Spot On - Whether You Like it, Shoreditch style projects are What is Needed - but what about Education?

At a time when the UK Prime Minister is raising the ante for students who want to enter the workforce of the next century, he appears to be thinking of creating a technological dynamo in London at Shoreditch. This is great news as the rag trade center of the seventies transforms itself to serve the creative needs of a future London that could take on the creative centers of the giant economies. Yes, get out of banking and rags and get into technologies. Too little thinking too late in my thinking. Too much Gordon Brown and not enough Maggy has lead to poverty and dependency, excessive risk taking, obsession with property, and silly financing.

So much sour thinking that has come out of the previous administration with Gordon Brown giving people what the country really did not have and so much spending we now see as a big waste of money. Rather than give people hope, the Social Democrats had a way of sapping at the roots of the British economy's vitality focusing the country on consumption rather than creative marketing, innovation and new job production in the technology sectors.

As Britain has slipped further down the league tables in technology innovation, it has registered a disappointing growth in real terms when one subtracts all the waste in property. Focusing on beer, gambling, and football the country has caused it's own slump and smashed the world records for dismal performance. The decline was obvious to all but the previous government.

A new effort to redirect the economy is badly needed, but it does not auger well that the potential for progress is being cut off at the knees with the pressure on the Lib Dems to abandon their push for further education and support of tuition at higher levels of achievement in education.

The backbone of long term economic growth is a sound and extensive education system growing from within and the Tories could be making their biggest mistake by not getting behind the push by the Lib Dems to strengthen and encourage the education base that Britain needs desperately.

It will be the students that make the future of Britain, but many will digress into real estate, dependency on large corporations and banking because that is becoming their only hope of ever owning a home. Worse still they might leave for education and employment elsewhere in Europe.

Why reinforce the mistake of Gordon Brown when the coalition government could give the youngsters a solid hope of a bright future.

Cut other stuff and give targeted support to tuition fees. David you should rethink the overall direction of the cuts. Don't work against creativity when that is where employment will come.

What do others think?

http://www.ebnonline.com/author.asp?section_id=1115&doc_id=200104&

Will not time reveal the lasting importance of friends and mutual respect? Be kind to those who think well of you and those you know and try to add positive elements to your world. Promote peace in your heart and sunshine in the minds of those around you by your own good works. Elevate the level of discussion by thinking less of the issues and more of how you can reduce the tension of stress that arises with honest disagreement. Relax by breathing more deeply and consciously.

He kept guard over the mump, knoll, and tor

The Strangeness of the Chinese Property Bubble ...... a Bubble of Bricks and Mortar

Build and leave empty seems strange and it's consequences may auger in the next financial crisis, one beginning in China! What the Chinese need to understand is the relationship between income an value.

Forget labour theory of value or a money theory of value.

It's the system working smoothly that allows for real success not speculation on future domestic incomes which just may not be realized. It will be interesting to see whether the speculators have their numbers correct or are they behaving according to addictive processes of gambling and unrealistic assumptions of habit persistence in the housing market.

This is communism and capitalism mixed together in a very strange way. More communist than capitalist? No!

Will household balance sheets of future China be strong enough to sustain the value of the property built above sale price, or will too many homes be built and left empty?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/

Will not time reveal the lasting importance of friends and mutual respect? Be kind to those who think well of you and those you know and try to add positive elements to your world. Promote peace in your heart and sunshine in the minds of those around you by your own good works. Elevate the level of discussion by thinking less of the issues and more of how you can reduce the tension of stress that arises with honest disagreement. Relax by breathing more deeply and consciously.

The Burden of Poverty from Restructuring Economies in Photographs by Chris Killips

Woooosh wrote:

Nov 11th 2010 10:18 GMT

I think that it is easy to point the finger at politicians and say they are responsible for many of the sad scenes that we witness. To say that Thatcher is in any way responsible for poverty and the misery that impoverishment brings is just opportunist clap trap. More to the point is that we know companies need to be reshaped to survive international competition and we know this produces unemployment of people who cannot be lucky at the time change happens. Those fortunate enough to weather the storms of restructuring economies are richer beyond all imaginings and some would turn around to say thank you. Many scenes in black and white conjure up our understanding that most of us are the lucky ones who have time to ponder photographs rather than pick through rubbish tips in search or morsels. Thatcher was right however to point out that reinforcing success is the best way to combat weakness. The photos of people succeeding should encourage us to take on greater burdens for our friends and neighbors.

I had a look at the following column in the economist and then added the words found above.  Read for yourself.  Do you think it is right to blame those politicians such as Margaret Thatcher that have done so much to restructure weak economies even though it causes pain?  The banking crisis of today would not have happened under Maggy's watch,believe me!  

In my view, the decision to restructure an economy that Maggy took is like that one one saying two groups are going to suffer over time and one has to choose which group to spare.  The youth of Britain were spared.  That takes courage and that is what Maggy had despite the consequences.  The route Gordon Brown took us to is much less courageous and damns many more people to poverty and pain.  The youth of Britain have to suffer because of Gordon Brown not being watchful enough and enjoying the housing boom.  The present coalition for all it's courage should be supported despite the sadness of austerity that results from earlier sleepy governance.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2010/11/chris_killips_photographs

Will not time reveal the lasting importance of friends and mutual respect?   Be kind to those who think well of you and those you know and try to add positive elements to your world.   Promote peace in your heart and sunshine in the minds of those around you by your own good works.    Elevate the level of discussion by thinking less of the issues and more of how you can reduce the tension of stress that arises with honest disagreement.   Relax by breathing more deeply and consciously.     

The Alarm Bells of Our Failing International Institutions

Watching the English police in the street maintain a semblance of law and order in leading democracies such as London who never fail to preach about the importance of free speech and association, should remind us of how frail the international progress with our international UN institutions of the last fifty years really is. The League of Nations failed several decades before world war. Will we witness the fall of the United Nations and an international disarray that few can imagine?

It's one thing to say that the world wide web and improved communications are a force for peace, but they can also be abused. Who would want to think about how horrible that would be; the rise of a political force determined to put forward a strong program of hard toothed solutions to our present discontent!

No! What we really want is our bumbling democracies to muddle through amid protest and change without those people of a harder bent taking control. But, we are very close tom the tipping point towards that Platonic wheel of political change that predicts chaos.

It's very conceivable that we will fail to introduce a substitute for oil before the stress of a fluid world energy shortage results in serious clashes between the forces for stability and the lack of responsibility that emerges through desperation.

The problem arises because of debt that one generation accumulates and attempts to pass on to the next. When a new generation does not assume the burden of the excesses of a previous generation, the rapid transformations and adjustments needed for stability tend to erode respect and trust in the legal system.

Gradually, the new generation forces the issue seeking an advantage not by democracy but by fierce and by fighting amongst themselves. Bam! you have the instability everyone wants to avoid but few of the previous generation did much to address let alone understand.

It's not good enough that we don't know how to solve our present predicament. The spring is wound tighter and tighter as disagreement between influential parties becomes more fierce. Whoa betide the individuals that come in the middle, the innocents and the weak of the current and new generations who are dragged into a conflict between extremes willing to do more and more at the edge of violence in order to succeed.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/government_debt

Will not time reveal the lasting importance of friends and mutual respect? Be kind to those who think well of you and those you know and try to add positive elements to your world. Promote peace in your heart and sunshine in the minds of those around you by your own good works. Elevate the level of discussion by thinking less of the issues and more of how you can reduce the tension of stress that arises with honest disagreement. Relax by breathing more deeply and consciously.