poeple can be asssured of material security they can use that foundation to achieve more fulfillment.

The other side of the equation is population growth. To encourage poulation reduction a combination of material security, higher life expectance, education, women's rights and access to birth control is required.

We also need an alternative development model for the developing world other than copying the process the west has gone through.
A model that prioritised need provision and social infrastructure as well as local and appropriate economic acivity.

Utopianistic granted. However unless we start thinking and acting differently the priorities won't change, politicians will continue to kow tow to vested interests, the environment will continue to deteriorate and we have no idea how the various areas of decline will interact and possibly multiply the effects.
Map of the Week: Why Costa Rica is the happiest place 1:02pm on 04 Jul 2009 The correlation between waealth and happiness is low above a certian relatively modest standard of living. Once people,
's needs are met additional wealth adds little to happiness.

Indeed wealth creation, wanting more than you can afford, feeling that you are a loser unless you are making loads of money, buying into consumerism, status labels and celebrity culture may in fact make people constantly unsatisfied with their lives and therefore unhappy. Material insecurity makes m people stressed.

Factoring in environmental impact perhaps skews the picture a little as many of the people in low impact countries cannot boast a reasonable basic standard of living. It masks the level of absolute poverty experienced by many.

I think we need a more sophisticated measure of wealth and prosperity than GDP and this goes a way towards that. However to have any real relevence it needs to take into account access to the essentials of life - clean water, nutrition, education, health care, birth control, security, levels of violence and crime, democracy etc.

These needs are not met in the richest countries, never mind the poorest, and many Americans have now been reduced to absolute poverty due to the very modest contraction in the economy.

How would any society cope with contracting the economy to a sustainable level and remain capitalist which relies so heavily on generating wants, greed, selfishness ( what economists likes to call enlightened self interest - if that isn't an oxymoron I don't know what is) and competition with the resulting levels of inequality and over use of resources.
Time to bring back children's homes? 07:36am on 22 Apr 2009 Because intitutonal abuse occurred in the past is no reason to assume it would occur again.
In the 70's there was little awareness of abuse and few systems in place to screen workers or monitor thei behaviour. Usually they were so understaffed that anyone willing to work was welcomed.
In Britain we have a mealy mouthed attitude to social care and the vulnerable. They are an expense and a drain on wealth. The richer we get as a nation the more resentful.
Despite all the failings of care for vulnerable chldren and the pointlessness of the at risk register, the periodic media outbursts the main consideration is still cost followed by concern for the family as an instituton. There is a fear that if care proves more successful in some cases than the family, then that somehow damages the institution.
Sadly vulnerable children fall down through the cracks.
I, for one, am pleased that at last this debate has moved on. I won't hold my breath until we see some sustbtial change though. There's been too many reports over too long a period all of which have led to few real improvements.

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