Market Forces or Government Knows Best?

The government wants to close local hospitals and put them into “centres of excellence”. “Centres Of Excellence” is a title, not a description. They want to do this because it makes for “better treatment” by concentrating the expertise. There is some evidence for this in major/catastrophic ill health such as, cancer, stroke, heart attack etc but far more evidence that early treatment prevents long term complications and speedy recovery. To this end ambulance staff have become paramedics, able to diagnose and administer doctor like treatments. This provides the early intervention while the patient is transported to the hospital. I don’t have the knowledge to know if one counteracts the other, but it seems clear that if you are going to close local hospitals you need to increase ambulances and paramedics to compensate. Anyone seeing this? Ultimately the argument is about efficiency verses community.

Market forces would say that locals are against hospital closures, but government knows best!  

On the other hand shopping is (and has been for some time) gradually moving away from high streets. To purpose built shopping centres and out of town supermarkets and outlet villages/parks, and more recently to online shopping. Why the shift? Convenience. Traditional high streets do not have the choice, are often more expensive and crowded on Saturdays. They are difficult to get to, with one way systems, expensive and labyrinth parking. As high street shops close, so foot fall drops leading to other shops failing. The high street becomes shabby and pubs, cinemas, restaurants start to lose out as the high street stops being a destination. Yet the government (and local government) want to keep the high street open. Suddenly community is more important than efficiency. Why? Money, business rates, VAT and other taxes. You know you are taxed and when you earn and spend money. This is about the spending. Some of this spending tax is direct (VAT) other is indirect, so an element of the price you pay goes to cover the retailer’s rates, tax on their rent payments, the tax and national insurance it pays it staff, the tax on the building, content, and public liability insurance, the tax on the fuel to deliver to and heat/light the shop. The revenues from parking charges, parking fines etc. Buy online from someone like Amazon, Play et al and you don’t pay UK VAT you pay Belgium. Jersey  or other VAT. Its lower and the end price reflect this. Even getting your supermarket shopping delivered saves on fuel, car maintenance, time and stops you passing other shops and that impulse buy. 

The Governments plan is give new shops the first 6 months off from paying business rates. That a great idea, at least for the first six months they won't be losing as much while the high street and shop is empty. Nice pedestrianised areas, just missing pedestrians. Think laterally. free land trains that are also road sweepers, so people can get from car park and up and down the high street easily with bags full of shopping. Come on something imaginative! 

Market forces (people voting with their feet and purses) says close the high street (as they are), but the government knows best!

World War 1 - Legacy

Before WWII 1 in 4 poor children died.. That compares with 1 in 9 soldiers during the war. corner shop keepers looked down on the working class as a group so far below them that they were almost a different race. The War forced social change that would have probably not happened otherwise. 

Solders were given meet with every meal, as poor workers they would have only had meet on special occasions. Not even once a week. Bread was the main food and hunger the norm in 1914. After the war the troops came back better fed,stronger and healthier with higher expectations.

The officers of WWII were expected to lead from the front. Officers were not selected on their ability to lead but on their class. Upper and middle class formed the officers. Leading from the front meant they were the first out of the trenches and therefore the first and most likely to die. The average life expectancy of these offers was low and less than 6 weeks at one part. This culling of the upper and middle classes caused their families to pay death duties that in turn forced large estates to sell off their land. Post war it meant that companies that would have nepotisim or cronyism to select  management roles where forced to look to at a meritocratic selection proces. 

A male dominated workforce was forced to accept women as skilled labour. Improving their status and independence in society. At the end ofWWI most woe me and all men had a vote. The war forced everyone into a collaboration to service and win that could not be undone after. It forced myths, conventions and prejudices  to be discarded fro practical and real truths.

Today in the UK we have benefited from this equality for almost 100 years. But.. The human need for a hierarchy is slowly but surely creeping back. There excess of the Thatcher era and the yuppie may have disappeared from the headlines but the excesses of bankers show that they have simply gone underground and not disappeared. TV and the internet has slowed down the return to the excess of elite ruling class like some pressure valve of information. It seems that TV and the internet may have encouraged others to move towards democracy as in the Arab uprisings and unrest in Eastern Europe. Do they just want the benefits, without the culture changes and is that achievable. Regardless, in the UK rich are getting richer the poor are getting poorer and cultures that didn't go through the decorosisation of WWI are exerting their influence and prejudices.

Was the changes that I merged as a result of WWI and benefited generation, transient and doomed to be lost as we return slowly and inexorably back to some status que of have and have nots?

Placebo effect

Just watched a documentary on BBC in their Horizon series on "the placebo effect". As well as being interesting it reinforced to me how we each live in a world created by our minds. Outside things influence and change our perception but ultimately it is OUR perception that is our truth. The fact that even when some people know it is a placebo it can still work in 60% was even more astonishing. This seemed to show that we can suspend logical reasoning if it is to our " perceived" benefit.

If you believe, it works. Hypnotism is the same, as are faith healers, psychics, TV evangelists and voodoo doctors. It's just the degree to which you suspend logical reasoning. Clearly in some cases this ability to suspend logic has benefits. While complete abdication of logic can see the vulnerable abused and in a cult. 

What is fascinating is the minds ability to create a world in which belief is reality. There is a theory that there are infinite universes. I vaguely remember a quote that was something like "when a human dies a whole world ceases to exist". 

Clearly there are limits to this. One can't ignore the laws of physics. A belief that you can fly does not make it so. Where the external world can be suppressed momentarily, it seems the body can be at the disposal of the mind, and the mind can fool itself. Giving someone an empty oxygen bottle at a high altitude didn't increase the oxygen in their body, but did reduce hormones in the blood as if they had and enabled them to carry out tasks as if they had.

Even fake surgery. Where the theatre that goes around the preperation, gave people benefits as if they had the surgery. People with back pain, was the example. There was no attempt to set or mend broken bones. But clearly not all surgery is necessary. 

So if it is just the theatre of people in white surgery outfits, in a hospital setting that enables the mind to trick itself, you should be able to make the link to religious and other institutional ceremonies that impart some belief that things have change, for the individual or group.

Concentrating Power

As systems enable fewer people to deliver the same or better. As businesses look to save costs, mainly by reducing head count. Business (and government) become dependant on fewer and fewer people to run their operation.

In the 70's when typing pools disappeared as a result of computers and the ability for people to type their own letters and email previously paper memos. This didn't consolidate the power but dispersed it away from the typing pool. Deskilling it to some extent, as experienced typists applied knowledge of layout, punctuation and grammar. Early "word processing" had spell checking of sorts and now most do on the fly spell checking and grammar as well as offering suggestions on layout. 

So new, more efficient, systems don't always concentrate power, but others do. The ones that do are those that help deliver the product or service to the customer. Warehouse systems that used to employ a small army of people but now use an automatic robotic system. These requires little human intervention on day to day basis. These have concentrated the power from unskilled workers into skilled workers that build, operate and maintain them. 

Even in account departments where invoices arrive, are checked and paid automatically with humans simply auditing the system and dealing with exceptions, this concentration of power happens.

So if this smaller more powerful work force decides it wants more, what would be the employer's response? Until these systems become universal there are enough other skilled people out there to undermine any pressure that may have been exerted.

Undermining employees individual or collective efforts to get more (whether fair or unfair) has recently been the modus operandi of many employers especially skill levels are low.

However, reducing head count concentrates power into fewer people, but also desikills and reduces the labour pool able to do that job. At first the pool is large and those left in employment are thankful for a job and fearful of their security in any future cull so are compliant and undemanding, but will that be the case going forward? Should business build a contingency? Even if a contingency is developed it needs to be robust as the ability for a smaller group organise and become a collective is easier, so even a contingency may be undermined.

As business's goal is to improve margin and grow regardless of their employees needs there will always be a desire to reduce costs. The quickest and easiest way is to shed employees. Taken to its ultimate where the CEO presses a button on Monday morning and the factory churns out the product or service, without anyone else's involvement. The business is in charge of its destiny, without any employee dependency.

A company like this is just dependant on its suppliers and customers. There is no ability to cut cost other than reinvesting in the technology that allows the automation. Likely an expensive and risky decision.

What has happened is that power has been concentrated from employees into suppliers. There maybe some ability to undermine suppliers with other suppliers where the technology is relatively similar. But that would imply that the competition to the businesses products or services was similar too. And if there is some significant proprietary technology (patented). Then the business would be held to ransom to get a competitive advantage.

If every business runs the same, employing no one, then how do the customers/consumers get the money to buy these products?

Putting two and two together

Last week "they" (the government) announced that they are putting up the state pension age. The justification is "we are living longer and this retains the ratio of 1/3rd of our adult life in retirement."

The first thought I had was, when I started work in the 70's most people that retired were dead within two years. I don't remember anyone arguing to bring the retirement age down then. In fact pension funds were so cash rich that companies used to raid them for cash to put back into the business. That is until Robert Maxwell emptied the pension fund of the Mirror group and the law was changed.

Second thought came today, while listening to the news of the G8 summit on the need to solve the increasing numbers of people with dementia. Dementia is something that gets worse with age and as people are living longer the chances of getting dementia increase. If you need to keep people employed, paying taxes and acting like good little consumers you need them to be mentally able to keep going. So I'm not clear on the motivation here.

The odds are about 1 in 3 in getting some form of dementia before you die and are the same odds for getting cancer. While some unlucky sods with get both, that means that there will be very few pensioners well enough to enjoy their retirement and dent the pension pot.

Increasingly see that for most people life is unfair, not because they get ill (that is random chance), but that they have little choice in path of their life (dictated by politicians).

Dark matter Or anti-light

To every force, there is an equal and opposite force, A truth. We've are all told at school. A Star/Sun emits light so powerful it can push a planet into a different orbit. As a sun is round then these forces balance out and the Sun remains in.the same place, That doesn't explained the "opposite" force. Is this what Dark Matter is? The attraction that holds galaxies and solar systems together that gravity doesn't explain n 

High Voltage 2011

Was it better than last year?  In some ways yes in others no

Lest start on the positives - the real ale tent. So popular they struggled to keep up with demand. Excellent range of ales. Some I wont try again but others I go an extra mile or two for. They even had men wandering around selling Hobgoblin from barrels on their back. It didn't make sense that these hovered around the real ale tent in stead of wandering down to the main stage! Anyway it was far better than last year and I managed to sup 19 pints over two days compared to about 8 last year.

Food - The variety was good. The staple sausages, burgers etc and some Caribbean, Mexican selections and not forgetting the Ginsters pasty stall.

Having revealed I sunk 19 pints there is no surprise that the availability of XXL T shirts also struck a positive note compared to last year. There was more seating outside the bar tents too. In fact ignoring the music this was like a good natured fate.

Attendance was obviously down on last year and that was probably due to a less compelling line up of bands

Before I go on to the music I think it is worth noting that this time next year will be right at the start of the Olympics. If there is a High Voltage in 2012 it will be at a different time of a different location or maybe both...My suggestion is West London - Epsom downs - well away from the Olympics so no impact on transport, might attract a new audience, Only problem will be finding the port-a-loo's, I understand there will be shortage at this time.

So on to the music...

I my have missed some stunning performances but here is what I though of what I did see.

First up was Michael Monroe. Not a band I had heard before but OK,

OK in the sense that I would listen to them agin but not good enough to make me want to rush out and get a copy of there output. And just to show it was really rock and roll he pulled the anarchistic climb the stage stunt.

 Next up SKIN. A much more passionate performance that started to get those rock juices flowing.

For our 4th pint we decided it was too far to walk back to the real ale tent so opted to buy a pint of larger. My friend (his round) can't help chatting to the ladies and so it was while queueing for a beer.

Then came Rival Sons. Each band was better than the last.. or was that the beer working! No definitely very good. If you haven't heard them then you need too ASAP 

Waited for the start of Queensryche but wasn't expecting to be impressed and wasn't disappointed. So headed off to the Metal Stage via the Ace Cafe tent - This has got to be the hidden gem I have not been disappointed with the talent that they have managed to put on last year and this. Not always my cup of tea, but the talent is undeniable. No programme so I don'y know who I saw.

Via the real ale tent we arrived at the Metal Stage and caught the end of Ravens Creed

Ravens Creed stereotypical metal band. Lost of gruff shouting and every being played too make as much noise as possible with the base/drum/lead interjection. Not much more to add.

Then Trigger Finger.. Metal Stage? How many Metal band have you seen in a three piece suite?

  

To tell the truth there were hints of metal in their set but this was very much a good rock band. A well polished set. The singer worked the audience and everyone was taking part. Someone had recommended them to me. I must remember to thank them. I have already got their latest album.  If they hadn't have been that good I'd have made it for Thin Lizzy. As it was I was happy to catch the end on the Main Stage.

Thin Lizzy a well practiced performance that because of its classic set was simply good fun.

We headed for the real ale beer tent, but yet again as we passed the Ace Cafe tent and were drawn in to the strange world of Arthur Brown

I do like a bit of prog rock and this hit all the buttons form me the was one of the highlights of High Voltage 2011. 

We headed back to the main stage to catch Judas Priest which we probably would have stayed at apart from two things  1 - it wasn't that good,  2 - I'd heard that Electric Wizard had been caught up in the Norwegian bomb and shootings and that Rival Sons where going to do another set.

Not a completely new set but I only noticed two from the set they did early and they were so much better on the smaller stage. They looked more comfortable and they worked like a well oiled machine.  

Some 11 pints down we tottered off home ahead of the main crowd. 

SUNDAY 

Love Fungus ... I saw James May and thought this could be a laugh, but he wasn't in the band. They started playing then the singer opened his mouth and the noise had the same impact as standing next to someone with terminal halitosis. We reeled backward (almost spilt my pint) and headed for Metal Stage.  

Saw the first two numbers from the Furyon.