Mindless optimists or completely deranged?

In the middle of the biggest recession our country has known in years the Westfield Stratford City has opened its doors - 300 Shops, 70 restaurants, three hotels, a bowling alley, the countries biggest casino and 14 screen cinema.

Now call me cynical, but doesn't this seem somewhat naive, if not down right stupid. One of the reasons we got into this mess was because of people going out and buying things and building up massive debt. This was one of the top stories on the BBC news, they chimed about how wonderful this was; how it was creating lots of jobs, how it was bringing massive benefits to one of the most deprived areas of England and how it was going to bring many flocking when the Olympics arrived.

I am not going to deny that this has brought jobs, it has rejuvenated a very run down area of Britain and, of course when the Olympics does arrive many will shop there. I believe there will be a lot of economic benefits in the short term. But having watched what has happened over the last few years I cannot see this benefiting many in the long term.

If you think about it, this building is not generating anything except revenue for a few shops and a few wealthy people. The question has to be asked has there ever been any long term benefits to opening a new shopping centre? Some would argue that people spending will mean that this will get the economy going, but it would be interesting to find out how many of those who are spending are actually spending their own money or just building up more credit.

Surely what is more important for any economy is to create jobs that are going to bring long term benefits, and are going to be long term jobs. If you go back; forty, fifty, a hundred years you would generally find that if someone went into a certain job their children would follow them; mining for example.

I cannot see this happening today. When Margaret Thatcher decided to focus on service industries rather than manufacturing she destroyed a way of life. She shut many of the coal mines and factories that were the focus for that town or village, and with this she destroyed whole communities. Now I do not believe that everything she did was bad, (she needed to do something to get our economy going), but I believe she did not think about the long term impact upon many of the communties that saw mines and steel works disappear.

What we have now is a large soulless retail outlet that only generates income for those that work there, the owners of this shopping mall and the owners of the shop. Most of the money that is generated in this place will not bring any benefits to those that live locally, it will only create more debt.

I remember talking to a friend of mine who grew up in a Nottinghamshire mining village and she said; 'the one thing she remembers from that time was the sense of community.' She said if her parents were busy one of the families in the village would take her in for tea.' Do you think the same could be said about the area around that shopping mall? Do you think this temple to mammon will generate a sense of community? And do you think this place will bring lasting benefits?

What will happen after the Olympic is gone? What is going to happen over the next few years as the government's austerity measures start to kick in? Where is the money going to come from to keep this place running? You could try and sell the benefits, but I see little, except more debt. Would it not have made more sense to invest some money in the local high street, and encourage local businesses to open up? This would have meant that the money spent in the local community would have stayed within the local community. Much of what is spent in this place will just go into the pockets of shareholders and big business.

I have listened to this government talking about creating jobs, but they have done very little to prove that they really care about helping business grow. Three quarters of all businesses in this country are small to medium size, but every week, month and year more and more regulations are piled upon business which stifles it; much of it comes form the EU. I can blame the EU for a lot of things, but unfortunately for us our civil servants and bureaucrats are only too willing to add to the regulations that come out of Brussels. If you go to other countries around Europe you will probably find, if the regulation does not bring any benefit they will ignore it.

If this or any government wants to stimulate business they have to realise that when we talk about business and jobs we are actually talking about people. It is people who benefit from jobs and thriving businesses, people and business pay tax which then pays for our welfare state and our local services. Business is the foundation which helps the state function -I know; family, the church, marriage, community, etc are the foundation of a well rounded society. But without a strong economy with strong businesses we would not be able to function as a country.

As the recession starts to bite, and more jobs are lost. I only hope that those who run our country start to realise that what they are doing isn't helping, and start to think about the people they are supposed to be serving.

I am still here

I haven't been posting anything for a little while because I have been writing a paper on immigration. I will publish it here soon. Just to let you know that it is my definitive view on what should be done about this very important issue.

Just a few other thoughts; it looks like we are coming to the end of the farce which is the euro. Greece is now in a position in which she will have to leave the euro and default. The simple problem is those in charge of this idiotic project are holding on for dear life. The European Central Bank (ECB) is the only one buying Greek bonds, and this is how the Greeks are managing to stay afloat.

The Greeks will run out of money in October, and the ECB will continue to hand over money for a little while, but this just cannot continue. The Germans have finally realised this cannot continue and are no longer going to continue to bail this lot out. All we need now is for the Euro bureaucrats to finally admit that this whole euro project just cannot continue.

Whether they like it or not they will have no choice and the markets will decide for them. Soon it is going to happen, what is going to happen to the world's economy is anyone's guess, but what ever happens we are in for a bumpy ride.

David Cameron continues to stick to his principles; which basically means that he hasn't got any. He jumped into bed with the Liberals and has continued to allow them to dictate the direction of his party. He has reneged on most of his parties manifesto promises so he can stay in power.

He introduced the 'localism bill'; this bill was meant to hand more power to local councils and people. We have very quickly seen that this man has no integrity or principles, he is planning on making it easier for developers to concrete over what is left of this beautiful country. After saying he was going to give more power to local people and councils he is now going back on this promise. That, I am afraid sums this man up.

He has stated the reason for this decision is to try and stimulate the economy, but we know that is utter rubbish. If he really wanted to support our economy he wouldn't have handed a contract to build trains for a British railway contract to a German company, as he did with Siemens of Germany. This sums this unprincipled man up.

Going back to David Cameron's fight to deregulate the planning process and making it easier for developers to build houses. I wonder how many of the Conservatives backers are developers and builders, it would be interesting to find out.

Anyway there's just a few thoughts to keep you going.

Clueless!!!

I have written a number of times about immigration, and you might wonder what else can be said about this issue. Well, even though I have explored this issue in depth, and explained why I am against the mass uncontrolled immigration that we have in this country I feel that I must write something else about this subject.

The reason, is because today I was thinking about the recent unemployment figures and net immigration and something obvious which I hadn't thought about before hit me (I will come to that in a little while).

So let us look at some facts (forgive me if I am repeating what I have written before, but I wanted to give some general background to what I am saying before I explain what I was thinking about today).

The government released figures last week which showed that net immigration into this country had increased over the last year from 198,000 to 239,000. Over the past year 400,000 jobs have been created; out of these 400,000 jobs three quarters went to foreigners. Now that seems bad enough, but when you then break these figures down even further you will find that the majority of those British people getting jobs in the last year are over 65 and can claim their pension.

The figure we should be looking at is the figure for those between 17 and 64; when you then look at that group and how many managed to get a job in the last year and how many foreigners took jobs you will find that 90 per cent of jobs went to immigrants. This means that nothing has really changed under the Con/Dems. Even though jobs are being created British people are not getting the jobs.

This is when it hit me, this simple thought. Because we have uncontrolled immigration (it doesn't matter what the government says they cannot control the influx of foreigners), it doesn't matter how many jobs are created, the simple fact is unemployment is not going to go down. This is because the tide of immigration is going to continue and employers have made it quite clear they would rather employ a foreign worker, so British workers (regardless of whether they are hard working and reliable) are always going to stand less of a chance than a foreigner. This then means that unemployment is never going to go down but continue upwards.

So it doesn't matter what our government does, they cannot control immigration, so unfortunately nothing is going to change. That sounds rather depressing, but that is the reality! It does not matter what the government does, it does not matter how many jobs they create or are created (I can't imagine the government are actually creating many jobs, as they seemed determined to destroy what manufacturing we have, and are continuing to stifle business with regulation), the simple fact is the majority will go to foreigners.

If you think that is an exaggeration, it isn't the facts speak for themselves, and to be honest I cannot see this changing. This seems so obvious, I can't for the life of me understand why this lot in charge can't see it. Then again I think they can, but I just think they either don't care or are more concerned with maintaining their so called status quo in which they can keep power and never upset their coalition partners. I have previously written about the liberals, and the more I read about them the more I realise that they truly are living in a world of their own.

So what can be done about this situation? Well, again I have written about that before and until something radical is done; and the tide of immigration is halted and reversed, the benefit system is totally overhauled, and those who do not want to work are given no option except starve or work, nothing will change.

So there you have it, I don't suppose anything will change, and I have now said it twice before and I am going to say it again. Until there is a total sea change in politics and people start to realise that the three main parties are not really going to change anything, nothing is going to change. So, if you want change please don't look to these clueless bunch of numb skulls and hope that something is going to happen, it isn't and that is why I believe we need to look at a totally different party.