Mark had to fund his pitch in Portobello selling a product from Helensburgh.
Not many miles involved so perfect for the park and those wanting to purchase a dram or two.
I cant help thinking these pitches should be all but free, it's a public park and purveyors of all the goods on offer are actually doing the local community a huge favour by making the event. We have a similar spring fare in fountainhall road when the road is closed off for a street party of sorts. They raise money and I'm guessing it goes towards some worthy local cause.
I have long banged on about how taxation in this country is so inadequate for our needs. It's no longer a blunt instrument it's just a nonsensical piece of mis- direction but more of that later.
The park with it's stalls would prove to be an enjoyable ramble for the visitors and when we're in Victoria park in London next weekend I must have a wee ramble among their coffee and bakery stalls, I like a good cake.
So here's what I want to see as we finally understand the 21st century and how global fights with local. How can we reform Amazon - do we get them to have a pitch in your local market. I know they like a locker or two and have done deals to rent or place their lockers on many sites around the country. Do we look at their model for inspiration or even bastardise it to suit what our local needs are.
For 15m people in this country and possibly as many as 20m the cost of living crisis is real. The wages / rent /mortgage relationship is broken. What constitutes a career has equally been trashed. At least 10m people have an extra job because the main one isn't a real one. Our nurses go to Australia to work for a few years on the premise that they will be able to earn twice as much and return with a deposit and buy a house. They won't return and we've been stupid enough to shut down immigration so we have all these shortages. Some visas are being handed out in desperation to cover these shortages, the most recent beneficiary I knew was a vet. Quite amusing that our meat industry in the UK is being strangled because the abbatoirs are struggling to get Vets to certify. We desperately need to have freedom of movement again as we have all these low paid jobs to fill. I'm still trying to explain to my generation of pals that the divide is bigger than ever and a degree won't help you straddle it. It's luck and a bit of insider help.
Did nobody watch THE BIG SHORT. Did nobody realise the great corporate heist that shifted us, the global citizen further away from our society than ever before. I live near a guy who still gets an RBS pension and yet many feel should've been jailed.
He doesn't have any problem turning his heating up and he probably saves a fortune from not being able to go to the local pub which now charges £5.50 to £6 a pint.
I don't think the trickle down has trickled towards the staff who are serving the pint and still on the maximum wage. That's not a typo, the minimum wage is the maximum wage in many low paid places. In some places there's the living wage but dont trust me ask about and see how many are getting it. Ask in your fast food places and your drinking dens. It doesn't happen.
It could happen but it doesn't. Business leaders whether they be publicans, restauranters or just market stall managers dance to their own beat.
This microscopic look at some of the service industry is just one way to extrapolate into the wider running of business like the old CEO of the post office. Her job wasn't to enhance postal workers pay and packages although she did offer that up as a defence. Like the water companies and all the utilities it was to provide profit to Divi up with the shareholders. Less wages means more profit, it's not hard sums but it's not always the case. I've always wondered why boardroom appointees need to be paid so much when the first thing they try to do is cap the pay of others. It's laughable but it's how it works. This is why the trickle down does not work. Anyone brought up on TV westerns knows someone upstream controls the water.
This is my long-winded introduction to tax reform.
We have to tax property and capital. It's quite simple. We create a society that allows for the exploitation of a market by someone. I can accept that aspect of capitalism. They are not doing it for any other reason than to get rich. Once they start to acquire real cash they hide it. That's fine that's their job if they pure exploitative capitalists but our society needs to explain the rules to them. We, the society, need the lights on and so do the exploitative capitalists or the business model doesn't work.
Why should hospital workers pay for the roads or the buses that take them to work. Why should factory workers face taxes to continue our nuclear deterrent. The only people who need a nuclear deterrent are those with something to protect. That'll be those global companies.
So how do we find a way to tax them efficiently. Quite simply tax and fine them with equity stakes. Whether they are multi nationals or simple utilities (see chess example below of water companies). Some would call this nationalisation via the back door as the water companies fines were properly biting, so would the dilution of the shareholders and the stock price would plummet. This would mean the government fines would increase and yes, quickly the company would still be private but the largest shareholders were like the banks, the state.
The same rules can be applied to the global tech giants. Facebook know how much they make from advertising and opinion shifting, Apple and Google phones are sold in shops, taxing these goods is quite simple. These companies have good audit systems and we need to rebalance their unfettered access into our markets. If Mark is paying £50 for a pitch in Portobello, Dyson can pay £50 tax for every hoover he wants to import from Singapore. We simply can't allow production overseas to be allowed to enter the UK without paying towards our overheads as a nation. We are paying the unemployment benefit for all the victims of the cruise ships and Dyson closures, while they run straight over the top of us by still being allowed to sell their goods.
We have seen the future, water and renewables are so important. Food production is essential. Care workers as I wrote in March 2020 were going to be the life blood of the next 50 years and yet we refuse to pay them for their skill and dedication. We allow unscrupulous care homes to be promulgated just because it's easier.
We need an integrated strategy that helps local populations.
I don't think the UK has the wherewithal to do this. I don't think the rates system will be properly reformed. It is a tax on property for a good reason. To get to a property you need a pavement and a road. To protect a property you fire and police services
Chess move example of water companies being regulated with a green bias.
The country generally wants the water companies to improve their standards across the board and fines to date have been very low key when you look at the environmental or personal level.
They are not doing what it says on the company tin, as set up by the then government. They are doing what was demanded by shareholders. Low risk high returns but we need to let the shareholders know it's not low risk.
We can only do this through regulation and proper finding mechanisms.
To shareholders these fines may seem Draconian but to users and environmentalists they will still a long way short.
The fines would naturally hit the investment as fines generally will come out of the Company and with their penchant for high dividends the knock on will be felt and the regulator will have failed.
Ideally the regulator takes a stake with new shares issued to cover penalties and leaving cash flow to address the issues. New shares could be issued with every fine and an obligatory rights issue created to raise the cash needed for the investment to correct what went wrong.
Shareholders will feel the dilution in the share price and will either choose to sell or take up the rights and carry on. The medicine may only last for a few years but once the company is on a former footing and the discharges, leaks and contamination corrected these water companies will be worth a fortune. Supply of treated water is key to humanity continuing, it really is that simple.
The companies know how to provide a good service but their job is to cut corners to maximise short term profit. This model is perfect for a 3-5 firm of boom and bust brand loyalty but wholly inappropriate for a long term industry essential to the survival of humanity.
We can get by without electricity but you'll find a day without water a lot tougher.
Within 3 years a stronger fining regime will see the country through stealth acquire 15% stakes in the most badly performing water companies and their share price will have halved. They will however be further ahead than others within 5 years as their infrastructure will be fit for the next 50 years not the 19th century.
This has always needed to be a partnership and left to their own devices executives will be dialled into three year performance targets that make their share options valuable. Share price has nothing to do with company performance as we all know. Performance measurement is a relative term and so good financial performance which pleases shareholders and executives has no relationship to discharges leaks and contamination. As Paul Weller sang once the public gets what the public wants and performance is always open to interpretation.
