Without clean water for 17 days, people in South West England have been told they will receive no compensation whatsoever. This decision by Severn Trent Water (who were contracted to supply under diverse penalty clauses) is almost impossible to challenge. Under European Union legal rules it is necessary to exhaust all domestic remedies first.
Unfortunately domestic remedies to this self-apportioned lack of blame are rendered virtually non-existent by their nebulousness and their cost. It is characteristic of much of the remedial measures that are available within England; hard to find out who is responsible, harder to find out how they can be held to account, immensely risky and expensive a course to set.
And without braving this course, there is no redress under EU rules that apply so plainly and accessibly to the rest of the Union, even if we haven't been opted-out, which in the main, we have.
Lots of research in current economics on obfuscation, cost, exclusion from effective remedy and the effective denial of redress as a business and governance practice is appearing currently.
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Nobody will lose their jobs and suffer like the farmimg community and the local residents of these unfortunate areas.
Nobody in government will ever remember the faces of the farmers as their herds were slaughtered. Politicians don't have a clue on how to run a bloody icecream-stall, let alone a working farm.
Nobody in Nulab will ever admit their mistakes.
Nobody will be asked to account for their actions in a way that will make them vulnerable to accusations of incompetence.
Nobody will suffer from salaries and pensions being frozen or lost.
Nobody should forget how the BBC have reported the ludicrous headline that 'The foot and mouth epidemic was caused by 'flooding'. (Oh yeah; why...)
I really despair at the disgraceful attempts to pass blame to others here. The comment from the BBC has been a disgrace, and their coverage has been an issue worth bringing to law for such biased reporting.
1. Are there any British farmers' blogs we can follow?
2. Is there something you or your connections can do to help the farmers make officialdom accountable?
2. Defra report on 2001 outbreak is here: http://www.defra.gov.uk/footandmouth/pdf/fmdorigins1.pdf
A different account is here:
http://www.silentmajority.co.uk/FootinMouth/wordfiles/F&M%20Update%201.rtf
A different explanation is here:
http://www.silentmajority.co.uk/FootinMouth/wordfiles/F&M%20Update%201.rtf
agriculture newsgroup:
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.business.agriculture/about
Scroblene, a quote frome a 2002 paper
'Inequality [which is increasing in advanced market economy countries, the Gini coeficient reached 0.47 by 2005 in the US] enables the rich to subvert the political, regulatory and legal institutions of society for their benefit. If political and regulatory institutions can be moved by wealth or influence, they will favour the established, not the efficient....through political contributions, bribes or just deployment of legal and political resources to get their way..'
The paper quoting that goes on
'The subversion of institutions will be made easier by the increasing complexity of laws and regulations. Inequality .. assisted by complexity creates an asymmetry that can be exploited to the advantage of the rich.. but damages the market economy over the long run'.
As it says in the post, the economics of complexity and inaccessibility and their inter-relations with market economies is quite the thing in research at the moment.
But we are actually living it; and living the destruction of an answerable democracy. I haven't got a measure of the growth of income and wealth inequality in the UK in the last 10 years to hand, but I recall that it is increasing and speeding up, generating all these effects and ultimately damaging the efficiency of the market itself.
Not really Sackers, what I do is write about what seems to be changing for the worse. ( It makes me feel better, though why watching some of the views that have been crawling out on Dale's comments recently should do so, I'm not sure).
Regulatory power under the Labour regime has been largely removed from any answerability.
The objections raised to the remoteness of 'Brussels' and democratic and legal deficits in truth apply very much more to Labour and its rule in the UK and, most specifically, in England.
Here I know precisely to whom I owe what duty, and by what means I should begin any process of complaint or compensation seeking - it's all written down, even if I employ a 'commercialista' to deal with it (but that's the division of labour, not something sinister). In England the accountant copes with a nebulous liability to an ill-defined and elusive state that is the determinor of all the rules.
HG - most interesting. Can you please supply the reference for this 2002 paper?
"As it says in the post, the economics of complexity and inaccessibility and their inter-relations with market economies is quite the thing in research at the moment."
For the benefit of this newcomer, can you say more about this research trend?
HG - isn't it impertinent of our politicians to lecture developing countries on their need for good governance?
Glaeser, E. J., Scheinkman, J. and Shleifer, A. (2003). ‘The injustice of inequality’. Journal of Monetary. Economics: Carnegie-Rochester Series on Public ...
www.blackwell-synergy.com/ doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2006.00643.x -
The paper I have here is referring to a mimeo but here it is published S.
HG,
The second and subsequent paras of your reply are chilling.
'Freefall', comes to mind; but Nulab's plans for my generation are not good.
Somehaow, I've been 'feeling', just what you've described in recent months. The attitude of Brown and his silent cabinet just have an aura of menace which I cannot put a finger on, but something is definitely not right.
I think people will have to resign themselves to learning about personal risk a lot sooner than they do now.
"the Gini coeficient reached 0.47 by 2005 in the US"
If this degree of inequality worries you, you should worry infinitely more for the true inequality at the global level, i.e. inequality between all the citizens of the world.
In 2005 the Gini coefficient for this concept of inequality was 0.67, and rising
(See B. Milanovic, Worlds Apart, Princeton University Press 2005).
The first global economy was the Roman Empire, which also led to growth and inequality, but also to the collapse of markets and civilisation as we know it.
The relationship between the institutions, structures and attitudes of the democratic state,and the free market and its efficiencies and advantages, needs to be spelled out to thicko Labour apparatchiks C.
That's what comes of having a really stupid and poorly educated power elite with incorrect political attitudes. It's interesting that stupidity is the mark of Cain on all authoritarian systems, and that their justification for their requisition of power is that they are clever and good.
Not for nothing did Polly Toynbee fail her 11+ and flunk out of Oxford without a degree. Not for nothing does Brown mouth the words of economic nonsense and be surprised when told it's balls by a man who made a decent living in the free markets.
HG,
I do seem to be the 'junior partner' in this thread; sorry to just show the facts as I see them, but you have an incisive view, and you also have two or three other posters who appear to 'know' as well!
Looking at the other sites where they discuss these issues, I have to admit that your's is much more detailed, and disregards spin (Fabulous)!
There is an article in the Daily Telegraph today about a new Head of Community etc etc etc 'Director', in Sevenoaks.
All I will say is that Sevenoaks has a reputation for some of the worst political infighting, with the worst sort of 'politicians', you can describe. They jump on planning applications and scrutinise every detail (about which they have minimal understanding), just to preserve their miserable inheritance in their little bit of Kent.
Sevenoaks deserves to sink commercially, and although the superb Public School bears its name, there is absolutely no chance of doing a proper commercial development scheme there, without huge, uneconomical expense by the people planning jobs, money, expertise etc etc.
Like many other towns in the South East, my company has all but given up on talking with these sorts of people, and will invest elsewhere.
I hardly ever see my business partner these days, because he is always up North, doing deals with the councils and landowners, and being welcomed with open arms.
My business region is London and the South.
Bugger!
ps Just wait until I post on Guildford and other Surrey towns!
You are encouraging Scrobs, sometimes what I'm on about doesn't fit at all into the categories of thought we're supposed to be using when discussing what is happening in the UK.
It's really quite forward to be speaking of complexity and transparency and the failure of markets under the weight of manipulation by power elites.
I just write it all down because there are very informed and trained people out there, and each one of us knows something some of the time
and together we might work out why these vile jobsworths are bullying everyone from babes in arms (indeed they seem to have started removing babes in arms) through children wasting their lives in joyless institutions of acculturation, to undergraduates offered pap as food for their brains if they have survived the state school, to degrees which are merely a ticket to ride in the state nomenklatura system, to pensioners disgracefully 'retired' from years of unemployment or makework jobs (did you know that if you go to the website for Blair's old constituency there is a claimants' link prominently displayed top right, and if you have the strength to follow it you will discover a world of 'benefits' you could never imagine?. I made myself into an appropriate virtual person and was even asked whether my employment had been prescribed by my GP for 'therapeutic purposes', ie they don't even go to work there to go to work and earn their unattractive living, which would lose them their 'benefits', they go to work there under doctor's orders to make themselves feel better while they gorge on the hardearned money of others confiscated in Labour regime taxes.
There are about 80,000 souls in that constituency and more than 1000 of them are 'employed' in the local council; that's not including the local regional claptrap offices etc.
But I meander. And yes I call them souls on purpose and, before anyone starts, yes I know the true meaning of claptrap too, but meanings evolve.
To judge by the review in today's FT, this might be a good read:
A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World by Gregory Clark
Hi HG - I don't know if you noticed, but I have a supplementary question following your comments on Bearwatch re Chinese equality...
"HG - thanks, I think I understand this, roughly. But can you clarify a bit on the market economy inefficiency caused by pay inequality - an example, perhaps?"
I have to go and buy a washing machine, S, then I'll have a go. The machine is 7 kilos, 1200 spin, only 300 euros, installed - Chinese.
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