The different type of blogger

Hi All,

People do blog about anything: from their pets to high end politics & religion or science fiction, or how bad Dr Who and Star Trek have become. Length does seem to be important and to me is indicative as to whom you are trying to get to read your blog- as well as the person writing it!

 Of course Twitter has changed blogging immensely, in that short snappy and out of context stuff can be churned out quicker than cheap beer, but the cultural attitude toward time has also changed things. Today people are celebrities and influencers for a timescale that seems like a flash in the pan, as are people’s concentration and willpower on a particular topic.

In terms of blogging this means that people can still write entire monologues/essays or short stories /novellas online, but how many people actually have the time to read this, if working? If you are working then the only time you have to yourself is that daily commute to and from work, in which case you will want shorter and more to the point pieces.

By contrast students and retired people, while on the opposite end of the age spectrum will, in theory, have more time on their hand, but who can say as to whether either of this group has the will to go around reading a large amount of stuff on the internet.

There is a caveat to all of this in so much as it seems that there are actually people who spend all day, every day on the internet and that’s all they do.

Then there is the most curious of all blogs, most of which are already semi successful. It doesn’t matter whether the writer does a paragraph or a monograph or on what subject. You will get a group of people who simply want to hang around the chat thread and make up comments based upon their own thoughts and whims or more often their own pet ideas or politics.

To my mind I think bloggers should always stick to their core beliefs and write for themselves. If you don't then you end up becoming a newservice and therefore may as well cash in a become a full time journalist for a newspaper. And get paid for the work!

Still Here

 Hi All

I'm still here and hopefully now,  well enough to start doing some more blogging. 

Climate Justice = Socialism by the back door

Hi All, 

There is one thing to be said about caring and worrying about our enviroment and recycling etc for our planet. There is quite another when all of this has become hijacked - as night follows day- by the far left. Hence, rather than just having discussions on how to move away from fossil fuels and to sutaniable energy like nuclear fusion, we are now into discussions on 'climate justice' and 'climate reperations' due from the west to the 'developing countries'. 

I can't help but think that if Africa had done what South East Asia has done, they wouldn't be banging on the climate justice pan. But in any case the idea of 'rich' nations giving everyone else $2 trillion a year is just insanity. Who is going to get this money ? African governments that are a by word for Kleptocracy, so the extended family of whatever tribe is ruling can buy another, ahem, Mercedes Benz ? Or is everyone in Africa going to get a pay check courtsey of the west every month? And how exactly is that going to be paid for? We are already discussing massive auesterity here in the UK. Why should our taxpayers, pay more to see their own living standards and services cut, so that non-British citizens can get a free lunch? 

In actual fact climate justice is just another word for left wing socialism, wherein there is a fantasy of redistributing wealth from one government to the next all will be well. Forgetting that even in the rich west there is a lot of poverty and homelessness.

The Technocratic Centralist Orthodoxy prevails

 

Hi All,

So after a brief reign, Truss and her libertarian wishlist is no more. Now we have gone full Italy and have a de facto ‘technocratic’ government as in the real Prime Minister Jeremy Hunt, who in line with the Treasury Orthodoxy is hell bent on balancing the budget- it is one thing to axe the Truss mini-budget to deciding even that is not enough. So austerity is back. And this time it will be worse, for two reasons. The first is that much of the low hanging fruit of Austerity One has been taken – as has the political consequences. Thus the conservatives cannot get away with no political consequence for  getting rid of the triple lock for pensions, in the same way they attack other welfare claimants. The other thing is that Austerity Two is being done in conjunction with the Bank of England raising interest rates, thus both fiscal and monetary policy are tightening at the same time : during Austerity One the Bank of England kept Monetary policy extremely loose as it poured billions into the financial markets, which reached back to people in the form of soft loans and increasing house prices .  It is also worth noting that Austerity One never eliminated the budget deficit and even George Osborne was still borrowing billions of pounds in 2016, let alone reduce the overall national debt. All Austerity One achieved was a reduction in the rate of borrowing, despite the cuts and tax increases.

The Bank admits that their actions will create a deep and long recession, but they have to in order to keep inflation in check. The thing is if there is a recession this automatically means that they government is going to 1) have less revenue as businesses and people go under/bankrupt/loose their jobs and 2) the welfare ‘automatic stabilisers’ will also kick in, unless the government intends to cut these payments as well, thus meaning the government pays out more in welfare. In both cases the government will have to borrow even more, because it has less revenue and has to pay out more money, even after other cuts have been made. When this happens and the government decides to cut even more, this will create a ‘doom loop’ of higher taxes and greater cuts, which will create a longer recession and less revenue, resulting in budget deficits and an increase in national debt.

Finally I have to say I find it difficult to understand why the left is gloating over all of this, well, yes I do get it to some extent. However the long term implication is that the Orthodoxy of the Treasury prevails and that is to try to have a balanced budget, via tax rises and spending cuts, with little time for radical innovations from either the right or the left.  I think Labour, when it comes to power, is going to have a big shock as to what it can and cannot do, without being bought down by the financial markets. Good thing we are a democracy.