Home » Systems perspective
Category Archives: Systems perspective
A Plague on Both Their Parties.
Why do I say that? Becausee they (the Conservative and Labour parties are both part of “the Establishment”).
So what are my priorities? My priorities are 1) the climate emergency. 2) domestic violence and 3) homelessness and economic deprivation.
The climate emergency requires changes. So what can the government do. First is to change the Planning and Building regulations and the law regarding Mortgages. At present, businesses that offer mortgages are reluctant to lend on properties that are of “non-standard” construction. However, by definition, homes that are built to “eco-friendly” standards will be of non standard construction. So the law needs to be changed; Incorporating what I call the “Canary Wharf Clause”.
2) To help bring an end to domestic violence the law also needs to be changed so that victims do not need to testify in court. This could be possible. After all, murder victims, by defintion do not and cannot testify in court. Perhaps high quality video and forensic evidence should be sufficient for the CPS to prosecute an offender.
3) Regarding homelessness and economic deprivation, I think that the Economic Empowerment of everyone to end their own homelessness. To do this, there must be an alternative to the current DLP economic operating system. So I propose the establishment in law, of an Alternative Economic Operating System with which to “dual-boot” the economy.
By doing this, I believe we could double the Wealth of Btitain and therefore reduce taxation for rveryone; perhaps even reduce Council Tax bt 50%!! Of course, this would have to be worked out by bodies such as the ONS (Office of National Statistics).
A Political Strategy for Brexit
The first policy statement for a government or a party hoping to be in government must make must be to reassure business and the people who have real economic power; the so-called super rich or HNWI (High Net Worth Individuals) by stating that investments in the new types of businesses that will be created in the UK by the UK government will have a zero rate of tax on dividends on profits of the new businesses.
These new businesses will have their cash flow protected by the courts and by the national government so long as the businesses are found by the courts to have honoured their contractual agreements. The new forms of Contract Law will protect businesses that act honourably.
The new types of businesses will have a maximum statutory hourly rate differential of 20 to 1 The rate of CT (Corporation Tax) will be linked to the actual Wage Differential paid by the business.
IT WAS A BIG MISTAKE OF THE UK GOVERNMENT TO ARBITRARILY REDUCE CT TO 17%.
If the new types of businesses reduce their wage differential to 17 to 1, then a 17% CT would be acceptable. If the new businesses reduced the wage differential to 8 to 1, then 8% CT would be acceptable. This would create a profit enhancing incentive to reduce the wage differential and to start the end of economically deprived areas of the country and the social (educational, for instance) problems associated with economic deprivation.
Reducing the wage differential would increase/stimulate demand in the economy, reduce the Welfare Bill paid out of taxation AND increase the tax take by moving the lowest paid into the Tax Paying bracket, above £10 000 p.a. The Austerity programme followed by thecurrent government merely reduces Aggregate Economic Demand and is a contributory factor in the demise of our Hogh Streets. People cannot afford to go out and spend money in the shops.
Another Business friendly policy for the new types of business WHICH HAVE YET TO BE CREATED BY GOVERNMENT, is to have an Earned Profits Allowance, equal to a percentage of the Wage Bill of the Full Time (35 + hours) lowest hourly paid employees of the business. The percentage allowance would depend on the economic conditions that apply at the time. It could vary from 1% to 100%.
When it comes to giving International Development aid to other countries, the aid could be paid directly to the lowest paid workforce in the form of wages of the company carrying out the development. This would avoid, I think, the opportunity for corrupt practices by foreign governments and be a step in the direction of ending abject poverty in the Developing Countries.
Of course, business friendly policies must also apply to the employees of ALL BUSINESSES; not just the new types of businesses previously referred to. I therefore think that a policy that would find favour with the electorate as a whole would be to have a STATUTORY OVERTIME RATE of +30% of the hourly rate for any hours worked above the daily and weekly contracted hours. A full time working week could be 35 hours; a full time working day could be 8 hours. Any hours worked above the contracted hours would have to be paid at the STATUTORY OVERTIME RATE. This would have the effect of ending the scandal of ZERO HOURS CONTRACTS, creating Full time jobs that would enable people to qualify for mortgages and able to afford to buy (or rent) their own homes.
To end the scandal of people being forced to live in substandard houses as at present, the law of contract between Landlord, their Agents and Tenants MUST be changed. All properties offered for rent must have a Certificate of Fitness for Human Habitation issued by the Local Council. It will be illegal for Landlords to accept rents from tenants of properties that do not have a valid Certificate; it will also be illegal for tenants of these properties to pay rents to Landlords or their Agents. Tenants will have the right to engage the services of the appropriate Contractors to bring the property up to a legal standard of fitness for Human Habitation. Owners of houses that are not let or otherwise occupied by people will be subject to the highest band of Council Tax for each such property owned. The purpose of these rules is to end as soon as possible the existence of substandard buildings. A consequence of these measures is to stimulate demand and work/employment in the Construction Industry. To be continued.
My comment on MMT site
This was my reply to a post entitled “Boots ….. etc. For some reason this comment could not be posted on the Modern Monetary Theory blog site on WordPress.
Quote,”All businesses …want a healthy demand for their goods and services. They want paying customers, with money to spend in their pockets.”unquote.
Too true but the economic system as it is currently constructed does not deliver this ideal. The system is a dysfunctional operating system. Minimum wage legislation, pupil premiums for schools that are in deprived areas are merely “patches” and “bug fixes” that attempt to put right an economic system that has economic injustice and unfairness built into its structure. It is an inexorable output of the (economic) system.
What is needed is an economic system that delivers to the lowest paid person to have sufficient disposable income to enable them to pay affordable rents or mortgages and have sufficient income over and above this to remove the stress of struggling to pay the bills.(And remove a contributory factor in the causes of mental illness?)
I have already published my design for an economic system that delivers fairness and economic justice. Perhaps the learned people in MMT should try and design such a system. However, (economic) justice is universal in my view. Economic fairness and justice must apply to billionaires and benefit claimants alike.
Changing political and economic realities.
Whichever country in the world you live in, social and economic problems exist. We all live in and are embedded in a political and economic system that has evolved over the hundreds or even thousands of years of history. These systems have been developed and created by the people in power, for the people in power, in order to maintain their power.
These power structures were created over time by kings, pharaohs, etc. with the aid of religious leaders who gave justification for their right to wield that power by establishing and formulating rules that were/are, in the main, moral and ethical.
My definition of a moral or ethical rule or action is “A rule or action that enhances, improves and or protects the life and well-being of a person.”
This gave the power and authority of the leaders of what is now called “nation-states” legitimacy. Power is exercised by the powerful with the consent of the powerless. In most countries this means the people living in relative or absolute poverty.
In every country in the world, including the United Kingdom (where I live) and the United States there are people in poverty. Homeless and hungry. Poverty is not the sole preserve of India and the African nations.
The point of this post? That the power structures that exist are man made. That the political and economic components of these power structures create a SYSTEM. A System has inputs and Outputs. These outputs,poverty, hunger, homelessness are the inexorable results of the System in place now. Since the power structure is man made, it follows that a system can be constructed that does not produce poverty, hunger and homelessness as an inexorable output. Which is the purpose of the current system. POSIWID!
POSIWID; The Purpose of a System Is What It Does. 