if kondratiev were around today

In the 6th economic wave as the technology wave signals The end of human existence I can't help but laugh at how the Russian economist would view it.

When the car was invented it came with technology and rules were invented to ensure the safety of the species. Some countries licence you to use such powerful technology.

When computers the size of mobile phones were placed in the hands of the masses we saw how quickly a lack of health and safety could see the proliferation of truth. I am the way the truth and the light said anyone with the mobile phone and an internet platform to match. Meantime the mental health benefits of this overload of information, marketing, fact checking and nonsense gathering.

I sometimes think I am going mad because I can see it all and yet nobody seems interested. On the contrary they genuinely believe that this is the truth and whether it be parties where dancing is just part of the meeting or fighting elections on bed blocking when all we are describing is wards that should've been bigger and hospitals that should've been scoped to be able to cope with a 100%  increase in demand every 5 years. With the pipeline for staff scoped and sourced.

With all our technical capability to be able to articulate the increasing demands that will be placed on the NHS over the next five, ten and 20 years to suggest that the cure is better management for bed blocking is just nonsense. 

Yet again I have had the pleasure of seeing the NHS staff at work on Jackie. 

Her Camino since 2005 has been random but with hindsight as regular as clockwork.

I have had as many days walking across  the meseta and the Pyrenees as she has the operating theatres, high dependency and general recovery wards. when she asked me to bring one croc in I knew my gambling chances were good, but ultimately unfounded.

Every time the treatment has been superb and yet the workers from consultant to cleaner have been hard at it.

Technology has given us the skill to bend the truth and quite simply to write lies. These people work while political adversaries make them footballs. The staff as highly skilled as any other part of our industry within their field of expertise and we should reward that. We seem intent on stopping staff joining from overseas while encouraging the few we do grow organically through schooling are encouraged to leave.

One of the nurses was telling Jackie that she would be going over to Australia for a few years to get enough money to pay off her student's debt and get a deposit for a house. An absolute scandal and that is why I back the idea that staff should be able to keep more than £12500, the current tax free allowance. Let's not talk about bed blocking. We know the demands increase year on year so let's not ask the nurses and doctors to pay for this increase in ill health with no pay rise and frozen tax free earnings allowance. Move this now to £20000. 

Bus Passes

Almost all the patients have free bus travel. The staff at hospitals should all have free bus travel. It should be issued as part of their induction. Do something about pensioners pots if you like by leaving their allowances frozen at £12500 but why punish our essential workers.

Yes Kondratieff would wave and laugh. Every big leap forward has brought a new way to keep the fodder feeling benevolent to some greater cause. 

Negreira to vilaserio

Deadbeat hears of new Tory slogans and tax plans - "Tax the pension not the Workers"

In the post covid world of high inflation and greater poverty Deadbeat has just heard the pub chatter about a massive hike in the tax free earnings point, jumping from £12500 to £20,000 initially for public sector employees but surely for all employees in due course.....not for pensioners though. The hard hit low paid will therefore not need a wage rise and the U-turn from the chancellor freezing it at £12500 for 5 years will be felt by those in work. For the vast number of over 55s drawing their pension the £12500 will stick but this was the point of freezing the rate to act as a pensioners tax. Today's announcement, or leak of the 2p off NI is a fantastic rebate to the rich. Let's face 2% of £20,000 is £200 and 2% of £50,000 will buy you a season ticket. As Rishi was alleged to have said, most of these £20k people support Wrexham whereas those on £50,000 are far more likely to be following at least a tier 3 club, but the pub chatter was all about rewarding those hard working NHS staff with a new tax code. Joy could be heard as glasses were clinking in the corridors and bars of power at squaring the circle. The Inland revenue were busy giving the new tax code a unique lettering system. NHS20k which will ensure those on £20,000 a year keep all their earnings instead of paying circa £1500 tax. Governments in London and Edinburgh were busy rushing plans through so they could be first to their electorate as vote chasing starts in earnest. While the tax take drops, inflationary pressure abates and people can keep the lights on this summer. With the pensions rising the tax take rises so everyone wins. Long term plans have often talked about removing a tax free amount for pensioners and concentrating all vote winning on fear and security. You care less about money when someone reminds you about being mugged off for your pension pot. Pollsters and policy makers (surely the same people) have been talking up siezing more of the pension pots and only the enforced retirements of many GPs and consultants has slowed this process down with the recent reversal on maximum pension pot size. The more successful way to raid the people's pension funds is the slow stealth methodology of removing the tax free allowance and removing NI. One hits pensioners so slows down their retirement while the other one makes working longer more attractive. There are £trillions in drawdown now and 10 million people being hit with £3000 less will merely encourage them to draw more of their pension savings and in turn hit another tax threshhold. Low interest rates encouraged many to transfer their final salary schemes into these pots and made early retirement all the more attractive. For those without a calculator that's £30bn to skim off these early and later retirees. The number goes up every year so its no gamble and will encourage many to stay in work as the country hits a skills shortage. You only need to look at the population who have moved into drawdown on their pensions and identify as the baby boomers of the 50's and 60's. They got their university education in the 70s and early 80's free. Some even entered politics and then introduced tuition fees while coming out with mantras about 'Education Education Education', as the political class moved back to the full entitlement. The old adage, if you cant do teach and if you cant teach pontificate was never more pronounced than during the last 30 years. As everyone knows most universities have now diversified into property fund first with the Education business a distant second. Like charity shops in the high street taking advantage of charitable status allows certain assets to be successfully exploited against a competition that cant benefit from this status. The most fundamental being many of our biggest universities have city or town centre locations making their accomodation an asset worth selling in the open makret and not at student rates. St Andrews have their approach and Edinburgh theirs. The Pollock halls of Residence now boasts 3 hotels and thats 200 less rooms for the students. Progress takes many forms and some may argue that those rooms ensure lower charges for the students in the remaining rooms. They certainly dont argue that they can afford to pay their staff more as the current spate of strikes demonstrates, but these are topics for another day. Tax the retired not the workers - that's the new slogan from the Tories and I love it. When all the right wing parties fight over who can claim to do more for the workers you know it's about the message not the welfare of the workers. And if you believe me you must have had a great night last night!