Revolving doors

Posted by on

In late December 2018, when James “Mad Dog” Mattis resigned as secretary of defense after President Trump announced that he was going to pull U.S. troops out of Syria, it was a big story . The former general was pundited to heaven and back as the last “adult in the room”, praised in Congress and treated with enormous respect for his criticism of the president.

But what happened seven months after the resignation would be reported only in passing,  uncommented upon by the punditocracy or anyone in Congress:  Mattis took up a position on the board of General Dynamics, one of the nation’s largest defense contractors, with all the perks involved. (Admittedly, he had been on that same board from the moment he retired from the military in 2013 until the president appointed him secretary of defense in 2017.)

The only public enthusiast quoted in the media was General Dynamics Chairwoman and CEO Phebe Novakovic, the head of a company that, just after Mattis’s resignation, landed a $714 million delivery order to upgrade 174 Army M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks. In her statement she said: “Jim is a thoughtful, deliberate and principled leader with a proven track record of selfless service to our nation. We are honored to have him on our board”.

According to the Washington Post, General Dynamics is “the fourth-largest corporate recipient of U.S. government contract dollars” and Mattis himself one of at least 50 “high-level government officials” hired by defense contractors since the Trump era began. In fact, on the very board that Mattis rejoined sit six other former military officers and officials, including a former Navy admiral, a former Air Force general, a former deputy secretary of defense, and Novakovic herself who once worked for the CIA and the Pentagon.  By the way, Mark Esper, the current secretary of defense, was previously a lobbyist for Raytheon.

Such events are normal and daily in the world of the military-industrial complex. In a century when a staggeringly funded military haven’t won a war anywhere (but have never stopped trying). Failure continues to prove to be the military-industrial complex’s ultimate success. (January 21, 2020  Tomgram, lightly edited for length).

My comment: This has been going on for at least 70 years, since Eisenhower criticized the self-same “military- industrial complex”.  Nothing has changed and no wars have been won. Find your way to the top and afterwards get a nice, cushy, highly paid job using your contacts.  It isn’t supposed to be like this; or, if it is, the result ought to be  victory after victory, but it isn’t. Just more deaths,  little to show for the sacrifice, and outrageous expenditure of our tax money.

Reform of the EU?

Posted by on

“Like a giant company which fails to draw any lessons from the loss of a major customer, the EU has learnt nothing from the fact that one of its largest members has voted to leave it. Trapped in the sterility of the status quo, its leaders are like members of the Ancien Régime, oblivious to legitimate complaint” and the urgent need for reform. They laugh at Britain now, but in doing so “they risk their own undoing”.  (Jeremy Warner, The Daily Telegraph)

The excerpt (above), part of a longer tirade, illustrates the fact that many Britons have no idea about history or strategy, and have bought the relentless lies told daily in the right-wing Press about the “corruption” and pettiness of the EU, amplified constantly by Russia. The EU has its faults but it is better run than he says and in better economic condition. In any case, it is too late in history for the smallish nation state.  The future belongs to the big groupings, all the more so in view of the helter-skelter growth of China.

In short, instead of working in Brussels to correct aspects of the EU, the right-wing backwoodsmen want to scrap the (mostly good) EU rules, privatize everything in sight ( healthcare already practically privatized) and encourage dubious millionaires to park illicit gains in a weakened City of London.  In soccer this is called an “own goal”.  Most people outside the country think that the U.K  gnp will decline and the poor will get poorer.  This without climate change and the likely disappearance of the Gulf Stream, which will alter the climate.

On a broader perspective, the preoccupation of statesmen over a long period has been, or should be, to restrain Germany, which, left alone, will now have in the EU an economic empire.  Secondly, they want to prevent Russian interference in Europe and the reestablishment of the old Russian empire ( Putin’s  ambition).  At the same time Europeans wanted to reassure Russia that Western Europe will be a stable, not an expanding entity.   All this to discourage the foolishness of wars which have disfigured Western Europe for centuries. The failure in the above regard has meant that the UK has been dragged into two world wars.  The EU is not just an economic entity – it is about security and mutual cooperation.  People with views like those of Little Englander Jeremy Warner are frighteningly common and, I fear, damaging.

Relevance to Epicureanism?  The search for a secure, pleasant, healthy and stress-free life.

 

Extinction on our planet

Posted by on

The outlook for wildlife would be grim even if the planet were not warming. According to a major report last year, 1 million species could soon be wiped out – a sixth mass extinction.  The main cause at present is the loss of habitat, but over this century the changing climate is expected to push ever more species over the brink.

A warming world poses numerous challenges to wildlife. For many plants and animals, their current habitats will simply get too hot. Many are already moving to try to stay within their comfort zone. In the oceans, some organisms have shifted their ranges by hundreds of kilometres.

But on land there are few spaces left for animals to relocate to, and those that do exist are highly fragmented, which makes it very hard for wildlife to adapt.  In polar regions, the loss of sea ice is posing problems for the polar bear and other animals.

The twin problems of over-population and climatic change have to be addressed.  To call them hoaxes is disgraceful.  Over-population, in Africa particularly, is a cultural/religious matter, but with modern family planning there is no medical barrier to restricting the number of children you have – if you want to and have the money. A higher standard of living usually results in fewer children per couple.

As for climate change, one has to be either an oil or coal company executive or a politician taking money from such people, to still believe it is a hoax.  This is beyond being a party political matter – it is a matter of our survival on this planet.  The public pressure to do something radical about it grows and grows, and those of us who espouse Epicureanism should add to that pressure where we can.  (Provoked by a long article in New Scientist, Jan 4, 2020)

Marriage advice from the unmarried

Posted by on

Although divorce only became legal in Spain in 1981, its rate is now one of the highest in the EU, at 57%.

In order to correct this problem The Catholic church in Spain is to put engaged couples on marriage guidance courses lasting two to three years.

At the moment, couples are given 20 hours of guidance. “Marriage training cannot be done in 20 hours,” said Mario Iceta, the Bishop of Bilbao and chair of the Church committee behind the initiative. “To become a priest requires seven years in the seminary, so how can we say it’s 20 hours to become a husband, wife, father and mother?” Couples are expected to attend fortnightly sessions over the two to three years, during which time they are encouraged to remain chaste. The course is divided into 12 subject headings,  including communication, conflict resolution and “the beauty of sexuality”.

My take on it:  My wife and I were married as mature adults by a charming young (unmarried) Episcopal minister, who required us to have three advisory sessions on how to conduct a successful marriage.  We politely concurred, but after the second session he declared it a waste of time. “You know more about it than I do,” he said.

I have no problem with an outsider laying down the rules about joint 50/50 effort around the marital household to young men spoiled by their mothers.  Badly needed by some.  But by Catholic priests who have no experience of living with a person of the opposite sex?  And fortnightly sessions over over three years?  As for chastity, good luck with that!

I suspect no amount of well-meant advice from a priest is going to alter the statistics on divorce. Other societal trends are at work.

Refugees

Posted by on

According to Quartz*, last October was the first month since records began in 1980 that the US settled no refugees.  For a country that was built upon immigration and refugees this is a startling  matter.  It is one thing to restrict immigration and be picky about who you let in, but quite another to refuse the victims of war and terrorism, the oppressed and hungry, the children without parents.

Epicureans care for these poor people and want to help them.  This is in the fine old tradition of taking in the poor, the sick and the oppressed.  Ever visited the statue of Liberty?  It now seems that, in order to appease the fundamentalist “christians”, immigrants in general, the sufferers of violence, along with those whose religions are “suspect”,  are being refused entry.  Navigating the bureaucracy is hard enough, even if you speak the language, have useful skills and come from a politically “acceptable” country, without this recent and short-sighted policy. (These are the sort of people who will eventually delivery your Amazon parcels and stand on tall ladders clearing your gutters.  We need them!).

Meanwhile, the famous wall is being built on the Southern frontier.  If this monument stopped the massive importation of the very drugs used by some Americans and which are a primary cause of the Latin American gang violence and the need to get the hell out, perhaps one could support it.  But, of course, it won’t.  In any case, as the effects of climate change worsen no wall is going to be effective.

*(I had to Google Quartz.  It is a business magazine with editions devoted to the US Africa, India and the UK).  Looks interesting.

 

Monopolies again, and why they are un-Epicurean

Posted by on

Contrary to impressions outside the US America is a very expensive country. Mobile phones, for instance cost on average $100 a month, twice the cost of a similar service in France and Germany.  Healthcare costs are huge. I recently spent ten minutes with a foot doctor for correcting an in-growing toenail, billed at $473.00   Pharmaceuticals can cost twice as much in the US than they do in Europe.  Investment in the US has been falling for 20 years.  Because prices are so high wages buy less. The income of workers, unless they can borrow (and borrowing on credit cards is massive), gets squeezed in real terms while those at the top get paid more and more.  Inequality is growing  to unsupportable levels.  Even life expectancy is falling; suicides are growing in number.

The root cause, many believe, is the huge cost of American elections.  Corporations back candidates generously, but expect a quid pro quo, which means protection from competition and an astonishing hands-off policy on acquisitions and mergers.

Some years ago I was introduced to a neighbour, who worked for the government on mergers and acquisitions.  I was a bit cheeky on a first meeting and told him I thought the scale of merger activity was really bad for the country, and I wished him luck in scaling it back.  Well, if looks could kill!  He left me in no doubt that his job was to encourage mergers! And that was a under Obama!

So , having invested in Candidate X every company wants its pound of flesh, and generally gets the green light. The result is a skewed economy and a less well off population in dire financial situations – less security, more hours, lower real wages, chronic anxiety and, a rising tide of desperation and suicide.

Epicurus, were he alive today, might well comment, “That’s politics for you. Stay away from them”.  I would reply, “But it is not just business as usual.  It’s in process of making  America a second class power.  But everyone looks the other way, as they do on the scary subject of global climate change”.

 

Home delivery: sign of our divided times

Posted by on

“The tyranny of home delivery is creating a new class division. There are those who deliver the boxes and those who get the boxes.  There are now millions employed delivering more stuff to more people more quickly than ever before.  Wages and work conditions are rock bottom .  Insecurity, stress exploitation and alienation are sky high.

“Jeff Bezos, Amazon boss, is now the richest man on the planet, a fortune built on the labour of the boxetariat.  Eliminating the last mile of the supply chain has become the new road to riches for the few and the road to exhaustion for the many.

“Whether all this it will, in time, become the new foundation for worker activism and effective organising for better working conditions is both a challenge and an opportunity.”   (Letter to The Guardian from Stewart Sweeney, Adelaide, South Australia).

My response:  Yes, you can argue that it’s exploitation.  Yes, Amazon pays little tax anywhere, leaving that chore to us.  And yes, Bezos is reported, on top of all that, (correctly or not) to give nothing to charity (at all??).  If true, not an admirable man, unless you are an out-of-sight right-winger.  Epicurus spent a lot of time warning us about the vain pursuit of wealth and power that never results in happiness.

On the other hand, at least until Amazon blatantly exploits its monopoly position, it is convenient, competitive in price, and easy to use. No driving to a mall, wasting half a day, and losing one’s parking spot.  I use Amazon, selfishly, well aware that I am helping create a possibly hideous monopoly and well aware of the moral dilemma.  Yet another issue  to beat oneself up about!  But, on the other hand, I spend the time saved in pleasurable activities.  Epicurus would approve of that

“Discontinued” : some rhymed verse

Posted by on

The Japanese may have devised the idea;
I refer to their crass ”innovation”
Where products have barely the life of a year.
Oh, the speed from launch to truncation!
Every few months a new model is born – –
New colour, new size, or new speed – –
And the prospect of spares for a gadget that’s old
In what seems like a flash can recede.

Planned obsolescence is now universal.
For consumers it’s antipathetic.
What once just applied to recording machines
Is now in the realm of cosmetics.
My wife combs the shops for the lipstick she likes,
Dodging the so-called “new” sprays,
And at last she discovers the colour she thinks
Will last her the rest of her days.

The trick is to buy all stock she can find,
And store it away as if gold.
For try to return in six months and she’ll find
That the colour is no longer sold.
“No, Madam,” they tell her, as if to a child,
“That shade is no longer in fashion.
Young ladies wear lipstick in silver and white.
This season complexions are ashen.”

The same for men’s shorts. For years I have worn
Light cotton that’s comfy and dapper.
Millions were sold, they looked good, but oh, no!
In the new styles I look like a rapper.
They’ve got it all wrong, for no youngster who’s cool
Would be seen in Marks*, dead or alive.
Nonetheless, we’re resigned to be once more de-signed;
It’s us middle-aged men they deprive.

Sauces and hi-fis and cleaners and shoes,
You can barely buy anything twice.
We like the familiar, the tried and the true,
It’s not just a question of price.
This all helps the salesman – – new models to sell!
But consumers? Oh, dear, here we go,
Fruitlessly searching for something again
We had settled on ages ago.

So who’s going to set up a sensible website
Where it’s no longer Autumn or Spring,
Where they stock the right colour, or flavour, or size,
And where changing the range isn’t King?
Where the goods you have known for a decade or so,
That the shops are unwilling to sell,
Are there, reassuring and ready to buy,
And sent to the house where you dwell.

Who’s going to set up a sensible website
To sell last year’s colour of paint,
And wallpaper lately removed from the market,
To replace the areas gone faint?
The margins on cost will be bigger and better;
Convenience only would rule!
I reckon he’ll end up rich as old Croesus,
While the marketing boys play the fool.

* Marks & Spencer, the traditional mid-budget clothes store in England.

 

An ethical dilemma: taking advantage of generous guarantees

Posted by on

“I do a lot of online shopping. I try to stick with the merchants that offer free two-way shipping and unlimited return policies (e.g., any time, any condition, no questions asked). I often order items in three sizes and four colors and return most of them. I keep something for a year or more and then decide I don’t want it, often after I’ve used it.

“Some people have told me that what I’m doing is disgraceful, but I don’t see why. The stores make a big deal promoting these policies, and if they didn’t offer them, I wouldn’t shop there. Am I missing something? I’m becoming ashamed to tell anyone what I do, but I can’t resist getting my money back if I can’t tell in advance what the colors or cut will look like on me in real life, or if I will no longer want something after I discover it forgotten in my closet.

—Deliver Me not Evil

 Dear Deliver,

You’re right—with a caveat. If merchants tout a return-any-time-for-any-reason policy and offer to pick up the shipping charges in both directions, you’re certainly entitled to take advantage of that. As you point out, this policy brings these companies business that you (and others) otherwise might not give them (unless no one had such a policy—but that’s not the case at this time). The organizations must have calculated that they make more money and earn good will eating the cost of postage and returned goods than they would if they required customers to pay for shipping or be stuck with unwanted items. They build those costs into their prices, and if it isn’t working out for them, they increase the prices or reduce the benefits (e.g., switch to limited-time or unused return policies, or charge for shipping).

The caveat: It’s in your own interest (as well as the companies’) not to take excessive advantage of this “generosity.” If you return items unused and promptly, they can be resold and the companies have only lost the cost of shipping and restocking—plus the environmental costs of sending them back and forth. But if you hang onto things for years, or use them and then return them, that will be a loss to the seller. Although some items may get donated to people who are grateful to have them, many will just end up in landfills.

Another thing: thanks to modern technology, companies are keeping track of  our buying habits, including our returns. If yours get to the point of being deemed abusive, companies may cut you off. It’s also possible that you might be a “returnaholic.” If that’s you, seek professional help. But if you’re just milking the system, be careful not to wear out the cow or get kicked.

My comment:  From time to time we all have ethical issues that pose dilemmas.  I thought readers might like to see an answer to one from Joan Reisman-Brill,  who responds in The Humanist magazine to those who have ethical problems.  Questions  to The Humanist Dilemma at dilemma@thehumanist.com (subject line: Humanist Dilemma.  All inquiries confidential)

 

Boeing again: crashes and lousy management

Posted by on

Boeing timeline:

  • 29 October 2018: A 737 Max 8 operated by Lion Air crashes after leaving Indonesia, killing all 189 people on board
  • 31 January 2019: Boeing reports an order of 5,011 Max planes from 79 customers
  • 10 March 2019: A 737 Max 8 operated by Ethiopian Airlines crashes, killing all 157 people on board
  • 14 March 2019: Boeing grounds entire 737 Max aircraft fleet

Boeing pushed back determinedly against the aviation regulator’s calls for a certain aspect of simulator training, which would have led to higher costs for its customers, making its aircraft less attractive.  Documents also appear to show problems with the simulators being discussed.

In February 2018, a Boeing worker asked a colleague: “Would you put your family on a Max simulator-trained aircraft? I wouldn’t.”   “No,” came the reply.   One unnamed employee wrote in an exchange of instant messages in April 2017: “This airplane is designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys.”

“I want to stress the importance of holding firm that there will not be any type of simulator training required to transition from NG to Max,” Boeing’s 737 chief technical pilot at the time, Mark Forkner, said in a March 2017 email.  Boeing will not allow that to happen. We’ll go face to face with any regulator who tries to make that a requirement.”

In other emails and instant messages, employees spoke of their frustration with the company’s culture, complaining about the drive to find the cheapest suppliers and “impossible schedules”.

“I don’t know how to fix these things… it’s systemic. It’s culture. It’s the fact we have a senior leadership team that understand very little about the business and yet are driving us to certain objectives,” said an employee in an email dated June 2018.

And in a May 2018 message, an unnamed Boeing employee said: “I still haven’t been forgiven by God for the covering up I did last year.”. Without citing what was covered up, the employee added: “Can’t do it one more time, the pearly gates will be closed.”

US House transportation committee chairman Peter DeFazio – who has been investigating the 737 Max – said the communications “show a co-ordinated effort dating back to the earliest days of the 737 Max programme to conceal critical information from regulators and the public”.

The comment from the FAA , which is the regulator, was,  “The tone and content of some of the language contained in the documents is disappointing“.  (Washington Post)

Disappointing!  This system isn’t working. It is corrupt.  There are too many Boeings around, getting away with unsafe and unlawful stuff because they have multiple lobbyists and plentiful cash to support pliant congressmen.  Disappointing , indeed!

 

Re-writing history

Posted by on

Putin is now claiming that Poland invaded Russia at the start of the Second World War and that the Poles and Nazis amounted to the same thing!  Could this just be a joke in bad taste?

It is , in any case, total fake news.  Stalin signed the Stalin Ribbentrop pact expecting to acquire a hunk of Poland and to dissuade Hitler from expanding Eastwards and threatening Russia.  He seriously miscalculated, and had mis-judged Hitler’s malignity.   Poland had a good air force but was absolutely incapable of “invading” Russia.  It was the victim of both juggernauts on either side. Hitler invaded Poland and kept going until the battle of Stalingrad stopped him. Stalin is supposed to have been shocked.  He had supped with the devil and had been doubled-crossed.  There are no insuperable frontiers to Russia from the West, as Napoleon realized in 1812.

What our current foreign policy wonks seem to have discounted is the desire among Russians to recover their empire and sphere of influence which, most importantly, included Ukraine. For centuries the Tsars controlled some or all of Poland, but Ukraine was the Russian Empire’s bread basket and essential for any kind of healthy Russian economy. The Russian sphere of influence included the three Baltic countries, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria as well.  They also, on and off over the centuries, controlled most of Poland.   Putin, with America (temporarily we hope) in his pocket, is on a roll at little expense.  The EU is rightly conflicted about expanding further Eastwards.  This is the moment for Russian self-assertion.

All very foreseeable to those who know the history.  Regrettably, that knowledge is in short supply, history and the liberal arts being shunned as more people take business study degrees.  I think this regrettable. Don’t get me started!

Fired Boeing head gets $62 million

Posted by on

Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing boss fired last month, will receive equity and pension benefits worth $62m.  This was the head of a company whose staff have quietly told the Press that management are incompetent and interested mainly in maintaining profits and share price.  346 Passengers are dead because the company sold planes whose electronics were faulty, and, it appears, the top management knew it and just kept their fingers crossed.  And, by the way, his successor in charge of this ”flagship” corporation, David Calhoun, will receive an annual salary of $28 million p.a., plus a long- term incentive reward of $7 million.

Oh, and the executive in charge of the commercial plane division, and recently also fired,  is receiving a lump sum $14.75 million.

Meanwhile, the same day as this news broke about Muilenburg’s pay-off, one of the largest parts suppliers for Boeing’s 737 Max plane, laid off 2,800 employees. 24 companies who supply Boeing , and rely on their business, are also in limbo and under threat.  The workers only, of course.

How can anyone claim that this situation is fair and just?  How can they say that capitalism, current American style, is working?  It breaks every principle of moderation and fairness (look after the company politicians, to hell with the workers!).  Locked into the “good ‘ole boy” network of more money than they can spend, the elite seem unable to think about the long-term consequences of their greed.  The “swamp” is not the Washington civil service; it is something else entirely.

Will someone come on this blog and explain why they think the system works for the  American people?

 

Hate crimes

Posted by on

History shows that violence generally climbs in election years, and given the media-fueled polarization of Americans just now, 2020 bodes to be especially combustible in the United States (it has been such in the UK).  Unlike 2001, when hate crimes peaked in the aftermath of al-Qaeda’s 9/11 assaults, this time the threat of violence is largely homegrown.

Far-Right violence has been on the rise in the US. Hate crimes nearly tripled in 2016  rose nearly 8 percent in 2017 and 12% in 2018. Targets  were mostly black, Hispanic, Jewish, and Muslim people, all harmless human beings.  A 2018 survey of thirty major cities found that hate crimes against whites rose 15.5% to ninety-seven incidents.  While hate-driven attacks are small in number (5,565 out of 1.2 million violent offenses reported in 2018), by design they have an outsize impact.

“The Racial World War starts today,” white supremacist James Harris wrote in 2017  “God has ordered us to eliminate the Negro races from the face of the earth for the good of all mankind.” Oh, really? Then he went out and  stabbed Timothy Caughman, a middle-aged African-American man, in the back.

White supremacists are not alone. Politicians and crass people on social media join in as well. Then there is Russia, endeavoring to divide and break up Western institutions, exploiting the internet and stoking racial hatred.  They are at it constantly, as you read this.

Hatred has no place in our political discourse.  Democracy is in peril, let alone tolerance and decency.  Social media companies are grudgingly tackling only the most egregious examples of crudeness and hate, in little ways and in bits and pieces, denying culpability and issuing pathetic excuses about freedom of speech.

Those of us who support liberty do not equate it with saying vulgar, violent and hurtful things in public.  Nor are blatant misrepresentations and lies acceptable.  To suggest otherwise is to support license and violent language, coarsening public discussion.  It was never this bad before Twitter and Facebook et al.

Speech is not “free” if it comprises caustic tweets and violent outbursts that loosen the bonds of society and breed hatred and distrust.  Such speech comes at terrible cost.  Weigh up the pros and cons of social media and I believe the scales tip toward  strict oversight.   And normally this would not be thought Epicurean or in the tradition of Western tolerance.

The British NHS dismantled

Posted by on

(This post is longer than usual, but most important, because it illustrates how the priorities of society have been perverted and corruption rules.  It is not generally known to the British public, having been imposed by stealth.  Epicurus, a kind man, would have been appalled)

“Since 2017 Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) have taken over National Health Service (NHS) purchasing as well as the provision of NHS services. ICSs decide who gets the services, which are free and which have to be paid for by patients. The idea is that the less care offered patients the more money is made by ICS’s. Since 1977 it has been Tory policy to return healthcare to private ownership by stealth, fragmenting once fully integrated services into competing and commercially-driven units. This to be done without public scrutiny or debate, little by little, and scarcely noticed by the ultimate customers.

“The first thing to be privatised was hospital cleaning.  Then, in 1997, the Tories created an “internal market” – service purchasers and service providers – hospitals and GPs had to compete for “customers”, the successful being rewarded by greater funding. It was explained in parliament that “in competition doctors would impose on themselves controls they wouldn’t accept if imposed upon them by government.’

“Legislation in 1990 and 1997 then turned NHS hospitals into trusts (commercial businesses) that then went on to build their own hospitals.  The result is that the NHS developed a huge 80 billion pound debt as trusts tried to compete and be self contained. The 2012 Health and Social Care Act enabled trusts to raise 49% of their budgets from private sources, including the charging patients. 60% of the NHS budget was, under the Act, given to Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG’s), comprised of GPs  and other doctors, the object being to commission services from both private and NHS organisations.

“Because the latter had no business experience, private consultants (KPMG, Price Waterhouse and others) actually ran the business side and effectively began  overseeing the day-to-day franchising of NHS services.  The Health Minister was removed from responsibility for healthcare provision, and a man called  Simon Stevens was put in charge.  Stevens had previously led the opposition to Obamacare in the US.  Stevens created the NHS England’s Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STP’s), which were intended to save 5 billion pounds  a year by 2020 by reducing access to to care (my underling).

“The STPs  divided England into 44 areas , which were pressured to amalgamate hospitals, shrink specialist units and cut the number of hospital beds (the bed-to-patient ratio is now on of the lowest in any developed country).  Accident and emergency units which require expensive equipment and a high number of staff are being cut from 144 to about 50.  GP services are being replaced by nurse practitioners and pharmacists..  Patients are exhorted to consult private, for-profit healthcare organisations (Doctaly, GP at hand and myGP).  This is the signal for US healthcare companies to enter the market , with their huge resources and equally high charges. 1000 GP practice have closed since 2014 and the number with more than 20,000 patients on the books has tripled. Non-urgent operations such as hip replacements and increased waiting times for everything have encouraged  patients to seek private treatment.  Over the last few years American firms have appeared on the British market in a big way:  Medtronic, Qualcomm Life, Kaiser, IBM, Optum, Centene, Priory Group.

“All this has put up operating costs , since private companies have higher overheads, have to offer shareholder dividends, and pay their CEOs more than if government was still funding health (overheads of American health companies are estimated at $3.6 trillion).  Management and administration of the NHS now costs 14% of NHS spending. It is estimated that privatisation has probably added at least 9 billion pounds to the NHS budget.

“And now Stevens is asking the Government to scrap Section 75 of the 2012 health and social care Act, which in practice means de-regulating the health sector entirely and making ICS’s more attractive to profit-making US companies.

“Meanwhile, surprise, surprise, NHS property and land assets worth 10 billion pounds are being sold to private developers!”  ( John Furse, London Review of Books, 7 Nov 2019. )

My comment: This all amounts to a form of theft from the public of the most respected and necessary public service, to the benefit of those for whom money is all that matters. One’s strong impression is that efficiency has fallen and morale is bad.  Certainly, there is much more complaining. My sister, who does not have much money, was told she had to have a hip replacement.  But no surgeon was available on the NHS for months ahead, so in pain and desperation, she had to pay out of pocket for the surgery.  Never mind. Who in government cares? The important thing is that important people are making tons of money.  This is a huge and un-debated scandal.

Why is this information on an Epicurean blog site? Because it offends against all ideas on moderation and any form of social welfare and care for the sick and poor.  And the sick and poor voted for the Tories unaware of what was going to hit them! You couldn’t make it up!

Harry and Megan

Posted by on

Yes, I know!  You have better things to do than think about them.  But……

Some years ago my wife and I were walking down a London street when we encountered a group of photographer on the sidewalk, looking expectantly across the street at a block of flats.

“Who are you waiting for?” I asked one of the photographers.

He replied,  “We are waiting for Liz Hurley and Hugh Grant”.  (movie stars, in case you have forgotten).

I asked, “Will you be able to interview them?”

“Oh, no, “ he replied “We just take the pics.  The reporters come along later and make up the story”.  (This is absolutely true)

If moderation is the keynote of Epicureanism then the British trash news industry gets zero out of a hundred. Much of what they (there are too many of them, which is part of the problem) print is imaginative fabrication, entertainment for those with too little else to entertain them and too scanty an education to look beyond gossip.  But it is also scurrilous, crude, divisive and hurtful.  Were I dictator I would ban the whole lot of them and tell them to do something useful.  But I am not and I can’t.

I happen to be a great supporter of the Queen, and would rather have her as head of state than Boris Johnson.  She and her family, for all their human faults, deserve better than to see the institution trashed by the gutter press.