Friday Fun - Who would you choose if you could wish it so?

So amongst many things we have learned this week, it is certain that Theresa May is manifestly unsuited to being Prime Minister. I mean we thought she would be a bit crap, but down there, fending off Corbyn as worst politician in the UK; well it would be worrying if it wasn't so funny.


But here we are, equipped with Magic Wand, to anoint a new Prime Minister bright and early for Monday morning to lead us out of the chaos of Brexit one way or t'other....

WHO WILL YOU CHOOSE?

Two choices  each - one UK and one choice of anyone on earth.


Defend your choices in the comments and I will pick a winner Sunday!

Musk Down!

Always interesting how often this can happen - Elon Musk is in big trouble in the US for his, allegedly drug-fuelled, tweets about Tesla - another mighty titan on Industry on his way down.


Musk is a genius in the true sense of the word, able to dream and realise things that most people cannot. However, he is also human and hubris affects everyone.


Now made of money and with a multi-million fan club, Musk is now like a tinpot dictator - listening only to acolytes and also rich and powerful enough to ignore everyone else.


Until he screws with the markets, by saying he was going to privatise Tesla and had funds lined up he massively moved the market - it is a fairly open and shut case. He is going to be in deep trouble and the US justice system is brutalist in its construction. Of course, liberal use of highly paid lawyers may save him, but even this might prove hard if the SEC just wants to make its point.


Tesla of course has been struggling, unable to make the cars quick enough to sell - which should really be a saving grace given they lose money on everyone they sell! The economies of scale seem to be more elusive and Musk is too involved to let it go. On his rocket adventures the science is beyond him so he has to leave he technical to experts - as such, the business burns his money but with a much better success rate.


Anyway, we will find out pretty soon how well Tesla does with out him!

New Zeitgeist: a Fusing of C@W Themes

A propos of our last two C@W posts - CU's on Mrs May having been led by her civil servants to the Magic NHS-Money Tree, and mine on the Swansea Lagoon decision, a neat coming-together of these two themes emerges in the columns and letters pages of the Telegraph and Welsh media passim.

Tory anger as clean energy project shelved (!)

... roars the DTel (paywall), and its corresondents provide the proof.  Welsh Tories were also dead keen on it too, in large numbers.  Yes, there are no end of self-identifying Tories who think the Lagoon to be deserving of public largesse.  What, at any price?  Electricity costing four or five times the going rate?  Apparently, yes.

It even looks like the old Tory logo ...

It would seem, then, that T.May is not merely lame and lazy, she's discovered that the Money Tree is popular across the board!  If she'd only realised this last week instead of pussy-footing around with just the NHS, the lagoon would have been saved.  Can the Defence-Money Tree be far away? 

A whole *moneytree* policy, no less!   (Sorry, must be the sun - pass me another drink.)

Nice weekends all round - 

ND

Feeble Signals Heard from the Milae Robot

Milae, the robot launched several years ago on a five-year mission through hostile media to land at 10/DowningStreet, is stuck in an unexpectedly low position and desperately trying to send signals to reassure its project team.  But only a garbled message has been received, with a meaningless phrase "zero - zero" being repeated continually.   Although early reports said Milae had its feet squarely on the ground, this is now severely in doubt.

Conditions seemed perfect for a successful result, but after an apparently satisfactory launch in 2010 and climbing to a high altitude, it set off on a course into the void and then crashed heavily.  Although it may have bounced a couple of times, photos from several angles indicate it is positioned very awkwardly.  There are concerns it is fast running out of time to communicate its message to the outside world and complete its historic mission. 

Awkwardly positioned

The RedRosetta project is trying to devise a strategy for relaunching the robot, but speaking on conditions of anonymity one of the team said: "Milae is in a bad place and not performing as we hoped.  It seems to be stuck, unable to make contact or communicate properly.  Everything we have tried has gone wrong.  The public is quickly losing interest.  We are going to give it one more go in the next few days but several of us are starting to think we should abandon it."

Milae is part of a European project to control as much territory as possible with robots operated remotely from a centre in Brussels.  

13:00 UPDATE:  the BBC reports that the project is "trying to move Milae forward using its own little legs.  But its policies are fast running out." 

Actual ways to fix the deficit; part 1, NHS Privitisation

The UK Deficit and national debt is on the road to hell. With record emigration and immigration the Country is losing its tax base whilst also accruing more and more long term benefit costs as the population ages.

The sad facts are that as much as Labour and Conservatives go at each other, arguing about where £3 billion goes here and there does not really make any difference. The problem with the numbers we have is in the trillions of pounds of problems. Even the annual deficit is well over £100 billion a year - more than the take in VAT for example - and that is just the overspend.

So, if we lived in a real world where people were actually allowed to say the truth rather than deny reality (we know we are not in a real world because the Euro exists and all the politicians in Europe say it will live forever), then we might come up with some radical ideas.



How my NHS would look

 In the 1980's there were some very good privatisations, in the 1990's some less good ones. But if you want one off hits to really help reduce Government debt then privatisation is the way to go. People come off the state payroll and get real jobs instead that pay real taxes, efficiencies can be delivered and saves have new businesses to invest their savings capital into. We end up with a smaller state, taking in more tax. It's a win-win.

However, in the UK lots of the good asset sales have been made, Aviation, Utilities, Telecoms, Rail. There are a few left like Roads, but the tax take is already disproportionate so its a hard sell.

There is only one standout institution left - this is the NHS. Some hospitals in the US make profits of up to 25% (somewhat egregious it sounds, but having been to some the service is great). The NHS budget is about £110 billion. A huge amount, more than is collected by national insurance. If hospitals were privatised, the interest from the private sector would be huge. The various regional or specialised businesses would raise probably over £100 billion  - maybe nearer £150 billion. This is would be a big dent in the deficit, even if we did not allow for any further rationalisation in the business.

Better yet would be to encourage a part-privatised system of insurance for those that can afford it as in France, to replace national insurance and create another new private industry that would generate more jobs and wealth.  

With better offers of healthcare, it may even be we see spending overall on healthcare continue to increase, but as the increase would be in private spend rather than state spend, the effect on the Treasury would be good rather than bad.

Of course, I can imagine people reading this are now worrying about my own mental health. there is no chance of this happening in the UK with Labour and the Tories out-doing one another in their commitment to state-sponsored penury via unsustainable health spending. It's Friday, I like humour on a Friday but this is tinged with regret that no radical solutions are currently being put forward to try to turn the Country around. It is very 1970's managed decline when we need a 1980's drive for renewal.