From the Summit of the Moral High Ground

Venezuela a true Socialist State With all the problems that go with it In the modern world, a country’s natural resources have very little to do whether goods are on the nation’s shelves for people to buy. Singapore isn’t rich in resources, neither is Hong Kong, but both have vibrant market economies and shoppers can find whatever their collective heart’s desire on the shelves of stores in these two cities. On the other hand, there is Venezuela, a country rich in resources. It is one the world’s top oil producers at the same time gas prices are soaring. The rich soil and temperate climate allow for productive agriculture and the country is rich in gold and other minerals. One could only imagine that high tides would be lifting all boats, but yet the cupboards are bare. There are shortages of staples like milk, meat and toilet paper. In the country’s largest city, Caracas, residents must arrange their calendars around the once-a-week deliveries made to government-subsidiz...

Yesterday I discussed what exactly growth was, and why it was only important to governments. But because it is important to governments it has been enforced through a series of social developments implemented within legislation and enforced through the slavery of debt. In the modern age to have a 'good job' it is mandatory to have a 'good education'. A degree of some sort is required for almost every job that leads to a good standard of living. But now in order to have a 'good education' there is a degree of inevitability that all but the most well off will leave university with some degree of indebtedness. With the recent tripling of tuition fees it is estimated that the average student leaving university in the UK will be approximately $60,000 in debt. Somewhere along the way the government seems to have forgotten that an education is an aim in and of itself and is not tied simply to the desire to maximise future potential earnings. However this level...

The preparation of sashimi (raw fish) from the blowfish is a historic tradition in the nation of Japan. The trouble is that parts of the blowfish are highly poisonous causing paralysis and death by suffocation. Still it is a popular dish and as recently as 2009 seven people fell victim to the poison in Tokyo following a poorly prepared batch and ended up eating the testicles of one fish. Recently the regulations have changed and chefs will no longer have to complete the full two years training in order to serve this dish to the public. The Japanese have likewise made plans to cover the area irradiated by the Fukushima nuclear plant in tents and will start burning radioactive debris. Of course you cannot destroy radioactive debris in this way, but it will spread it around the globe having released the settled debris from the ground back into the air. The tents will have the effect also of funnelling the radioactivity straight into the air. But radiation is no...

We are at a turning point in history, in future this time will be regarded in the same manner as the Anglo-German Wars of 1914 to 1945, the Pan-European riots of the 1840's and the Revolutions of the 1780's, these are INTERESTING TIMES. There seems to be a great convergence of endings all focusing at this point in the history of society; Democracy, Banking, The Welfare State, Law and the Union Movement all seem to be converging on their Waterloos at the same point in time. That point being the day after the next election for President of the United States. Each of course was a much needed innovation in its turn, but like all things they have faded, perverted from their original course and become twisted and repressive. What once was a tool of enablement has become repression. Where once there was protection of freedom there are now the chains of debt, dependence, fear, regulation and sham. The good news is that these are breaking apart. Following every ending their...

The Chinese Yuan Standard According to the International Monetary Fund by 2016 the economy of China will be larger than that of the United States, but recent research from the University of Pennsylvania now indicates that this has already happened. The proof that was presented is irrefutable that in real terms the US economy produced goods and services worth US$14.6 trillion in 2010 but China's GDP (gross domestic product) was US$14.8 trillion. The situation is set to worsen as the US is falling further behind, every day. US growth was 1.7% and China's is 9.2% in 2011. Beijing has become so powerful that it can now dictate economic policy to the US. China has approximately US$1.9 trillion of debt whilst the US has US$145 trillion. China's reserves are US$3.2 trillion, the US has nothing and borrows nearly 50% of all the money it spends from China. China's tax revenues grew 30% last year whilst the US revenues fell. China has 810 million workers, the US 145 m...

Now you may wonder why everyone in Jersey is so interested in the goings on in Westminster when it comes to budget time, and the answer is simply because all our laws come from the UK, there has not been an original thought arising from the States of Jersey within my lifetime and for probably a century previous. I was listening for any further detail on the implementation of the changes to Low Value Consignment Relief but the Chancellor George Osborne did not even mention it in his speech. The details of the change can be found here . Nota Bene:  "Businesses without a UK establishment who make taxable supplies of goods or services in  the UK will be affected by the removal of the VAT registration threshold." The supply of goods is only taxable by those companies who make a VAT return, otherwise the VAT is payable by the purchaser on import. The first thing I notice is that there is no actual plans to cut spending... there is a plan to cut spending as a percentage o...

Whatever the Government Says, times are getting tougher and it is the Government's fault The JEP has covered a story relating to the attempts of Alan MacLean to limit the population. Although the paranoid streak in me read the headline ' the population can be controlled ' in a slightly different way. With the end of the 'fulfillment industry' the economic future for 'Jersey' is going to need some rethinking, or maybe they will continue along their plough ahead regardless path as they usually do. You see to the government, 'Jersey' does not mean the people of Jersey, nor the island of Jersey, it means simply the government of Jersey. It is simply not important to me whether the plans for continued government expansion continue apace or not, in fact if I had my way the government would be shrinking and fast. The principle of subsidiarity  would hold that the smallest administrative unit possible should make the decisions. Now the smallest ...

The idea that the police are here to protect us is a lie. The police are here to enforce the tyranny of the State. The Police protecting a Citizen  Because “citizens” can start to revolt if things like murder and rape and arson aren’t dealt with, the police will make a token effort to deal with these things when they occur. Although they often complete these investigations poorly, often making no arrest, arresting the wrong person or simply mis-allocating man power depending on how politically connected the victim was. The vast, vast majority of the time the police uses is spent harassing and oppressing people. They break down people’s homes looking for “drugs” They pull people over and harass motorists for innocuous things; fining them, despite those very motorists paying their wages They spend time breaking up house parties They enforce the 1000s of ludicrous regulations that local and national governments impose on people’s property They confiscate your guns with...

After reading Stuart Syvret's blog ' Jersey Government Willing To Lie ' I felt compelled to ask the question does anyone believe anything that the government tells them? The Ron Paul of Jersey Let's start with Stuart himself, a politician of many years who conducted himself with absolute honesty and integrity, a politician for whom being ideologically consistent was more important than playing the game, a politician who in 2011 took the risk of running for Senator, when he could have walked into any Deputy's seat in any district in St Helier and probably some districts in St Brelade, St Saviour or St Clement. He still could and I expect that he will in 2014. Over the course of my blogging I would hope that my admiration for politicians of Stuart's calibre is crystal clear. He fits into the Ron Paul and Nigel Farage mould and comparisons to Mandela and Gandhi are NOT erroneous, he has shown what Durkheim extolled as the ideal virtues of a politician. One for whom...

St Helier's main shopping street, there was a time when the street was too full of people to walk down every night until 9pm. Look at it now during the day, empty. It's less than two weeks to my fortieth birthday but I am going to get ahead of myself and reminisce about the good old days slightly earlier than I am entitled to. Come back Fred Clarke, Jersey needs YOU! Fred Clarke, visionary, ultra successful businessman and a Constable who understood that the ONLY thing that matters is keeping the rates down and was much beloved by his parishioners as a result. It is hard to imagine what he would think of the shambles that has followed him. We have been treated over the past few weeks to a succession of hard up stories by our over-spending, grossly bloated, inefficient spend thrift, utterly clueless government. I just want to set the record straight... nothing the government does is free, WE pay for it through taxation. There is no 'free sewerage'. The BIG ISSUE is who s...

It is now a few months since the incumbents were elected and they have had time to settle in and begin to publish what they see as the justifications not only for their salaries but for the existence of the government in Jersey. The number one stated priority is 'job creation'. It is very easy to create work, work that does not need to be done. We already have the highest percentage of people employed in government funded jobs anywhere in the world. Of course in recent years they have become adroit at pretending that these government jobs are not government jobs at all, at least for the purposes of statistics but fundamentally anyone whose income is either paid directly by the government or by government funds paid to a third party is a government employee. There is already a government career path (notionally of last resort) mapped out for every person who has resided in Jersey for five years; that of welfare case. As a job it is fundamentally unfulfilling, there are hoops to ...

Dr. Ron Paul faces the first test in the Iowa Caucus 3rd January 2012 I was reviewing the  history of opinion polls in Iowa  and well it seems that the Gingrich candle burned brightly but has now burned out, the last of a successive number of waves pushing one candidate to the forefront only to fall away under closer scrutiny, the sort of scrutiny that is noticeably absent from Jersey politics. Scrutiny which means that what you say is closely examined and you are questioned on the meat of what you are saying to see if a) you actually know what you are talking about and b) you really mean what you say. Instead, in Jersey, we have a kind of mutual agreement - you tell us what we want to hear and we won't hold you to it. But one man is trying to change that, and has been for the past thirty years or so. This is his third run at president. The last shot is in the barrel in the form of Rick Santorum but if the polls hold true and if as everyone believes the polls have consist...

It will come as no surprise to those of us who remember the 1970's and 80's but government intervention prolongs recession and depression. But looking back to the 1920's and 1930's it is possible to see what the likely outcome of government intervention through 'stimulus packages' will be for us. Europe’s leaders met recently to try and resolve Europe’s ongoing crisis. The markets themselves are indicating what the outcome in Europe will be. They are all starting to break down, which indicates that Europe will NOT solve its crisis. For one thing, Europe continues to refuse to deal with the real problem. That problem is that Europe never created a fiscal union to begin with. In short, they left all the member states’ debts out there on the table and did not create a unified debt structure in the way of Eurobonds, like U.S. Treasury bonds. That was a fatal mistake, one of many. They continue to neglect that one mistake and even now refuse to create Eurobonds. So t...

As was pointed out on thisisjersey,com the caption should read 'Employment - Our Highest Priority' A few days ago the first initiative of Ian Gorst's reign was announced, an 'Action Plan For Jobs' . This coincided neatly with a new initiative in the United Kingdom by the Liberal Democrat party. The reaction of the UK press was 'well it didn't work in the 80's so why are we repeating our mistake?'. So what is businesses reactions to such schemes? Most large businesses have a reasonably high turnover of staff, people leave and new people are being employed constantly, so instead of re-employing they will now take on subsidised employees in line with the government program - net effect a subsidy to the business. At the end of the six month period, the business faces such a harsh regulatory environment that if there is not absolute certainty that the person will be able to complete the role successfully then they will terminate the contract before the pe...

The Welfare State was born from the shared experience of the Second World War. The events pulled the community together to achieve a common goal in war. They admirably attempted to preserve this spirit in peacetime. They succeeded but only as long as those people who had experienced the horror of war remained alive to pass on their hard earned wisdom. Rome fell over centuries, a catalog of avoidable errors bought it to its knees. The same mistakes are being made in the Western World today. The people who fought and lived at that time are dying out, now largely only those who were just children remain. The experience of the later generations has been substantially different; they have suffered no hardship, they have not been drawn together in the same way as a community. The Welfare State has failed to adapt to the modern social conciousness. A perfect example of this has been provided by philanthropist David Kirsch whose Christmas gift of £100 to every person in Jersey has bee...

Historical Archive This article is preserved as part of the historical record of this blog. It reflects the author's views at the time of publication. The content has not been substantively altered, although the HTML, accessibility and formatting have been updated to meet modern web standards. At the Trinity Senatorial Hustings the Vice Dean, Rev. Houghton, was kind enough to ask a question. I felt it appropriate to answer using the Bible as the basis for my reply. There was an audible intake of breath from the parishioners, as if I had committed some great trespass. I was never afraid to question authority, however. The philosophy of the "divine right" died out in the seventeenth century; no one is born to it. I adopt an approach to people of, "you have to earn my respect". Speaking to Rev. Houghton at the end of the hustings, I must say that indeed he did. The development of my personal morality has undergone several distinct stages; first I was t...

The welfare state, as defined in textbooks, is a form of government where the state ensures the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based on the principle of public responsibility for those unable to secure a decent standard of living independently. While this concept encompasses various economic and social arrangements, critiques suggest it fosters dependence that aligns with governmental goals of social control. This dependence increases as higher taxation funds more generous social programs, ensnaring more citizens in a cycle of benefit reliance. This dynamic creates a tacit agreement between voters and politicians: politicians promise support and voters absolve themselves of personal responsibility, preferring leaders who pledge, "Trust me, I will look after you." Critics warn this collective complacency mirrors the behaviour of a herd led unknowingly to unfavourable outcomes. Key concepts contextualising this discussion include: Social Welfare: ...