Debt Death & Deadweight

 "State sponsored intimidation of the low-income families is now a routine practise.  Local authorities intimidate people who default on their council tax payments with threat of prison. The threat of sending round bailiffs wastes the time of the council officials, wastes taxpayers money, and worst of all it damages the health of vulnerable people.  This is a crisis in our communities whose cause must be traced back to the inequality in income which blights the lives of millions of people in the UK. That crisis is inextricably linked to the pressure arising from unaffordable housing, which in turn can be traced to the failure of the state to administer the nation's land bank on behalf of the welfare of everyone."  Paul Nicholson from the chapter on Land Grabbing and State Sanctioned Debt. 

A society without compassion ceases to be a society is what I feel and we need to put people first and their welfare. It is failed leadership that leads to some people going homeless, without food and permits poverty to rise at a rate that does not become a nation in 2017, it demonstrates weakness and bad housekeeping. Yes bad housekeeping as poverty costs it costs a lot in the management of the spin off problems. So politically induced austerity needs to stop as it is crippling the country.   Yesterday there was a debate on the failing of the Universal Credit and what was aired in that debate is shameful.  It is time government got its Acts together and looked after the most valuable asset a nation has - its people! 

Further points I would like to share is that post second world war as I was growing up in a Northern town with a brother that was in the building trade.  House building was ahead of population growth. There was a good mix of social house building and private.  The social housing was in fact spacious with gardens.  The rate of cost of housing was slow .. for example my mother and father had a mortgage on a terraced house in 1952 that was valued at £900.  I married at 16 in 1970 with a good hard working husband that brought a good wage home and we got a mortgage on a terrace house which was shockingly priced at £2190... yes folk were shocked at house prices then but can you see that in the time span had not gone up in fast rate. Housing sale and purchase was an appendage to the economy not driving it.

Ian my husband, a welder brought home £21 a week in a wage packet.  We had mortgage payments of £14 a month of which I would round up to £20 to get the mortgage down. So the payments were less than a quarter of the monthly income.  The company he worked for had a good reputation and full order books.  We climbed the property ladder when I trained as a nurse and life was good with investments till Thatchers recession!! We lost everything... jobs went order books empty and no contracts in the NHS for me and others at the time. So dreadful that politicians do not consider the people they serve in decision making.  Our 25 yrs marriage broke in the strain. 

I also note that in the 1980s there was a UN summit for all world leaders to forewarn of a global population explosion, of which we are in now. All world leaders were told to prepare their infrastructures to accommodate its citizens.  The were warned if you do not there will be uncontrolled migration from village to city and from country to country seeking a better life.  

The 2003 Slums and Resettlement report demonstrated that no world leader acted upon this.  There is a chronic housing shortage globally with slums from Hollywood to Bangladesh.   It is as if there was an agenda by some to not act on this warning and create scarcity to excite profit in land and infrastructure. In among this we have man's madness to war with airstrikes that massively destroy infrastructures and civilian population.. Profiteers eagerly awaiting rebuilding of destruction...!! but this should never be allowed.  Rebuild should be part of the reparation of war crimes by deluded tactical warlords. 

So a lot of patterns to be observed in human global behaviour... and when it hurts fellow citizens we have to turn that pain into campaign and we have to challenge - or we do not deserve the species name of Homo Sapiens as we cease to be wise in our evolution. Wise men learn to live in peace and care for all creation with respect.