Financial Services Authority

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) will be abolished by the Revolutionary government, and the banks will be regulated by the Bank of England as before.

The banks will be restricted to banking. Depositors money is to used for loans to real businesses, such as factories, retail shops, haulage companies. Real physical businesses, not fronts for financial concoctions. A proportion may be lent to builders and for bridging loans, home improvements, and the like. A reserve must be invested in ‘safe investments’ such as UK government bonds, large establshed UK company bonds, deposits with the Bank of England. No gambling type activities on the FOREX hedge funds futures etc. Banks may own the buildings they use and have a tiny property investment portfolio. They may make new loans for house purchase or provide consumer credit.The amount banks can borrow will be controlled.

Mortgages will be provided by building societies, and consumer credit will be provided by credit unions, or savings and loan companies.

Is the pound safe?

Are any currencies safe? Well of course not, no currency is fully backed on anything real certainly not on gold. Most counties could not pay their debts if they couldn’t reborrow or simply print more money. Printing money devalues it. Raising taxes doesn’t pay off a country’s debt because it tends to shrink the real economy and put people out of work.

Banks can’t pay their debts that’s why they need continuing taxpayer support. They make lots of money from gambling type activities and so they can afford to pay high wages and bonuses, and pensions. That’s why they deserve taxpayers support. ? !

They also give swap loans to small businesses. They are basically a hedge fund. Interest rate goes up you win, but the bank can cancel, interest rate goes down you loose. Interest rates have artificially been reduced by the bank of England to help the banks lend more to small business. No sorry, that should say, to help banks extract more money from small business. The FSA says these swaps are useful and appropriate products in some cases.

I was a financial advisor at the time of the big bang in the city of London and the formation of the FSA, in the mid 1980’s It has all been  a disaster. The revolutionary government will scrap the FSA, and hand bank regulation back to the Bank of England. At least they might not be so rude to anyone with less than 50 million pounds who wants to set up a bank as the FSA seem to be. The banks will be restricted in how they can use depositors money. The city of London will be regulated, so that it’s word will again be its bond.

Trans-fats

Lets start to work out what we should eat to stay healthy, and a normal weight, and we’ll see why most of us don’t in fact eat like we should.

A few facts. The present diet in England is more fattening than a 1950s diet and probably not any healthier. Overall health has improved, but this can be explained by improvements in medical techniques and particularly a reduction in infant deaths. The ending of coal burning in cities has eliminated smog. Petrol no longer contains lead. Cars are also built to be safer, and regulation has improved driving standards. Less people smoke.

Certain elements of the traditional Mediterranean and French diets seem to lead to lower levels of heart disease.

There is no evidence that a 1950s diet wouldn’t maintain a steady weight and health standard. Of all the debate about fats, there is one definate conclusion. Trans-fats cause disease. You get them from manufactured food, from restaurants and supermarkets. Food  direct from the farmer, or your garden does not contain them. They should be banned.

Clamping and towing away.

The Revolutionary government will simply outlaw clamping. Just as it here in France.

Towing away should only to de done by council employees or the emergency services, when actual danger or serious inconvenience exsits.

If the police find a driver unable to drive, for example uninsured, banned, failed a breath test, it doesn’t follow that the vehicle should be automatically towed away. If an alternative legal driver can be found, or the vehicle could be simply collected later if the driver can sort the problem. Pay his insurance for example, or call a towing service himself. It is not good for police, public relations, for the police to be seen to be issuing punishments, rather than reporting offences, for the courts to deal with, wherever this is possible.

It doesn’t look good for the the authorities to crush cars for fiscal offences either. It’s anti-environmental, arbitrary and thuggish. This will be stopped.

Right to be poor, taxation, fines

The right to be poor, means your money should be yours to spend. You shouldn’t be discrimated against because you can’t afford everything, and you centainly shouldn’t be forced to pay for the best for someone else. A rich person might have a new large flat screen TV in each room, in all his houses, and Sky, but the poor person might only have one second-hand TV. and freeview.

So why does the poor man pay the same for his TV licence.

TV Licence to be scrapped and replaced by a tax on television receivers and television subscriptions such as Sky.

Fixed penalty fines to be limited to £ 20 maximum, and only to be issued by the government.

No private company to issue “fines”, not for any kind of breach of contract, only to charge actual reasonable costs.

Parking charges

It is very unfair to traders in towns and villages that car owners are charged parking fees to visit them, but not to visit out of town complexes. From an environmental point of view, it is exactly the same if a person drives from his home in the city, to the outskirts to shop, as it is for someone to drive from the outskirts into the city to shop. City centre shops also attract shoppers on foot or train far more than out of town complexes.

Traffic jams are usually much worse on ring roads and near shopping centres than in city centres. All on-street parking should be free, and councils should allow as much parking space as possible and time limits should allow at least 3 hours.

The environly friendly measure would be to charge for parking at supermarkets, but I don’t propose this, as it’s contrary to the freedom to be poor.

Suppression of credit cards

Right of consumers to give up a credit or store card. The issuer of the card must give a month with no interest and no payment due, and then the interest is to be reduced to 1% per month. The issuer of the card is to refund any default charges over the last 2 years and capitalise any arrears. The issuer must offer a debit card as replacement.

No new credit (as opposed to debit) cards to be issued, and no credit limits to be increased on existing cards.