Hunger at Home

I was born and bred in the UK and although I now benefit from residing in sunnier climes, I still maintain a watching brief on good old Blighty.  The political scene is rather sad and boring suffering from, in my opinion, poor calibre leadership and government as well as a confused society having difficulty accepting a much reduced role in the world compared with its imperial past.  That said, it is the seventh largest economy in the world, when measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and number three in Europe by the same GDP measure.  It's current 'austerity' programme is understandably unpopular with UK citizens but the 'live now, pay later' culture prevalent throughout several decades has inevitably created a national financial deficit that has to be addressed and there are no pain-free solutions.

I do believe that the noun 'austerity' has different connotations depending on personal circumstances. Not being able to run two cars or having to forego an overseas holiday, is a different kettle of fish to being unable to heat the house or having insufficient disposable income to be able to afford decent meals.  In this respect, a feature in the UK's 'The Independent' newspaper earlier this week, with the headline "Hungry Britain: welfare cuts leave more than 500,000 people forced to use food banks, warns Oxfam", really was a chilling wake up call on the state of the nation.  Half a million people, which roughly equates to the population of Bristol, cannot afford to eat properly.  The newspaper refers to this group as the "hidden hungry" and makes the point that the number has trebled in the past year.

The article included extracts from a joint report by Oxfam and Church Action on Poverty, which stated that the hunger crisis had been exacerbated by the falling living standards of people in employment who have seen no increase in wages or have had their working hours cut in recent years.  Whereas over the past five years food costs have risen by 35 per cent and home heating costs by 63 per cent.  The report also points the finger at the government's changes to welfare payments a primary reason for the demand for food banks.  But whilst I am sure the changes don't ease the problem, I am not convinced there is a strong causal link between state benefits and poverty.  The economic malaise within the UK and many other countries is a multi-dimensional problem, for which there is not going to be a one-dimensional solution.

Any system has emergent properties, which, in my opinion, within the global economic system, include the fact that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.  This appears to be true in every country in the world including the richest, the United States of America.  At the rich end of the spectrum, capital attracts capital and results in exponential, limitless growth without any work being done by the owners of the capital.  At the poor end of the spectrum, poor individuals, who are poor through no fault of their own, are deprived of opportunity and breed offspring who suffer the same miserable existences, and so the cycle goes on.  Add to this the fact that we are taking more out of the planet than we are putting back in, particularly in respect of energy and food, and the prognosis doesn't look good.

What's the solution?  There are no easy answers my friend.  But however the problems are tackled, let's make sure everyone, regardless of where they were fortunate or unfortunate to have been born, is not deprived of their basic needs.  If food banks are part of the solution in the UK, they should be accepted and not used for political point scoring.

Don't put politics before common sense.

I am an avid follower of political events around the world and I really don't know why, because politicians frustrate the hell out of me!  They really are a strange breed.  What motivates individuals to be representatives of the people, when the real agenda is looking after number one, themselves?  Are there really any 'conviction' politicians or is that just a tactic to feed their own egotistic traits?  Why does the electorate keep coming back for more and expect the next generation of political animals to be any different?  The answer to the last question must surely be because there is nowhere else to go. There are some pretty crunchy national and international issues that affect all of us and generations to come.  So the politicians' jobs are extremely important and democracy does give the populace some influence on national and to a lesser extent, international governance.

I met a guy who had been on a course aimed at teaching people how to deal with the media.  He told me he had been taught the ABC technique for dealing with questions, which apparently most politicians learn.  Seemingly, when you are faced with a difficult question from a reporter you Acknowledge the question, Bridge across to something you prepared earlier and then take Control by talking about what you wanted to talk about in the first place!  So Acknowledge could be "That's an interesting issue........", the Bridge could be a simple "but........", and Control might be "What I really want to get across is that........".  Next time you watch a programme like the BBC's Question Time, observe how many times variations of the ABC technique are employed to avoid difficult questions.

From my comments thus far, you will gather I don't believe politicians are very good value for money, but can they do any harm?  Yes, I believe they can and let me provide a very recent example.  One of the major political issues disrupting life in the UK right now is the European Union - in or out?  Well I don't want this post to stray into the minefield of independence versus dependence, at least not directly.  But I would encourage the reader to raise the level of thinking beyond the UK, those little islands off the north west coast of mainland Europe, to world trade.  After all, the global economy transcends all national boundaries and if the global economy collapses, we all perish.  Earlier this week, a group of British businessmen, including Richard Branson and Martin Sorrell, wrote a letter published in the UK's Independent newspaper urging the government not to pull the UK out of the European Union.  They made the point that the benefits of membership overwhelmingly outweigh the costs and to suggest otherwise is "putting politics before economics".  I think that is an understatement.  In my opinion, this issue is yet another example of self-gratifying politicians putting politics before COMMON SENSE.

Whatever, your views on Europe, it must be obvious to all that the issue has become purely a political debate in the UK, triggered by the success of UKIP in the local elections.  Politicians are concerned firstly for themselves and secondly for their party, although their party is a very poor second.  So survival tactics have become the name of the game.  Political debates become full of populist statements and where there are audiences, searching for the maximum applause.  But returning to the example of the BBC's Question Time programme, I have noticed how very often, in my opinion, the quality of the audience is better than the quality of the panel.  So if the audiences are representative samples of the 'public at large', i.e. the electorate, then maybe that's why apathy (reflected in election turnouts) has been so apparent in recent years.

People power has never been greater, particularly with the effectiveness of social media, so hopefully democracy will improve.  Maybe online voting will one day replace archaic ballot boxes and voting slips.  Whatever, the aim should be for common sense to take precedence over politics but common sense is not very common! :-)

When the bubble bursts.

I'm forever blowing bubbles,

Pretty bubbles in the air,

They fly so high,

Nearly reach the sky,

Then like my dreams,

They fade and die.

Fortune's always hiding,

I've looked everywhere,

I'm forever blowing bubbles,

Pretty bubbles in the air.

This 1918 song was performed throughout the 20th century by various artists, and is well known in the UK as the club anthem for West Ham United.  Anyone who has blown bubbles will have experienced the fun of watching a bubble grow, float away and then very, very rapidly deflate and disappear.

What about economic bubbles?  A bubble is created when any asset is allowed to increase in value, irrationally and unsustainably.  Notable examples in the past two decades are the dot.com bubble in the 1990s and the various property bubbles in the early 2000s, including the USA mortgage fiasco, which is blamed as the major cause of the 2007/2008 global financial crash.  The psychology of bubbles is interesting because humans do not appear to learn any lessons from bubble bursts, which can be extremely painful.  Perhaps the main cause of not learning from the mistakes of the past is that bubbles can be extremely exciting.  Rather like a night out on the town when you might consume vast quantities of alcohol even with the experience and painful knowledge of past hangovers!  When the next 'morning after the night before' arrives, you swear it will be the last time, but it never is!  Living in an economic bubble, for example a property boom, is very similar.  Prices are rising, so more people want to buy for fear of 'falling off the property ladder', which cause prices to rise more, more people buy,........a vicious circle.  Construction firms are busy, estate agents are manic, mortgage lenders are working overtime, personal debt is rising, the national economic figures look good, so what's the problem?!  The problem is that the situation is not sustainable because rationality has gone out of the window and the economic system is out of control.  If people stop buying or banks stop lending, the bubble bursts, very quickly and with little or no warning.  People lose their properties, unemployment soars and the hangover sets in.......never again........until the next time!

As large parts of the developed world face so-called austerity and the developing world struggles to catch up, the gap between the 'haves' and 'have nots' increases and politicians believe economic growth will solve all these problems in one fell swoop.  Why would any rational person believe this fallacy?  You can't get perpetual growth on a finite planet because perpetual growth requires access to unlimited resources and the ability to dispose of unlimited waste.  But when bubbles come along the appetite to follow them is often insatiable.  Bubbles are very attractive to politicians because they provide a short-term fix to national economic problems and they can always blame the post-burst hangover on someone else.

Government policies shape nations and nations shape the world.  This short post cannot cover all that needs to be done.  But in my opinion, the world's focus ought to be on NEEDS rather than WANTS and in that vein, I am reminded of a Dutch proverb:

Getting what we want is more fun than getting what we need, but........

Possessing a toy

Is the end of the joy

Beware of the next bubble!

Sir Alex Who?

I had a brief flirtation with football during my schoolboy days.  Growing up in north London, it was expected that lads (male chauvinist attitudes in those days!) would support Arsenal or Spurs and I chose the former - Up the Gunners!  But by my early teens when my father's job was relocated to Manchester and I moved with my parents to the north of England, I grew out of the football bug.  That's not to say I didn't enjoy watching the occasional match from the comfort of an armchair pointing towards a TV!  The 'English Disease' of football hooliganism in the 1970s appalled me and soured any remaining taste that I had for the sport.

I hardly thought about football during my adulthood, until 2003 when I met and developed a strong friendship with a guy who is a fanatical Manchester United Football Club (MUFC) supporter - and I mean fanatical!  On his Twitter account he describes himself as a 'pre Munich Red'.  Our friendship meant that we would understandably discuss football, although we were certainly not stuck for conversation without it, and I gradually gained an understanding of the footballing 'religion' - in this case faith in and worship of MUFC.  From my point of view, my new knowledge didn't encourage me to support MUFC, or any other football club, but I was interested in the business model and in particular, the MUFC brand.  I was, and still am, on a very steep learning curve.  You have to understand that prior to 2003, I didn't know who was the manager of MUFC and so not surprisingly, I had no knowledge of Sir Alex Ferguson - hence 'Sir Alex Who?'!

I was fascinated by the financing and ownership of the club and in particular, the purchase of a controlling interest by Malcolm Glazer in 2005.  It was a highly leveraged takeover and the club's debt prompted protests from fans, including some choosing to wear green and gold when going to matches, which were the colours of the original club, Newton Heath.  Suddenly a huge number of supporters had become financial experts.  They decided debt was a bad thing and Malcolm Glazer was an evil man, unfit to have a controlling stake in their club.  Throughout this period, MUFC continued to perform excellently on the pitch under Sir Alex Ferguson's management but, in my opinion, he really demonstrated his leadership acumen by the way he focussed on the one thing that football should be all about, WINNING GAMES!  Unlike some of the fans, he didn't allow himself to become distracted from that goal - no pun intended!  Indeed I am not aware of Sir Alex having expressed any complaints about the ownership of the club because like all business leaders, he knows that ALL stakeholders are important to the success of the enterprise.

So when I heard the recent announcement of Sir Alex's resignation as manager of the club, albeit continuing as a director and ambassador, I didn't feel any emotion, unlike many of the club's fans, but I do recognise that he will be a hard act to follow.  The timing of his resignation and his apparent succession plan with the impending appointment of David Moyes as the new manager, is yet another example of Sir Alex's exemplary leadership and commitment to MUFC's future success.

Well done Sir Alex........Sir Alex Who?........Sir Alex FERGUSON of course!!

Living with Change.

Tom Peters published Thriving on Chaos in 1987 and I read it shortly afterwards. It's an excellent book aimed at the business community and Tom Peters explains how rapid and unpredictable change, i.e. chaos, is a way of life, which businesses must accept. Indeed, he urges managers not to fight change, not just to cope with change, but THRIVE on it. Regard life's unpredictability as an opportunity for constantly seeking innovative solutions to highly complex problems. Now that's a good inspirational tonic to guide any business leader and it certainly had an effect on my thinking. In particular, I found it useful to introduce changes just for the hell of it, not just in my business environment but also with day-to-day chores. For example, on the domestic front, I used to vary the route I took to work in the morning, break fixed eating and drinking routines, change my hairstyle, and change other habits that had become a way of life. The object of the exercise was to take me out of my various comfort zones but I must admit I didn't always feel better for the experiences! So at work and play, change was the order of the day - how's that for a catchy poetic adage?!

Life moves on and now that I am not thriving with the cut-and-thrust of the corporate pantomime, you might think more stability was the order of the day. Forget it! In recent times my life continues to change but not as a result of planning, indeed the opposite - serendipity! Since Sandie and I got married seven and a half years ago, an event which in itself was serendipitous, we have lived in four homes, including a boat on the River Thames, two of which we actually named Serendipity. The same name was used for a business that we created in Turkey, which was difficult to explain to the authorities because there doesn't appear to be a literal translation of serendipity into Turkish. During this time we have inherited a family of two dogs and a cat, whilst pursuing a challenging lifestyle with a healthy balance of physical and intellectual activities. The main difference between our current self-employed status versus our pre-marital employed status, is that changes in our personal lives are not planned now to the same degree as previously. I have no doubt that if I am writing a post in seven years time, I will be able to recall many other unplanned and hopefully serendipitous experiences.

I know I am very fortunate to have partner who has, as one of her many attributes, a love of change. In fact, her desire to play 'musical chairs' continues in our home. Rarely a week goes by without something moving! It can be a picture, a clock, a mirror, an item of furniture or indeed, complete room changes! The lounge has become the dining room and vice versa, the main bedroom has become the spare bedroom and vice versa, and so it goes on....but it's fun! I must admit that sometimes my brain has difficulty keeping pace with these domestic changes, firstly noticing them and after they have registered, adapting to the new arrangements. The waste paper bin was concealed in a cupboard in the kitchen. Sandie moved it to a different cupboard and for weeks afterwards I kept going to the wrong cupboard! It's moved again but it's now not concealed so I don't have a problem. More recently, I went to my 'normal' cabinet for a pair of underpants, only to find a drawer full of bras and knickers!! Two items of furniture had been interchanged. Last week I conducted a simple experiment. I swapped two furniture pieces in the lounge and dining room. It took Sandie an hour to spot the change, longer than I had anticipated, but she was busy doing housework during that time. I explained it was an experiment to observe how long it would take her to spot the difference, to which her response was "I'm only trying to make the place better". Eureka! I learnt more from that statement than from observing her reaction time to my silly experiment. Her continual desire for change is actually an aspiration for improvement, so she THRIVES on change.

Not all change is serendipity. One of the synonyms for 'serendipity' is 'happy accident', which can be translated into Turkish! The massacres on Syria, the disease and starvation in Africa, can hardly be described as serendipitous. But that doesn't mean we can't all learn something from these and other disastrous events. We can't change history but we can all try "to make the place better". The only thing we can predict with any certainty is that things will change. So we have to live with it and might as well thrive on it!