Psst, want some dodgy bank shares?
Nooo, the shares are fine, just the banks a bit, well you know?
For my sins I spent some time working for the Thatcher administration. No it wasn't community service, I worked for a Task Force in a Midlands City.
Basically our job was to spend a £1M a year regenerating the local economy. So we had some great schemes, some we, the task Force members dreamt up in the pub on Friday lunchtime, some were dreamt up by local people usually I'm afraid to admit in focus groups that we paid for, and some, well they came down as official policy.
So I decided to try an idea out, the big boss of the Task Force came up from London.
First Class travel, Smoked Salmon and Scrambled Eggs, the works!
At the meeting I suggested that far easier than dreaming up ever more unworkable projects in an attempt to get local people signing up for whatever the current version of The Apprentice happened to be, Entrepeneur of the Week, Venture Capitalist de jour, Sweat Equity Capitalist of the Month etc, that we simply added up the number of households on the electoral register and divided the Million Squids by that number and post a cheque or postal order through every door.
Of course they would rush out and spend it. A hundred quid is four deposits so lots of stuff would get bought, production would increase, Bingo! The job's a good un.
The discussion lasted an hour or so and for one delicious minute I actually thought my idea would either fly, or as the jargon than had it, grow legs. The boss almost bought it, compared with the sale of council houses it was peanuts really.
And it make sense, after a fashion.
I want this local economy to start to prosper. People have no money. Well give them some.
So now Nick Clegg, he of the Student Fees debacle, having managed to head off the NHS debacle by making it a minor debacle, i.e. it was working so don't fix it, the same Mr Clegg has come up with the brilliant notion that I copyrighted in 1992 or then abouts.
Give 'em the money.
Or ..............
Well why not give every tax payer some shares in the nationalised banks?
Answer of course in unison: 'cos we own 'em already Mr Clegg.
That's what nationalisation means, we the public, self evidently, as Mr Lincoln might have added, own the means of production.
So we have, an inalienable right, as Mr Obama might say, to decide what happens, not you.
I'm not sure what happens if you divide the number of shares by thenumber of tax paying households but I guess we all get 5 or maybe 500? but whatever, as my father would say, verbal promises are not worth the paper they're written on.
But it's interesting and keeps the commentariat busy, I just hope that if it happens I can attend a shareholders meeting and cancel the practice of usury and by the way, my current overdraft, could do without that too .................
Nooo, the shares are fine, just the banks a bit, well you know?
For my sins I spent some time working for the Thatcher administration. No it wasn't community service, I worked for a Task Force in a Midlands City.
Basically our job was to spend a £1M a year regenerating the local economy. So we had some great schemes, some we, the task Force members dreamt up in the pub on Friday lunchtime, some were dreamt up by local people usually I'm afraid to admit in focus groups that we paid for, and some, well they came down as official policy.
So I decided to try an idea out, the big boss of the Task Force came up from London.
First Class travel, Smoked Salmon and Scrambled Eggs, the works!
At the meeting I suggested that far easier than dreaming up ever more unworkable projects in an attempt to get local people signing up for whatever the current version of The Apprentice happened to be, Entrepeneur of the Week, Venture Capitalist de jour, Sweat Equity Capitalist of the Month etc, that we simply added up the number of households on the electoral register and divided the Million Squids by that number and post a cheque or postal order through every door.
Of course they would rush out and spend it. A hundred quid is four deposits so lots of stuff would get bought, production would increase, Bingo! The job's a good un.
The discussion lasted an hour or so and for one delicious minute I actually thought my idea would either fly, or as the jargon than had it, grow legs. The boss almost bought it, compared with the sale of council houses it was peanuts really.
And it make sense, after a fashion.
I want this local economy to start to prosper. People have no money. Well give them some.
So now Nick Clegg, he of the Student Fees debacle, having managed to head off the NHS debacle by making it a minor debacle, i.e. it was working so don't fix it, the same Mr Clegg has come up with the brilliant notion that I copyrighted in 1992 or then abouts.
Give 'em the money.
Or ..............
Well why not give every tax payer some shares in the nationalised banks?
Answer of course in unison: 'cos we own 'em already Mr Clegg.
That's what nationalisation means, we the public, self evidently, as Mr Lincoln might have added, own the means of production.
So we have, an inalienable right, as Mr Obama might say, to decide what happens, not you.
I'm not sure what happens if you divide the number of shares by thenumber of tax paying households but I guess we all get 5 or maybe 500? but whatever, as my father would say, verbal promises are not worth the paper they're written on.
But it's interesting and keeps the commentariat busy, I just hope that if it happens I can attend a shareholders meeting and cancel the practice of usury and by the way, my current overdraft, could do without that too .................
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