Boost for town Centres

I see business rates are to be reduced in three towns, using part of the coalition Governments High Street help fund of £100,000.
This will definitely help new traders to move into empty shops and bring in trade, they will also be "Sprucing up the towns"

One tiny little problem ?

Its not in Sandwell but in Cannock, Rugely & Hendsford

In the Sandwell towns of West Brom, Wednesbury, etc, it looks like you will get flowers


Sandwell Tory said
We have also called on Sandwell to cancel parking charges and reduce rates for new shop start ups


                         but after all,  flowers outside this card shop should make it look nice

Reference
http://www.expressandstar.com/business/midlands-business/2012/06/30/business-rates-drop-for-three-staffordshire-towns/

Bomber Command memorial

I see with pride that we now have a bomber Command memorial, It is however almost 70 years late.
Every man , women and child owes their life to the 55,000 lads that lost theirs, helping protect our country.

I have the utmost respect for all the young lads who 70 years ago defended our country



Respect

Sandwell Tory said

A special thought goes to those who came home and never lived long enough to see the memorial



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2165852/Lancaster-drops-payload-poppies-Queen-unveils-Bomber-Command-memorial.html

Sandwell Town centre Quiz

I see Sandwell as been awarded some money to help the 6 towns, 

here is the quiz :-
 
What is one of  Sandwell's plans for the money?


a, Cancel car parking charges to help local people and traders bring back prosperity ?


b, Reduce local rates to help traders to help them survive ?


c, Cancel all market charges for a period of time to help traders ?


d, buy flowers





                   You've won tonight's star prize yes its the flowers 


Quote "bosses are confident that the cash will bring in shoppers".

Read more:

 http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2012/06/22/100000-boost-for-sandwell-high-streets/#ixzz1yboikL6u

Sandwell Tory said
You could not dream this up !

O levels

The old saying , "Education free's the people" is never more true than now.

Around the world countries are educating their people, India, China,  in fact all up and coming
countries are devoting resources to educating the young into hi tech.

What have we done, from the 1960's the UK has slowly slipped down the international league
for education,as politicians tinkered with the system. Sandwell it self is one of the lowest achieving boroughs in England, Sadly its old Grammar School a former pinnacle of education in the borough is now in special measures and I well remember "an experiment" back in the 1960's to teach English using a system of write it as it sounded, (wot u doin)  I often wonder what became of those test subjects.

but what of politicians most of whom came through the education system of old, it seems political dogma
has them stuck in a Ground hog day.


Ever larger numbers of Politicians have the bare faced cheek to say the education system they benefited from cannot be enjoyed by the youth of today.

"Health & Safety" played its part to, "you cant use copper sulphate or magnesium ribbon, or make Hydrogen Sulfide ( stink bombs ) to you and me

Currently children who do not succeed in a qualification only re-sit and re-sit till a pass is obtained, items which once were part of a 15 year old curriculum are now the resolve of a 18year old.


Our kids have to compete with kids from other boroughs and now kids from other countries in the race for technology and we are losing this race, those technology jobs brought with it the manual jobs to build the products, in the words of the advert ( Its Simplessss)

40 or so years ago the UK had major car exports, its own Missile program  ( blue Streak), Concord, we built hi tech ships, we had a boat that traveled at 300MPH and a thing called TSR2, is there a link with the educational changes and the demise of UK technology, I wonder? 


Sandwell Tory said
If the old ways were best don't be afraid to go back to them, but then again if Labour don't want our kids to be free, just carry on and throw them another promise. 

Who's got the right plan

Our European masters came out with a cunning plan, they were going to have a currency across all of europe
one minor little problem, some countries are industrialised some were not far from being Agricultural economies all with differing growth, export and income rates.


So in this cunning plan weaker countries were brought up to the economic levels of other countries, fine so far ?

The problem is I have not mentioned that the weaker countries borrowed money to do it, then along came a rainy day
ie, banks funding this growth made some bad deals around property building, yep everyone was building houses, the USA, Ireland , Spain and it needs an ever increasing number of people to buy them.

http://www.investopedia.com/features/crashes/crashes9.asp#axzz1xsKiW6uv


this is a bubble

we should all be used to bubbles

see
South sea bubble  http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/South-Sea-Bubble/  
Dotcom bubble  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8558257.stm

bubbles should come as no shock to older people, but now the bubble burst and with it land and home values fell, banks assets, went overnight real cash became king




But I fear that leaves us with another bubble being inflated,its called Government debt

We now have a stupid situation were Spain has been given E100 Billion, problem is Italy has had to bung money into that fund to help Spain

Italy as borrowed the money to pay Spain at 7% and is loaning Spain the money at 3%

so we have Italy's debt rise from the borrowing and on top Italy pays the 3% difference



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18438044
  

Now Spain's borrowing costs have risen
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18438044  so  10-year bonds hit 7%    even countries cant afford those rates


And a major credit organisation cut Spain's credit rating to just above junk and Italy's borrowing costs rise to 5.3%,

we will soon have countries that have had bail outs bailing out other countries , what a complete mess
and all we hear from Labour is Spend some more or Britain's doing it all wrong.


Sandwell Tory said
What a complete mess,  Labour take a look across the channel 

An Apology

The Stats on this blog tell me that on average there are 155 views per month from US sites a further 45 from Australian sites and a smattering of hits from NZ, India & others.

It pains me therefore to apologies for the BBC's output on the Queens jubilee


To put you in the Picture ( no pun intended ) many many years ago while the US opened up their airways to the private sector the UK went down the road of a Government appointed broadcaster.

This, in a strange form still exists today (BBC), US readers may find it hard to believe but it brings with it a
license fee, Yes in the UK each house holder has to pay for a TV receiving license
( in 2012 this costs £145 or $225 ) and this is paid each year.

Before you ask, most stations are commercial (with adverts), this a started a state controlled monitoring
system of letters reminding you to pay and a fleet of detector vans, yes detector vans driving around detecting unlicensed TV's then fining the owners in a court of Law.

But I distract 


Older folk will remember the BBC from the WW2 or from old film clips, the BBC was a rock for the people of the world, even Lord Reith once said "the BBC's purpose was, in three words: educate, inform, entertain". and that's how it was.


Why the BBC did not ask
Jennie Bond , Michael Aspel,Kate Adie , Joan Bakewell, Trevor McDonald, Anna Ford.
and last and I feel the best Richard Dimbleby's sons, all excellent with gravitas to compare the programs
I just don't know..

What the BBC put on was I feel was a kick in the teeth to our Queen,the whole process is steeped in history but it didn't get a mention even the flotilla consisted of some of the little Dunkirk small ships and everything afloat on the Thames that day had an historic story to tell.

One presenter forgot the name of an old Sailor during the interview another said the upper deck of a boat was "the first floor" I would be terrified to ask them were the poop deck was.



Is it time to scrap the license fee and look again at the BBC ? 
and
where's the educate, inform, entertain gone ?


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/the_queens_diamond_jubilee/9314625/BBC-gets-2500-complaints-for-Diamond-Jubilee-coverage-as-former-controller-admits-they-wont-win-any-BAFTAs.html

Euro pt2

Only a few months ago senior Labour ministers were shouting how good the US economy was, siting the US pumping  $Billions into the economy as the reason for the success and that the Uk's Coalition was totally wrong not follow.


Now some months later the US economy seems to be sadly slowing with the latest release of job creations.


Where are the Labour pundits now? why don't we hear their shouts? of pump more money in?

The same goes for Europe, the Socialist mantra of print a few more bank notes and it will be ok, worked for local financial problems, Governments then let inflation rise over a 5 or 10 year spell, effectively devaluing the currency and and taking away the public's pain and hardship by producing jobs when exports become cheaper.

This time its not a local problem loads of countries are effectively devaluing their currencies
( including ours) so the base line stops the same.
Effectively you spend Billions of £-$- Yen- Euro's to get absolutely no where. 

The worlds two biggest capitalist countries, the US & Japan are in the growth doldrums with thier economies stagnant.and over the last 10 years Japan has tried umpteen measures to kick start its economy including giving every one money to spend, but nothing was successful, Japanese folk just kept the money under the bed for a safe day.

The US are learning the same lesson and the UK economy is just about the same with -0.3% growth
(within a margin of error of 0%) UK residents are holding on to money.

Meanwhile Europe is a mess after following the Socialist spend more philosophy, but slowly European countries are realising this Ireland has just voted for Austerity and I believe Greece will too, just delaying the the date when the Euro collapses.

Some Politicians have yesterdays answers for today's problems and their rhetoric seems good to the electorate for a short term gain but in the long term  I fear they simply have not a clue, just what are these Euro socialist politicians playing at? even our own Prime Minister said that he's attended 18 economic summits in 2 years, yes 18 and its still a mess over there, If this had been a private sector company the share holders ( us the people) would be in revolt and voting them off.

Yet While they mess about in Europe on the socialist dream, its damaging our economy!

Labour went ballistic over a 1p rise in a pasty, but forgot to mention we are paying over £100M a day
in debt and Euro payments.

Do we need Euro politicians on £100,000 + when a school kid could spend that sum better?