AN OUTSIDE VIEW

Royal Albert Hall Originally uploaded by Aubrey Stoll A few weeks ago I wrote a blog about the shape of British politics . Because the MPs sit opposite each other, debates becomes a shouting match with a lot of smoke and no light. There is literally no space for for views other than those held by the two protagonists, who connive in agreeing on their terms of discussion. Perhaps the Government should should move out of Westminster, which could become a tourist attraction and hotel. Where would they go? How about the Albert Hall? It has a circular seating plan. It would be interesting to see what would happen if they tried it. It could transform British politics.

So goes the notorious poster which has aroused lots of attention. I was convinced God did not exist. Till I met him. This was worrying. I thought at first I was having some kind of mental breakdown or suffering from delusional symptoms. But strangely I felt perfectly OK, better than ever before, and well disposed towards the world and everyone and everything in it. Then I met others who had had the same experience, and they all seemed more than averagely balanced, sensible and pleasant and generous individuals, well able to cope with their lives and the ups-and-downs they encountered. This is a widely reported experience, which has nothing to do with indoctrination or brainwashing. If I and they were all suffering from delusions, then whatever those delusions were could not be be regarded as a pathological condition. A benign condition, perhaps. So to my astonishment, starting from my atheistic position, God turned out to be not a spaghetti eating monster in the sky, but a external rea...

Last week I went to talk about how to make money. The line was that the only way to do it was to build up a property empire - it couldn't be done by real work. Land is used as an investment, but in reality it just produces an income stream which is roughly linked to inflation and general prosperity. Over lending and over borrowing caused land titles to increase in price to the point that the rate of return dropped and dropped, priming the crash. So it was not such a good investment after all. The vested interests, who are a handful of landowners and bankers, would make sure that a land tax, the only way to reduce the force of boom-busts, is never discussed. Try and get it raised on, say, Any Answers? They won't touch it. The place of land in economics has been virtually expunged from the theory. Even Ricardo is mentioned only in passing. I wouldn't call it a class war, because if the information got out, the vested interests could be faced down, eg the fact that five famili...

I was listening to the broadcast recording of yesterday's parliamentary debate. It was the usual slanging match, conducted in sneering tones, the main objective apparently being to score points off each other. The row concerned the conversations that were alleged to have taken place when George Osborne boarded the yacht belonging to a Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska whilst on holiday in Corfu. According to the Daily Telegraph, Mr Osborne and Andrew Feldman, the Tory party chief executive, have admitted meeting the billionaire on his yacht off Corfu this summer. Subsequently, financier Nat Rothschild told the two that Mr Deripaska was willing to donate £50,000 to the Conservative Party through Leyland Daf, the UK company he owns. Mr Rothschild said that Mr Osborne initiated the discussion about donations, but the Shadow Chancellor vehemently denies this and said in a statement that he did not ask for the money. The donation was turned down, but the fact they they were on the yach...

On the tram Originally uploaded by seadipper These 1960s trams have just been refurbished for yet another 10 years in service.

The Religious Right claim to follow the bible, literally. So they will oppose the teaching of evolution, homosexuality, gay marriage, abortion, masturbation, &c. It is strange then, that they totally ignore the contents of chapter 25 of the Book of Leviticus, reproduced here in full. The passages printed in red relate to usury and land holding. There is nothing about handing the land over to banks as security for money lent out for interest. The LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, 2 Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the LORD. 3 For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits 4 but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the LORD. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. 5 You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undres...

Adelante train interior Originally uploaded by seadipper A survey by Passenger Focus has found that 66% of passengers prefer facing seats to airline style. Since they also provide a decent amount of luggage space between seat backs and ought to weigh less, why do most trains have airline layout seats with separate luggage stacks?

A good time to renationalise the railways? Transport journalist Christian Wolmar seems to think so. Of course the old nationalised railways did some excellent things but huge and often strategic mistakes were made, with matters being aggravated by political interference. It does not altogether matter how the railways are run if they have incompetent managers, of which there were too many in BR days, and they got in the way of the good ones and morale was often low. How they held down their jobs is a mystery but there was, reputedly, a masonic lodge at the old British Railways Board HQ in Marylebone Road. If this was true, it would explain quite a lot. The main problem now is that important decisions are being taken by the technically illiterate, but that isn't new either - eg the proliferation of different types of incompatible rolling stock, all under the eye of successive rail regulators, who are the people who would end up running the nationalised railways. Had there been sound...

The Lewes pound is a new local currency with a picture of Tom Paine on one side. It demonstrates an important economic principle. The purpose of money is to avoid the inconvenience of barter. Nobody would normally want to swap, say, a sack of potatoes they have grown on their allotment for a pair of trousers. But they might do that because the value of the trousers would not have to be included on their tax return as "income". Sometimes people actually do exchange services in this way to avoid having to pay both income tax and VAT. Such exchange of services by mutual agreement, whilst not immoral, is of dubious legality. The Lewes pound will facilitate this kind of barter, but only until the tax authorities notice what is going on and insist that people declare, on their tax returns, income received as Lewes pounds. As they will of course insist that all tax is paid in ordinary Bank of England pounds, the Lewes pounds will then become pointless. This is one reason why all loc...

This evening's news reported the start of a trial for a £53 million bank robbery. Yet there has been no suggestion those responsible for the £multi-billion fraud which has brought the banking system to near-collapse world-wide might have to face trail and possible imprisonment. The fraud - misrepresentation and obtaining money by false pretences, has been committed by those who devised the so-called securitized debts - mixed bundles of good and bad debt backed by land as collateral, that was worth only a fraction of what was claimed. An analogy would be a dishonest street trader who sold boxes of rotten fruit with a few good ones on the top. It is inconceivable that they have not already fallen foul of existing criminal law for which a lengthy spell in prison would be the correct punishment. If they are going to be allowed to get away with it, what is the point of regulation? There may also have been actual criminal activity on the part of the bankers who failed to check what the...

The US bank "rescue" plan is supposedly intended to avert a disastrous collapse of the economy, which is threatened by the increasing difficulties in obtaining credit. The word credit comes from the Latin "credo" which means "I believe". Given what has been happening, it should not be surprising that there has been a collapse in trust. However, the so-called bipartisan approach will lead to inflation and a drop in the value of the dollar, which will hit peoples' savings and lead to industrial unrest as people find the value of their wages is shrinking. And it has been suggested that the cost of the rescue is much higher than the figures currently being quoted. It is shocking that there is agreement across the two US political parties. It would probably be safer and more effective to let the collapse happen - these were only ever paper values, after all - and introduce land value taxation, which would promote a quick recovery and save the US dollar. Giv...