Monday 04 May 2015 Let the election due in 3 days time be the death knell of Party Politics.
Start planning that will ensure that at the next election the candidates are all independents.
To achieve that political parties should be banned, the result will be a far more democratic method of government. Frederick W Gilling.

Just keeping in touch

I have not posted a blog for some time due to other activities. There have been plenty of situations that I think deserve comment. The different sports that have been tainted because of bookmaker inspired attempts to "fix" the results now include snooker.
It is interesting to note the various ways that the issue price of Royal Mail shares has been defended and attacked, I had to smile at the man who said something like "If I sold my house today for so many hundred thousand and the next day the price went up 38% I would be very cross"
What are the pros and cons of nationalizing various industries? I would like to sit in on a well controlled debate on that subject. Is the prime function an attempt to restrict the power of unions?  A theme that I would like to see thought through is "Should we all be more conscious of our conscience?"
FWG Tuesday 15 October 2013

Cause for great concern.

Cause for great concern.    Started 16/03/2013 Finished 19/032013

I have listed below, in no particular order, causes for concern. Many of them, and the impact of them as a whole, are, I think, a cause for great concern.

[1]   The failure of many aspects of the NHS in Staffordshire. Other areas may also have failed to fulfil their expected role. It is alleged that patients have died as a result of these failures.

[2]   Several of the top UK banks “juggling” with the LIBOR interest rate. Several international banks have been heavily fined.

[3]   Several of the top UK banks having to make provision to pay back huge amounts of money to refund PPI charges to their clients. In many cases, I understand, the clients did not know they were paying for such insurance. The overall amounts set aside being, according to one source, 9 Billion UK Pounds.

[4]   The cover up for years in relation to the Hillsborough disaster.

[5]   The revelations in regard to Jimmy Savile.

[6]   Similar revelations in regard to other people and locations.

[7]   MP’s expenses.

[8]   Irish catholic workhouses for women.

[9]   Alleged sexual abuse of children and adults by clerics, often high ranking officials.

[10]   Horse and pig meat sold as beef.

[11]   Teenagers being encouraged to publish revealing photographs of themselves on line.

[12]   Girls in their early teens being “groomed” for sex.

[13]   The need for the Leveson Inquiry    

[14]   Whistle blowers being unable to find employment after exposing wrong doing.

[15]   Drivers deliberately causing a crash with the aim of making money out of it.

[16]   The news that 400 or so employees of a UK bank earned over a million £s in one year.

[17]  Abuse in care homes.

[18]   Children sent to Australia from the UK, during and after WW Two.

One of the causes for concern is why such events as listed above have been allowed to occur?  Another of the causes for concern is the thought that religions, that have existed for considerably more than 2000 years, have failed in their attempts to embed morality in their followers.  Surely there is an over riding need for every person to be conscious of their conscience. If it transpires that because of, religious or other beliefs, there is an obvious total difference ingrained in various sectors of a population as to what bothers their conscience then steps should be taken to ensure that these sectors are separated. Such differences have to be in relation to serious matters.

F W Gilling     Saturday 23 March 2013

  

Follow up to "Fred's Law"

Follow up to “Fred’s Law” as expounded in my letter to you dated 10/07/2012.

That letter, with different covering letters, was sent to eight persons; this follow up letter will be sent to the same eight persons without covering letters. Five of the letters went to MPs and I thought they would at least be acknowledged, I was wrong as only two of those five replied..

The first reply, on 16/07/2012, was on behalf of The Leader of the Opposition and was much  appreciated although it did not comment on the gist of “Fred’s Law”.

The second reply, on 08/08/2012, was on behalf of the Deputy Prime Minister, this thanked me and told me that it was receiving attention.

I also received a reply, on 16/08/2012 from The Daily Mail in response to the letter sent to The Director of the Daily Mail and General Trust plc. This thanked me and informed me that my letter would be passed on to relevant heads of departments who would contact me should they wish to discuss my ideas in further detail.

I did not receive replies from The Telegraph or the BBC. Many months ago I wrote a comment to the BBC on line, one interesting snippet of information was that not all comments would be read !!  I wonder how many people know that?

I feel very strongly that legislation similar to “Fred’s Law” needs to be considered. In recent weeks at least one major UK bank has brought the UK into disrepute, this being in connection with financial dealings with Iran, and the same can be said about the company, G4S, responsible for security at Olympic Games venues.

Several years ago I penned the following, “There is, I am sure, a prime need to give every responsible person in the county a justified feeling that they, the people, are fairly in control of events, other than natural disasters, and that their efforts and opinions, on a grand scale, do matter and are seriously considered.” Unquote.  Serious letters that are not even acknowledged do little to promote the feeling that opinions are considered. My email address is jofregilling@yahoo.com and this may be used.

Yours sincerely

F W Gilling            Written on Tuesday 11 September 2012

Copies to:  The MP for West Dorset. The Prime Minister. The Deputy PM. The Lord Chancellor. The Leader of the Opposition. The Director of the Daily Mail and General Trust plc. The Editor of the Telegraph. The Director General of the BBC.

[Whoops, will grab a little wriggle room to take in Cabinet reshuffle and add Minister Without Portfolio to keep everyone in picture.]

From: Mr F W Gilling, 

Fred's Law

New Legislation to protect security, economy and reputation of the UK.

Suggested and written by Frederick William Gilling.  Tuesday 10 July 2012

Until such legislation is proposed, passed and named it could, for ease of reference, be called  “Fred’s Law”.

In recent years I have become annoyed at hearing quotes such as:

I acted within the rules.

I did no wrong.

It was not against the law at that time.

Everyone was doing it.

Within the last three weeks the clever tax avoidance method [K2 scheme in Jersey] used by some people and the manipulation of LIBOR, by at least one huge bank, has prompted me to revise and rework a suggestion that I made some time ago.

Examples of the above defences were provided by the problems with MP’s expenses, the Phoenix Four and various Casino type “investments” and “creative accounting” procedures, these investments often made with other peoples money.

I feel and hope, that the following suggested legislation would be welcomed by the majority of UK citizens. “ If any UK citizen commits an act, anywhere in the world, that has a serious detrimental effect on the security, economy or reputation of the UK, they shall be guilty of an offence.” Legal experts should compile the legislation but it must be kept as clear and as simple as possible. Having said that, and from a heavily biased viewpoint, I feel it is very clear and simple as written, providing the judiciary, through case law, establish the boundaries of “serious” as well as potential situations involving members of Government and the defence forces, acting with the authority invested in them.    The punishment for committing such a crime can range from a magistrate dismissing the case for being too trivial, up to the UK Supreme Court imposing a fine, large enough to cover any financial loss involved, and or imprisonment up to life.

LIBOR manipulation broke Fred’s Law in respect of both the economy and reputation of the UK.  Those responsible for the manipulation could find themselves paupers and maybe prisoners as well.

On a slightly different, but applicable path, I note that for a couple of years there has been a fair amount of interest in the salaries and “perks” of Directors and CEO’s etc.  Has any notice been taken of The Greenbury Report of July 1995?

F W Gilling

Copies to: The MP for West Dorset. The Prime Minister. The Deputy PM. The Lord Chancellor. The Leader of the Opposition. The Director of the Daily Mail and General Trust plc. The Editor of the Telegraph. The Director General of the BBC.   

  

Fiscal Policy and "National Banks"

National Banks                          Started on Saturday 14 January 2012

As a self confessed layman in world financial matters I needed to know more about the present mayhem in world finance and so, with the aid of Google Search, I again set about trying to understand the reason, or reasons, responsible for the mayhem.

One would have thought that after a gestation period of a couple of thousand years, or more, the world should have ironed out most of the major bugs and arrived at a stable well proven way of controlling the extremely dangerous weapon called money.  The present problems with the Euro, massive debts to countries and banks and severe fiscal “miscalculations” have occupied top economic experts for well over a year and still there does not seem to be a solution.

With names like National Banks, Central Banks and Federal Reserve the first nasty shock, to laymen like me, is to find out that the majority of these banks are owned by private individuals / organisations and not by countries

.

Several centuries ago a system used in England involved a “Treasury”.  In normal times taxes of various sorts were paid in to the Treasury and the Treasury supplied money to the Government to run the country. On a yearly basis, well in advance, Government would publish a Budget, this was often designed to produce a surplus to ensure that the Treasury was always well funded.

In times other than normal, different factors such as wars, financial “Bubbles”, plagues and famines could severely strain the system.  Government could issue “I owe you” pieces of paper for what they needed, raise special taxes or borrow money from any source willing to lend it to Government at an agreed rate of interest. If the type of currency was a precious metal planning had to take account of the fact that there was not enough of it available!  Somewhere along the way the role of the Treasury changed and Government borrowed more and more money from private sources and paid more and more interest to these private sources, this practice has pertained to date.

Following various leads on Google I chanced upon an article which I found extremely interesting. The article, by Loren Collins was entitled “The Truth about Tytler.”. The author did his very best to attribute the various quotations to the correct person.  To any reader who is interested in what follows I would suggest that they track down Loren Collins’ article as it is quite long. I have quoted parts of the article, maybe out   of context and/or position, for, in my opinion, they open a line of thought that can easily be applied to many situations developing in current economic and political matters.

I quote,  “Two centuries ago, a somewhat obscure Scotsman named Tytler made this profound observation: “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury.  After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.”  - Elmer T Peterson.”

Again I quote, “The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years,”  and quoting even more.  “Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.” Unquote, but again I stress that Loren Collins goes much deeper into the matter and his article is very worth reading. In the “order of events” quoted in this paragraph it is interesting to postulate as to where the populations of various democracies are at this time and maybe even more interesting to wonder where countries participating in the “Arab Spring” slot into the “order of events.”

I feel that democracies need to consider very carefully the establishment of basic “National Treasuries”. All Government imposed taxes and any other Government  income is paid into the National Treasury which, in turn, passes money to Government as per the accepted Budget. Neither Government nor the National Treasury can borrow money from the private sector. With the system running correctly there will be no question of National Debt for there will not be any. If due to unforeseen circumstances the Treasury, on paper, runs out of money then more will be printed or “created”. The “world” will quickly judge the “worth” of the country’s currency and that will be reflected in the exchange rate, black market or otherwise. A major problem to going down such a route is that an honourable way must be found to pay the holders of a country’s bonds, bills, Gilts or whatever other name applies to the facility extended to the investors. 

.

To emphasize the gravity of the problem facing the Euro I feel two events act as good indicators. The first is that a few weeks ago the American Federal Reserve stepped forward and put its shoulder to the wheel in support of the Euro. The second is that a few days ago Germany issued several billion Euros in short term Bonds earning a slightly “negative” rate of interest. Investors were prepared to lose a small amount of money rather than risk losing much more by leaving it wherever it was!!

Voters, political parties and candidates for election should be made very aware of  Tytler’s  profound observation regarding the effect of a loose fiscal policy as shown in paragraph eight of this article.

In my opinion countries/governments borrowing money from private investors is a farcical situation.  The method is used in most of the world and it will take firm and concerted action to break free from it.

Frederick W Gilling   Monday 16 January 2012. 

Posted as a blog at 17:20 hrs GMT on Tuesday 17 January 2012

 

Greek Politics

The last few weeks have been a perfect example for my contention that world democracies should search for a more democratic way of governing their countries. My first four blogs suggested Party Free Politics [PFP] is such a way. The first one of those blogs was dated 07/07/2009.

These four blogs were followed by three on the World Financial Armageddon, the first of those being dated 23/07/2009.

The first essential step towards PFP is that voters must be given the right to force the immediate resignation of "Their" MP.

The first essential step towards an acceptable new financial world order is for every country to immediately nationalise their own banks, this should have been done a century or more ago.

The "Occupiers" as per the example set in Wall Street should be listened to.  Surely it is glaringly obvious that drastic non violent changes are needed to promote transparency in world affairs and give people the feeling that they are in control, the alternative may well be more and more street rioting spawning more and more ways of attempting to control it.

Frederick W Gilling 00:20 AM GMT Monday 07 November 2011.