Friday, January 21, 2022

21/01/2022 - How do you distribute wealth?

Alexia has died.  It happened this morning, I asked her three times for Radio 4.  She flashed her lights at me but refused to respond.  The others came down, and tried, all to no avail.  Apparently you have to say I love you to her to mend the wretched technological thing but she wasn't listening. 

The remote on the television is also lost, I can't view it either (not that I mind) it can be accessed by my daughter's phone in the evening but this break from the box in the corner leaves me sort of elated.

Yesterday my daughter messaged a Jack Munroe Twitter thread.  She was getting agitated (Jack that is) about how everything in the cheapest range of foods in supermarkets had gone up by  hundreds of percentage - if that makes sense.  But such shops as M&S will still be selling their ready meals at the usual price of £10, instead of £34 if their percentage had gone up at the same time.  One law for the affluent middle class, another for the poor.

Contemplating rereading E.P. Thompson - The Making of the English Working Class, or even the Ragged Trouser Philanthropists, but will either give any answers?  I believe that we lurch drunkenly from problem to problem with no clear foresight of the future.  

Would an overall basic income that the Green Party have always espoused go somehow towards addressing the problem of poverty.  The chancellor has/is thinking about an one of handout of £500 to help towards crippling energy bills that are forecast from April.

Read on our town chat this morning that they are successful in getting a grant of seventeen and half million pounds to tout up the town.  Do you know what went through my mind immediately?  Who will profit from this windfall the entrepreneurs or the people.  Cynical bitch. But spying the word 'levelling up' in our local Conservative MP  congratulations - the bile did arise;)

Need some pretty photos to liven the blog up.


Nothing fancy, just little self-seeded violas that each year pushed their way up through the gravel and flowered.

16 comments:

  1. I have for a long time been interested in how predictions of universal wealth and leisure brought about by technology are playing out. These promises go back to the fifties and sixties, at least. I've just looked up what I wrote after re-reading "The Mighty Micro" a few years ago: "It seems that most of the wealth that might have funded our 'life of luxurious leisure' drifted upwards to a wealthy minority, with crumbs falling downwards and outwards across the global multitudes, while the gap between the richest and the poorest gradually increased. And so the employed work longer hours and for more years than before."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I suppose you can say such a system is advantageous to the economy. Though H.J.Wells got it right with his Eloi and Morlocks, one group feeding off the other. There is no answer in the end.

      Delete
  2. Those violas have lifted my spirits Thelma - they are tough little creatures.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well I am glad of that Pat, your last blog had some gloom in it. But violas like the slightly sandy soil under the stones and spread their seed quite happily. They have such pretty faces.

      Delete
  3. "I believe that we lurch drunkenly from problem to problem with no clear foresight of the future." - distinct lack of leadership (of all stripes).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sadly yes, there is no one in the wings to take charge of affairs in this country. Starmer is having a good try though.

      Delete
  4. I assume Alexa needs open heart surgery (something we are familiar with from our Dyson!!) I went across to Jack Monroe's blog (an annual occurrence) and found a great pudding which got made tonight as I had some home-made bread to use up. My version included Raspberries from the freezer and blackberry and apple I'd been cooking up for a pie. Looks scrummy.

    I won't comment politically as it's not a subject I am well-grounded in, but it's about time Politicians of ALL denominations, did things for their country and NOT their pockets.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Don't like Dysons either Jennie, presume Alexa needs replacing, though apparently she lost her voice all over the country it wasn't just us. Glad you managed to find a good recipe on Jack Monroe, probably her cooking skills are better than her political skills.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I've just read that there was a problem with the Alexa network today.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is working now. Such a small thing, but wait when the system goes down and we can't access our accounts;)

      Delete
  7. Re Alexa, I wouldn't have her in the house. We give enough personal data to the tech giants as it is without willingly installing a robot which eaves-drops on you. Someone I know who lives nearby is constantly being troubled by her daughter remotely operating Alexa from Australia where she lives. If her daughter can do that, just think what the techies can do.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Well my irrelevant response to Alexa overhearing us, is that we should lead ultra good lives;). I suspect everything is eavesdropping on us whether it is our mobile phones, televisions or even computers. Basically it is either people wanting to sell us stuff, foreign ears such as China/Russia, or maybe even our own government. A brief flurry through what I have signed my name to over the last few years will give anyone a good idea of what I believe in Tom.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I was talking to our country Commissioner the other day and I expressed my concern that all this funding be audited to that a large percentage does not get siphoned off to the quick and ready! I must admit that your first paragraph had me trying to remember if you had a pet called Alexia!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Yes got Alexa's name right in the end. They are quite useful but then someone else comes into the room and changes the music, not so good. Here in this country Tabor, the North does suffer when it comes to handing out money.

    ReplyDelete

Love having comments!