Interestink, very very interestink.....
Obviously in the unionised workplaces of today's bus companies you couldn't introduce a change like this - and I'm not sure you would want to, but it is a very interesting question....
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
Lib Dem Liverpool worst in the country
How the hell do you create a £60m deficit in a local authority budget and get up in the morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AND.......
still part of Lib Dem lies about how they can fix it - they are seeking permission from the government to use the Capital Receipts budget to pay for Capital of Culture - which is only £20m - I mean it's not like they've had years to plan for it and prepare a celebration within our means..... oh wait........
BUT - the capital receipts are also being raided to fund the overruns in a new swimming pool and the Arena ( a birdie told me they forgot to ask for the money to put any seats in... d'oh!).
This means the capital receipts budget is being spent twice and doesn't have enough money in it anyway......
Capital of Spending Culture
Baby-Sitting the Economy
It's a very old post on Slate.com, but I have been inspired by its simplicity so am hat-tipping it here in the hope others see it too.
I'm even tempted to start a whole new web-site to exploring it, but not sure how sad it would make me........
It concerns a baby-sitting co-op in Washington DC in the seventies that aimed share the load. About 150 couples joined, with the purpose of baby-sitting each other's children, thus saving money and giving everyone an opportunity to go out more often. (probably to some of the great restaurants an ex-girlfriend from Georgetown tells me there are!)
The co-op failed because they essentially entered a depression. Each member had coupons which they gave to the baby-sitting couple. These could be redeemed at a later date, meaning had to go out and party and baby-sit in equal measure.
But people held on to the coupons so as to be able to go out in the future, which meant the money, sorry, coupon supply ran dry and the co-op failed....
Of course, they all worked in Congress, which inspires a great deal of confidence about US lawmakers' ability to manage the future global economic tightening......
and some people would now argue that the internet would have helped them with transparency and create a freer exchange.......
SH
said it before and I'll say it again.....
"It does seem odd that a man arguing that the Lisbon Treaty is the "most shameful and complete surrender of sovereignty in our island history" (in Gouriet's words) would initiate a process which, if successful, would dramatically reduce parliamentary sovereignty."
Eurosceptics are not thinking straight - their policy is not based on anything other than a kind of latent institutional xenophobism. My evidence? When people resort to completely illogical and irrational strategies to scupper something they hate but can't articulate why.......... In my view, it is because they are falling back on their own raw emotions.... fine, I don't criticise that - but just look at the emotions they are falling back on.....
SH
Tuesday, 29 January 2008
no ambition
In the pub on Saturday I surprised myself with a rant about the lack of ambition in the world today.
We were talking about a store in Oxford, which when it was built had an underground railway to bring in the coal and coke to heat it. Why the hell!?!?!? of all the options, they built an underground railway - it's both fantastical and incredible at the same time. But it represented a time when there was huge amounts of ambition in this country. Every facet was engineered with a can-do not a can-do-cheaper attitude.
I think we could do with more of that....
train (phone)lines
"The other day I ended up by saying to someone at National Rail Enquiries: "You don't know any more about this than I do!" My adviser agreed ruefully."
Once upon a time, my housemate worked for NRE, and they were based in local call centres, and this one was behind Liverpool Lime Street Station. I needed to make an unusual journey (say south coast to Liverpool, or something)...... The actual journey should have taken ages, but I knew that engineering works meant some trains were making unusual unscheduled stops.
I called NRE and challenged the guy who answered that we could shave hours of the official time if we could use these unscheduled stops. we then spent about 25 minutes working out a schedule that got me from A to B quicker through stops that don't appear on the normal timetable.
He admitted it was the best enquiry he'd ever had and the most fun - but alas, then they sacked them all and shipped them into a huge call centre and shipped capacity off to India. oh well.......
Lazy European Thinking
"We should listen to the people; that's how we re-engage with them. If we refuse, then we do so at our peril and a little bit more trust and democracy will die. This is why it's essential to give the people a choice on the ballot paper. If I am selected to the list system I will promise that the party voters can de-select me if I do not carry out my promise of putting the sovereignty of parliament first and thinking, "Is that directive really necessary? If not, scrap it."
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/janice_small/2008/01/vote_for_change.html
This is just lazy to the point of dishonest. Janice Small (With whom I agreed on a lot of her other points...) then offers this kind of lazy, misleading, false choice. I bet she's really scared at the thoughtof being de-selected because she's not done enough to put the sovereignty of parliament first - how the hell do you prove that.
Oh, and wait - if she's tearing up directives....(wait for it.....) isn't she second guessing the UK Parliament whose sovereignty she just swore to uphold.
Never mind the fact that she's in a parliament, which millions of people have voted before but promising sovereignty to another - isn't that the absolute definition of not listening to the people.
And while I'm on listening to people, this is the big trap that eurosceptics fall into like clunking hammers - which people? Every Directive has people who want it - Boris Johnson proved that when he shouted at the CBI because they couldn't come up with a singlepiece of red tape they wanted to scrap. Every Directive helps someone...... The skill is in balancing the needs, wants, winners and losers to produce the most effective legislation. I'd pay more attention to Eurosceptics if they got that..........
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/janice_small/2008/01/vote_for_change.html
This is just lazy to the point of dishonest. Janice Small (With whom I agreed on a lot of her other points...) then offers this kind of lazy, misleading, false choice. I bet she's really scared at the thoughtof being de-selected because she's not done enough to put the sovereignty of parliament first - how the hell do you prove that.
Oh, and wait - if she's tearing up directives....(wait for it.....) isn't she second guessing the UK Parliament whose sovereignty she just swore to uphold.
Never mind the fact that she's in a parliament, which millions of people have voted before but promising sovereignty to another - isn't that the absolute definition of not listening to the people.
And while I'm on listening to people, this is the big trap that eurosceptics fall into like clunking hammers - which people? Every Directive has people who want it - Boris Johnson proved that when he shouted at the CBI because they couldn't come up with a singlepiece of red tape they wanted to scrap. Every Directive helps someone...... The skill is in balancing the needs, wants, winners and losers to produce the most effective legislation. I'd pay more attention to Eurosceptics if they got that..........
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