spend spend spend

The governor of the Bank of England is urging us to spend more to help the economy. At the same time he is rigidly sticking to his outdated Keynesian doctrine. He doesn’t seem to appreciate that the world has changed since the 1920’s. There are many more older and retired people now; and they rely on income from savings and investments. With interest rates at such low rates for so long, their incomes have been decimated. Just how does he expect them to spend money they don’t earn? Go into debt?

Economics of the madhouse

Ian Gray, the Leader of Scottish Labour has little understanding of economics; it appears that he has never worked in business. How else could he seriously propose increasing the hourly rate of pay for lower paid employees in the public sector? He obviously doesn’t appreciate the financial mess we are in. The Government is currently spending about £140 billion more per annum than it receives in taxation; much of that goes in wages and salaries. Employees in the public sector already earn more than those in the private sector, and that is before you consider their superior pensions and conditions.

air pollution in Glasgow

I read that Edinburgh City Council is taking positive steps to tackling air pollution. Large polluting cars will have to pay more for a parking permit; low emission vehicles will pay less.

Once again the inertia of Glasgow City Council in tackling this issue has been shown up. Glasgow’s air pollution is about the worst in the UK and little has been done to reduce it. Having a few Greens on the council has made no impact.

When you consider that our record on heart and lung disease is so bad, it is possible that air pollution is contributing to our poor life expectancy.