PFI & Mortgaging the UK

“The private finance initiative (PFI) is a way of creating “public–private partnerships” (PPPs) by funding public infrastructure projects with private capital. Developed initially by the Australian and United Kingdom governments, PFI and its variants have now been adopted in many countries as part of the wider neo-liberal programme of privatisation and financialisation driven by an increased need for accountability and efficiency for public spending, national governments, and international bodies such as the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank. 

PFI has been controversial in the UK; the National Audit Office felt that it provided good value for money overall.[1] However more recently the Parliamentary Treasury Select Committee found that “Higher borrowing costs since the credit crisis mean that PFI is now an ‘extremely inefficient’ method of financing projects”.                                     (Wikipedia)

Apart from managing to avoid multiple millions of pounds in tax, this initiative is funding our country and confirming that while ‘we won’t pay – our successors will’.

Thing is, I believe we have actually run out of money. And I think this is the only way we are going to be able to grow for probably a few years. And not just our country. PFI is being rolled out to countries across the world.

I feel sorry for the current government. They have inherited a dog. Sign up “England is now Closed.”

We have the IMF leaning on us, the EU leaning on us, we have wars being fought or the threat of, we have unions threatening to disrupt the very pace of life in this country, international aid, we have banks failing and engaging in MASSIVELY corrupt moneymaking methods, and we have a stock market that is being affected not just by our actions but by the actions of countries all over the world.

We have mass unemployment, housing shortages, councils cutting basic services. We have private industries that are fleecing their customers stupid while their share values increase. We have public systems that are in such dire need of overhauling they are costing us horrendous amounts of money every year through sheer inefficiency. And we have union bosses sitting in the background threatening to disrupt the very pace of life and cost the country yet more millions as they strike for what they consider are fair deals for their employees – while others are getting no deal at all.

For a country that is teetering on possible bankruptcy, we need to get as many jobs filled as possible. There can be no room left for a country facing economic ruin to have jobs that aren’t filled. We could find ourselves having to choose between the father or the son getting work. We have an education system that churns out emotion-riddled bullied teenagers into the workworld who have severe self-esteem issues, little or no decent careers advice and no focus. They have gone into colleges and universities to study subjects that will be completely useless to them in a job market.

Our country is in a mess. Which Peter do you rob to pay Paul? When are we going to realise the cost of living is not rising in accordance with the cost of our wages? Whatever we are paying the Government in form of taxes isn’t working, or the PFI wouldn’t need to exist.

Restorative Justice – How Effective Is It?

Restorative Justice – How effective is it?

 “With UK jails reaching a prison population of 87,668 and the number of criminals being locked up in England and Wales soaring by 407 in the past week alone, a figure of just 1,721 places are left before the system reaches usable operational capacity” (The Sun Newspaper 28.01.12)

This either means that crime has increased alarmingly to the point where the number of jails need to be increased also, or it means that the current prison system is not effective enough at preventing criminals from re-offending.  My guess is, its probably both. There are 140 prisons in existence, 48 of them with a facility for Young Offenders.  There are 23 prisons no longer in service, most of them classified as historic, with two waiting for re-development.  “14 prisons in England and Wales, most of which hold short-term inmates, have reconviction rates of more than 70%, Ministry of Justice figures reveal. Statistics underline the long-term ineffectiveness of the criminal justice system at diverting persistent offenders from a life of  crime. Of those given a community punishment or sent to prison, 74% are convicted of another crime within 9 years”. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/04/jail-less-effective-community-service

Inevitably, the main reason for re-offending would seem to be lack of employment opportunities but one should also consider the centralisation of police forces and the number of sentences given at court being reduced.  Are we providing an effective method to stop our prisons from filling up with re-offenders? In a society that’s evolved in such a way that  people look to others for answers to problems, and a prison system that works on prisoners showing remorse for their crimes in order to be released early, what are we doing to improve these worrying statistics?  How can we make the criminal truly accountable for their crime? How can we accommodate a criminal back into society after they have paid their debt to it? How can we help victims to recover from the trauma of crime? And how can we ensure that Human Rights are applied to both parties?

As is often the case with criminal activity, the criminal feels no obligation to their victims either morally or financially and the victims have no recourse to understand the cause of the crime or to get emotional closure against their perpetrators.  Once the police and courts are involved, that separation is put into place and while justice may seem to be done, often victims, especially of violent crimes, can suffer emotional trauma that endures far longer than the prison sentence of their aggressors.  Court criminal process only deals with the legalities involved. Ultimately it is often the case that neither side win; the victim continues to feel a victim and the culprit often returns to a social environment where moral standards are sadly lacking.  Reprisal against the victim by the criminal is also a growing concern.

Restorative Justice (also known as reparative justice) focuses on the needs of victims, offenders AND the community.

Victims take an active role in the process, while offenders are encouraged to take responsibility for their actions. This process is often successful in providing a complete solution and shows  high satisfaction rates for victims and for offender accountability. Traditional criminal justice seeks answers to three questions: what laws have been broken? who did it? and what does the offender deserve?  - Restorative justice instead asks: who has been harmed? what are their needs? whose obligations are these?

Restorative justice establishes that the victim and community have been affected by the offender’s actions, that the offender makes amends with both victim and community and most importantly, that a healing process can be effected.  Both victim and offender are equally important in the healing process to restore a sense of safety for the victim and to meet the offender’s personal needs. Restorative justice has four key steps. 1) the encounter of both parties.  2) the amending process. 3) the reintegration process and 4) the opportunity for all  parties involved to find a resolution – a lengthy but effective process that has far-reaching, long term beneficial effects.

Crime is a costly business to fight against, involving police time, lawyers, courts, prisons. Sooner or later, you will  meet someone who has been either a victim of a criminal, or a criminal themselves.  Budget cuts have reduced funding for Restorative Justice.  While this process may not be to everyone’s liking, it has proved to be effective in countries throughout the world and victims should be able to consider this as an option for recovering from criminal action against them. Instead of building more prisons or God forbid, reducing sentencing to make room for more criminals, shouldn’t the Government reassess its reduction of funding and invest more fully in Restorative Justice as an effective way of reducing crime – thereby also reducing the associated costs of it to our country and the taxpayer? This, to me, is proper and effective Human Rights for all concerned.

http://www.realjustice.org/articles.html?articleId=388

http://www.restorativejustice.org/programme-place/10real-people-real-stories/index_html/atct_topic_view?b_start:int=60&-C=

http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/2258/considering-restorative-justice-lecture-by-crispin-blunt-mp

Money over Morals – Global Financial Meltdown

To understand why we are in financial meltdown, watch Charles Ferguson’s award winning documentary Inside Job, Storyville  on the 2008 financial crash in America. The film shows  the process of that meltdown – illustrating a ‘rogue element’ in banking and lending.

Along with scarily false projections (calculated from opinions, not fact) Wall Street wealth creators were selling incentives knowing the buyer would likely default. In other words, they sold unsafe finance and adopted an ‘asset stripping’ attitude to the products, handily adding interest rates to debts.  These money men believed there was no ceiling to the amount of wealth created from a banknote, so they continued, unregulated and uncontrolled. The film showed an extreme arrogance and complacency and an alarming blind irresponsibility to us, the people. Bankers were shown enjoying the delights of our money awarded to them in bonuses, by spending money on fast cars and women. Literally. One brothel ran on Lehmann Bank’s employees.

The chairman of the Federal Reserve looked shifty and avoided answering awkward questions. Interview declines were made by the credit ratings agencies and the financial underwriters. None could explain why they pushed the limit of money over its ultimate value, resulting in a unanimous crash of markets in 2008 and putting America into compounding debt, producing a deep wedge in the global market that would impact on everyone.

These people have formed a culture within a culture; an inner ring of elitism that recognises no authority but their own; banking chiefs advise world leaders and governments, turning prime ministers and presidents into puppets.  Their actions are, in fact, misappropriation of funds, fraud, inside trading, misrepresentation of current financial regulations  and monopolisation of the market (big banks eat small ones) – the perpetrators themselves affecting a worrying disdain and disinterest in the end result until banks start going bankrupt.  Even the ignominy and humiliation of a publicly failed bank doesn’t wake them up to reality, as they are given multi million dollar ‘payoffs’ and compensation packages for their pensions.

Folks, we are all being robbed by stone-hearted men in suits with five houses, dollar signs in their eyes and itchy fingers for the roulette table. These people have become addicted to gambling – with our money. Here, indeed, is your New World Order, your Illuminati, your Freemasons. Their power has made them untouchable in the same way Dons of a mafia family are untouchable, giving you offers you can’t refuse and operating a large protection racket.  Here, your suspicions on conspiracy theories are turning, in a nightmarish and undeniable way, into fact. Meanwhile they offer you financial advice with sincere, doe eyes and put charity boxes on the tellers’ desks. These people no longer deal in dirty, ragged, filthy lucre but in digits on a computer screen. They have lost touch with the reality of cash and have gone into a closed shop orbit around the rest of us.

The Labour Government knew this was coming. So did others. This cancerous attitude towards money is firmly established in the EU, with one person leading others into another inner ring, a so-called ‘two-tier system’ – effectively making the grand elite even more untouchable, yet more powerful.  This is dynasty-making,  the like of which has never been experienced in history before on such a grand scale – this elite produce not kings, but emperors. An inner ring also means the need for protection and a good position for defend or attack.

Every CEO should be weighed, measured and judged by their actions within a court environment on a scale not dissimilar to the Nuremburg Trials. They should be psychologically tested for gambling addiction, delusions of grandeur, and general megalomania.  Do not forget that these people quite literally have the power of life or death over us, the people. And in more than one way. From the soldier fighting for a cause, to the over stressed family man who commits suicide or murder.

Meanwhile, the average arrogant banker will not understand Armageddon until their homes are repossessed and  accounts frozen.  The average bank will not understand until people face their debts, put a vehicle into place to pay them off and close their bank accounts.  For no matter how high these people like to fly in their Caesar-like stratosphere, you have to have cash to start with. You have to have a product to base your extreme calculations on.

We, the people, have to be the change we want to see.  We have no ‘democracy’. We are, in fact, slaves to a steady brainwashing that’s been inflicted on all of us, while we have been ‘kettled’ into order, with relentless consumerist, materialistic ideals and with thousands of businesses reliant on this form of money manipulation, strengthening and defending the elite’s power.

You want to make a difference?  Withdraw your product.

Real money is the only true, weak link in this world of cyber calculation and worrying whispers of finance-motivated wars.  Learn to live within your means.  Lead the way for the world by understanding that when that banknote has gone, it has gone.

Ultimately, be accountable. Instil an environment of morals over money.  Be, yourself, unbuyable.  Because the current attitude of money over morals could produce another global war and the true victim figure will be incalculable.

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e-Petitions

Is the e-petition a tool which can improve democracy in the UK or is it just a gimmick?

Since David Cameron launched the ‘e-petition’ I’ve seen several websites spring up on the internet giving users the chance to voice their opinion through the format of online petitions.  The minimum limit is currently set at 100,000 signatures to an e-petition, enabling discussion of the issue to be debated in the House of Commons.

Since the inception of e-petitions 18 months ago, 7 e-petitions have met this criteria and therefore should be considered an important enough issue for the House of Commons to discuss. These include benefits for looters in the riots this year, a terrorist being given privileged treatment and the EU.  The reality is that not all these e-petitions are being treated the same way.  Recent media rumours report  that Mr. Cameron may be considering raising that minimum vote figure to 150,000 signatures. Why?

Social networking internet sites are changing how people perceive the world and their own countries’ problems, leading to revolutions and uprisings and an unprecedented global collective protest phenomena called ‘Occupy’. A number of small, independent, political parties have also sprung up on the internet, with at least one of them considering on line governance. All of them agree on the importance of a fair execution of party policies through feedback from constituents online.

The next generation of people, our current youth, are extremely knowledgeable of social networking sites, discussion forums and ‘boards’. The internet is an integral part of their lives.

Any political party that becomes governmental needs to understand the impact of  the internet; it is the perfect tool for the man on the street to have his say and for that voice to be heard. It could then be construed as the only true voice of democracy, not only in your home country but worldwide.

Gone soon will be the days of members of parliament sitting in offices taking months to reply to  constituents. Gone too conceivably the traditional structure for debate in the House of Commons and House of Lords – why not cut costs and just host a Skype session instead? I find it ironic that while people enjoy increased communication through the internet, there is a widening communication gulf  between the decision makers and the people in the real world.  We’re on our way to a profound change in how authorities should be answerable to the people they serve. Any group, association, corporation or political party that doesn’t understand this is going to end up on the dinosaur-pile, extinct.  We’re witnessing phenomenal times. The internet is enabling revolution then evolution.

My message to the current government possibly considering increasing e-petition signatures is ‘You can’t shut the stable door once the horse has bolted!’ As the global internet community grows and becomes more cohesive, the figure of 150,000 will be peanuts to the potential of 70 million people in our country – all ultimately using the internet.

Hello world!