Cuts and opportunities

TMP remains quietly confident that most wealth-dissipating organisations can easily lose 30-50% of their stipends and overheads, without the essential wealth creators suffering any real damage. This time around, the Chancellor has very few options but to try and recreate an economy were wealth creation can take place rather quickly. There is no more family silver to flog, and Brown gave away the gold. Added to which Obama is currently playing some pretty crude politics with what was once the UK's largest wealth creator and tax payer.

The real challenge this time will be to deal with all those displaced from the pampered world of public employment into the real world of common sense where the wages are earned, not gifted. Add to that the number of people on benefits of one sort or another, plus the unemployed over 50s who are now widely regarded as unemployable in the age of modern technology and there is a very big challenge indeed for employers who have grown used to cheap call centre workforces and low-grade staff that are propped up by "on-screen" scripts. 

The only possible answer left is the creation of a lot of wholly new businesses. As luck would have it, technology provides the means for those business to exist and operate with unprecedented ease and efficiency in the 24x7 world that we find ourselves in. Sadly, nearly all of that technology is monopolised by US behemoths such as Google, Apple, eBay, PayPal, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook etc. - mostly because the US government created (by accident or design) a climate in which those businesses could be funded and grown.

How about a real effort to establish British derived and owned versions of these businesses? Is there any alternative? There is no rocket science involved, just (surprisingly modest) investment, determination and the right climate where the Brits who presently flock to these US-owned behemoths are once again reminded what's good for them.

An All American Disaster

Well then. It's been quite a couple of weeks.

President Obama's hysterics have already written value off BP to the tune of about 30% of the deficit that is presently preoccupying Cameron & Co. The fact the failed rig and technology and operators are all American doesn't cause Obama to moderate his emphasis on British Petroleum - despite the company having dropped that sobriquet in favour of "Bee Pee" some years ago.

For those colonials wondering why Captain America has not sent for the kiss-ass marines to kick the sorry ass of the BP limeys fumbling this leak, and sort it all out using the "Amurcan Way" - the answer is terribly simple. All those involved in the disaster with the exception of a handful of hapless Brits are already Americans.

It suits Obama to play politics to deflect attention from his shortcomings and woeful lack of anything approaching leadership. This crisis appears to have exposed him as the windbag we were starting to suspect he might be,

If there is a move by American sharks to buy up BP at fire sale rates as the share price continues to fall, then there will have to some very big questions asked about the process, and action by the UK government to protect British interests.

Sending the US the license fee for the English Language and then pursuing its collection with the same determination that the US expects the rest of the world to protect dubious US intellectual property assertions might be a nice start.