The Petrol & Diesel vehicle production ending fiasco - is it a case of gesture politics and the Carbon neutral farce?

 

Going electric is perhaps more damaging and less green than we are being told.

Yes folks, the rollback of Petrol and Diesel vehicle production ending from 2050 to 2030 and the switch to battery vehicles is fraught with problems - it is unlikely achievable but panders to the Green lobby and I don't see any real benefits in exploiting the planet and encouraging slave labour to obtain the batteries.

Governments like consumption, they can tax it - and as they are now realising to their cost, zero emission electric cars will rob them of £40 billion a year in revenue.... They didn't think that one through before dumping this agenda on us did they?

Don't be sucked in by the bullshit marketing of trendy eco politics. We just need to use what we already have smarter, rather than damage the planet with futile battery use.  As a contributor of 1.2% of CO2, it isn't going to make much difference if Britain goes Carbon Neutral, it will only trash our economy if we go down this ridiculous road -   Read on.. 

Covid19 has meant more people working from home, with the benefits of less commuting, more time saved on travelling and air travel slashed. This has had a knock on effect in making the air cleaner. Its proved we don't need to travel as much and don't need all the commercial office space we have. 

It has cost High Street jobs, but the High Street was due to change, Covid just made the change happen sooner.

But.... the lesson here is that if we consumed less all round and travelled smarter, then we could reduce emissions and demand on the finite planet's resources too without having to waste effort on the futile battery powered Green Agenda. 

We waste massive resources at times like Halloween and Christmas buying tat we don't need. Much of it made of plastic. If we cut back to essentials buying, we could save the planet too. Why spend shedloads of money on credit card, pay it off over the next 11 months only to buy a ton of shit we don't need the following year every Christmas? It's just madness.

Forget the guff about 'electricity being largely provided by wind turbines'. The fact is that the electricity generating industry uses Diesel generators to take up the slack caused by the removal of Coal powered generation from the source. 

Germany still has coal power stations, it is only because we signed up to an EU agreement that we in the UK can't have them.

Powdered Coal is quite efficient and low in CO2 output, when burned as cleanly as possible it is highly clean and efficient - most power from coal is derived from turning steam turbines to generate electricity involving heating water to make steam to drive turbines in simple terms. Nuclear and Coal both do this. Heating giant kettles in effect to create steam energy for powering turbines is about the nub of it.

Cutting down American forests to make into wood pellets and then transporting them across the Atlantic ocean by ship and burning them 'green' is another big con. We would be better off burning Coal which would produce less CO2 and nasty chemicals than green wood. And why cut down trees? Madness. What idiot thinks this is Green?

We were told the expansion to Heathrow airport was 'good for business.' But the CO2 output from that would be colossally damaging, yet they introduce an ultra low emission area around Heathrow? You couldn't make it up... 

Covid 19 has shown that we can do without most air travel - that is in the main, the holiday trade. Why fly less than half than empty airlines to the same place? 

Zoom meetings mean meetings can be done cheaper and greener, it does mean the hotel trade suffers, but is that a price worth paying?  I was told years ago that airlines were obliged to fly routes even empty, or lose the route. Madness!

An airline taking off produces the same amount of CO2 on take-off that a family car produces in 10 years of average motoring.

In the time of the Dinosaurs, the environment had many more times the CO2 than today. It was a lot warmer too which is why the vegetation was so lush and bigger then. Also, there were no polar ice caps, they came with the ice age and are a 'false construct' as such. They froze, they melt, it goes around.

Battery technology is limited - Electric cars are a dismal waste of energy and resources let alone the human cost of digging the minerals out to make into batteries often done by child salve labour. 

According to Dr Steven Greer, we have had since 1954 the means to have free energy (that could power our homes, industry and airlines). (We have been denied it in fact, because we are an Oil based economy and oil is big business.) The same power source Doctor Greer mentions is we are told 'could take ET home' -  as has been quoted elsewhere. So why can't we use that energy which is free? The reason is it can't be taxed.

How long will a Tractor in a field run on a battery to plough a field? Not much. If we used vehicles with very efficient petrol or diesel engines we reduce the emissions emitted in use. 

In the 1980's and before, vehicles were far dirtier in their emissions. The population was less in all countries and we now have more people and less harmful emissions in respect of the advancement in technology. Vehicles are cleaner now than ever.

Jobs are being lost to automation at a big rate, as many are finding out thanks also to Covid 19. Old industries like hospitality are shrinking. Many outlets were probably feeding a demand that was false and as a result the trade is gone, in brutal terms. Perhaps a form of employment natural wastage is taking place.

I predicted 5 years ago the High Street's days were numbered as it existed in the format then which is about the same as now. We now find the perfect storm of the job losses from automation compounded by the losses from Covid - this means that the trade growth is on-line, not on the High Street. 

Again, automation is taking jobs due to on-line ordering, means you don't need high-cost staff to handle sales and with Amazon automation, sometimes to pick and pack the goods. I know one company that has a fully automated warehouse where no humans work. The system handles all aspects from soup to nuts from order receipt to dispatch.

If you want a job you need transferable skills - things a robot can't do, or to have a range of skills to offer. Even the 'safe' jobs of accounting and law are in the sights of the robots and jobs are going to the robots that were once thought safe. 

People in those previously mentioned trades who are 'one trick ponies' need to wake up and adapt. Those useless degrees are also as worthless now as they ever were now the non-jobs are at last vanishing.

So, a carbon neutral situation by 2050? Posturing bullshit? Gesture politics to appease the Green element? With Britain's exit from the EU we need to build industry and manufacturing for the UK. We need to reappraise education to match the future, get people who can work with their hands and train them for the future so we can fulfill the jobs like house building we are falling short in filling.

The 'sausage machine' one size fits all education model based on a 1950's world is dead. It has been for years. The world of work is changing and we need to rethink who we are as a species and where we are going. 

Just exporting the emissions problem of manufacturing to the Far East where they have less consideration for waste products is not the answer. We need to consume less here, we need to change our business model - why do we need to work like we do, is this a hang over from the last industrial revolution? We need to rethink society and our needs across the board.

Using more efficient vehicles and less is the key - working from home suits many and I suggest that over 70% of those working from home want to continue indefinitely. 

This saves emissions and reduces demand on overcrowded commuter systems. We haven't the space to build more commuter transport - so working local or at home is the obvious answer to overcrowding and the rush hour or staggering working times would help.

The fatuous argument against home working that 1st jobbers 'won't know what an office environment is like' is crap, it doesn't matter, its an outmoded model as we have seen recently.  Cities are finding the big companies can scale down their office footprint with home working.

The way we work has been step-changed quicker than we anticipated and it needs to do so, so we can migrate to a situation where many will not work because automation will have taken their jobs and a Basic Income payment system will have to be brought in.

Retirement at 60 must come with a 55-60 years range Basic Income dividend bond paid to those retiring in that 55-60 years age range. They should then not lose out in the future. This will free up jobs too for other people.

The Furlough scheme is little more than a Basic Income Payment situation that any right thinking government is going have to embrace and sooner than planned. 

The gesture politics of the green lobby are a smokescreen. A diversion. We need to have the bigger conversations about the human future and now. 

CO2 is getting in the way. Eco politics is trendy. But the people who are in the mainstream media don't talk for the people in the public domain. We can't afford £30k electric cars like the media types with their £100k salaries in the media.

One thing is for sure, I do not see countries like Russia stopping production or use of fuelled vehicles, so will we still import them into the UK, even if we don't make them ourselves?

I am of the opinion that reasonable consumption is the way forward, not dramatic sweeping chapter changes done for impact and not thought through. As the loss of excise duty on fuel hasn't been realised until now? It just shows its all done for show, it seems to have little substance. No one thought it through did they?

Dunkirk 1940: Hitler's early wartime mistake that led to Germany's defeat in 1945.

 

The Dunkirk evacuation was a PR disaster for the Allies - 

and turned into a PR splash by the Allies - so who won the PR battle?

The Battle for Dunkirk had winners and losers - ironically both sides won and lost in their own way - so how did this military action end up costing Adolf Hitler's 3rd Reich final victory in 1945?

In 1939, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared war on Germany after their invasion of Poland on September 3rd. 

A magnanimous action by Chamberlain, but the reality was that Britain then could not actively invade Poland from across the North Sea or sustain a military campaign on Polish lands in that location, due to logistical equipment supply and distance problems. 

Perhaps this is why Adolf Hitler invaded Poland, banking on the premise that Britain would not respond militarily or be able to wage an effective military campaign there.

The spread of German forces against the British and their Allies in France, 1940

In 1940, when Hitler invaded Norway, the British did mount a military campaign but it was sadly doomed to failure due to the difficulties of supply and the fact that the German forces had been able to move through the neutral Sweden, to Norway in number.

Hitler's foreign territory acquisition had started in 1938 with his own country of birth - Austria for one simple reason - that it contained a massive iron ore deposit - which he would need for building the war machinery of the new reich.

The rapid conquering of Belgium, France and Holland in 1940 by the third reich forces was achieved at great speed and for a single purpose. Hitler had plans to invade the Soviet Union and needed more soldiers than he currently possessed in Germany. 

Hitler had seen how Finland with a relatively small army had held off the Soviet Armed Forces - for a few simple reasons, Finland was on home ground and the purges of the intelligentsia and Officer classes by Stalin in 1930's Russia had left the Armed Forces at a great disadvantage.

Erwin Rommel (pictured) along with Heinz Guderian were skilled commanders -

Here Rommel takes the surrender of the Dunkirk BEF troops who were left behind

Hitler's land war attack across Western Europe was made possible because all the countries were joined on one land mass. Thus the German advance moved quickly because it could be resupplied with ease.

Britain had sent an expeditionary force the 'BEF' or British Expeditionary Force to the Western European countries to counter Hitler's forces in France and Belgium. However, they were at a number of disadvantages, firstly the BEF was using much old fashioned equipment, primitive when compared to the modern German equipment. The RAF Spitfires and Hurricanes were withdrawn back to England when it was obvious that the Germans could not be contained or repelled.

Secondly, Germany had a large professional army that had been exposed to combat since the Spanish civil war of 1936, it had equipped in the later 1930's with new and cutting edge military hardware. 

Modern German tanks like this Panzer AUSF were very effective - 

This one is being examined after being captured in the North African desert in 1942

Thirdly, the German supply chain was very efficient and Britain was fighting away from its mainland supply chain and fourth, a lot of the countries that the Germans overran where badly equipped and with obsolete equipment that was no match for the modern German hardware and the German's modern military battle planning.

With many refugees hindering progress on the roads in France, the British and their Allies had their progress compromised. The speed of the German advance and the quality and numbers of tanks, vehicles and troops could not be repelled with the poor supply chain of the BEF.

The jackboot on the other foot - 

British troops with a captured 88mm gun, North Africa 1942

This led to the Allies being forced back towards the French coast and into the sea, their only option was to abandon the French continent and regroup in England.

This then became the plan - a mass evacuation of 338,000 troops from France. This was a success but also a disaster in that they had to leave behind them valuable vehicles and heavy equipment. These were commodities that they could ill afford to lose. It could well have been worse.

Hitler's Generals had pushed to allow them to outflank and cut off the Allied retreat before they reached the French coast, which they could have done, but Hitler did not allow that -  he wanted a peace deal with Britain and perhaps believed by allowing the British a retreat, would be able to start negotiations for peace. It might allay claims that although he had invaded Poland when he said he would not, this time he might be keeping his word.

With the recent memory of broken treaties of the late 1930's in mind Winston Churchill adopted a belligerent stance of no surrender. Had Hitler captured those 328,000 Allied troops, he would have held the trump cards. Churchill would have had little to gamble with.

Then, Britain would have lost most of its ready forces in the Western European sector and would have had to have recalled troops from the far East, perhaps calling on Commonwealth countries to supply troops to assemble any hope of a fighting force to continue the war.

When Hitler started his North African campaign aimed at securing the Arabian oil fields for his own supplies, had he held the 328,000 Dunkirk allies as prisoners of war, Churchill might not have been able to commit enough forces to the desert campaign. 

Hitler then would have had his open goal of almost undefended oil supplies to hand. Which he needed for his Soviet campaign and to maintain industrial production in Germany.

Both Churchill and Hitler gambled with their situations in 1940 - Hitler's gamble ultimately cost him a ceasefire with the Allies instead Hitler then pursued his campaign against the Soviet Union and eventual defeat.

Rudolf Hess wrote before WW2 that 'the Soviet Union if not defeated would provide trouble for the West for decades to come' and he was right, in that the Cold War starting as WW2 faded into history would be the next European wide problem.

Churchill had virtually an empty hand with no cards in to gamble with in 1940 but he was favoured by fortune and history was not written differently. But, if America had not entered the war, and Britain had not been able to realise a landing on the French coast in 1944, then it may have been a stalemate with Germany for sometime, perhaps even the Germans may have conquered the Western parts of Russia and history may have had a different outcome?

One thing is for sure that Dunkirk was Hitler's first mistake, the second was invading Russia.

In the Covid era is free speech now dead? Are we facing censorship and control that was predicted would happen?

 

Are we facing a new era of control?

Is free speech now over?

Fake news - like it or not has been a phenomena for years, we tolerate it it and either look at it or discard it out of hand. Maybe we take a more in-depth look at the attestations and then decide if the piece is right or wrong.

The Covid crisis has ushered in a seemingly new situation, one that seems to have been warned about by George Orwell. 

Free speech seems to be going out of fashion and by that I mean speech that does not coincide with what the mainstream media broadcasts. 

Agenda seems to be fashioned by the minority these days, the woke voice is loud for such a small representation of the population and indulged by left wing media outlets. So what happened to balance and challenge?

Why is the so-called scare science of the climate lobby rarely challenged or a call for science to back up their claims? I mean real science, not unchecked cod science.

A free society allows free speech, like it or not, if someone has an opinion they can say it or should be allowed to. Even if it is not what I want to hear, everyone should within reason be allowed to give an opinion and explain why.

We can't do that anymore, thanks to various lobby groups who shut down anything that they can't accept. A lot of these types were never said no to as children, they think everything is on a plate and their opinion matters, sorry but when you are barely out of schooling take note of those who have been on this planet a few decades longer than you.

Have your say, but listen to people who were young like you once. 

Even moderate channels like Yahoo have now (temporarily they say) suspended people commenting on posts, did we fight world wars to have our liberty lost in the ability to speak our minds? 

Perhaps with so many comments on Yahoo not agreeing with the stories and perhaps telling it how it really is, that the media as such realises it has lost control. People  thinking for themselves perhaps they consider as dangerous? 

David Icke may be a controversial figure to some, but he like others who have a following are now finding their social media accounts deleted. When in time people's content from the past is seen as them being proved right today, but is now lost because of 'policy' then we are in a state where people start to ring the conspiracy bell.

The way it is playing out is that we may be looking at a situation where citizens are having less say. Brexit was one such situation, with much scaremongering being done by the media that we although the sky would fallen and that sort of thing when we left the EU, when we did leave nothing changed. 

Over Brexit, hasbeen celebs and politicians urged us to think again,  vote again and the biggest insult 'we didn't know what we were voting for' trotted out n some sort of desperate effort to keep us in the EU, well, sorry but people did know what they voted for and in the last election reinforced that view in greater numbers.

It will be a sad day for everyone if our mechanisms for having a public opinion are dashed because it doesn't fit someone else's agenda.  

Marriage Watches explained - Repurposed Retro Chic Swiss origin watches that won't break the bank!

 

Think big - wear big - Marriage watches offer great style at an affordable price

So, what are 'Marriage Watches'? Probably one of the best kept secrets in watches!

How many times have you picked up a pocket watch at a collector's fair and liked the attractive dial but wished it was a wristwatch? Well, you are not alone. And there is a solution..

In the early 2000's, an industry started in Eastern Europe in the conversion of old pocket watches to wrist watches, a clever concept called 'Marriage Watches.' You basically take a pocket watch moment and in some cases the dial and case and either solder on new watch strap lugs, rotate the face 90 degrees and you have a large wristwatch. Great idea.

Often, these watches have 43mm+ diameter watch crystals, giving you that easy to read 'big watch' look dials but are not in most cases, 'heavy' to wear on the wrist. 

Cases are typically around 45mm+ and up to 60mm+ in the largest 'clocks' but typically I have found around 45-50mm diameter excluding the crown. Typically a 22mm wide strap is used which looks right for the case size.

These Marriage Watches have hand wound movements, but don't forget that even some very exclusive modern and expensive big name exclusive Swiss mechanical watch movements are hand wound, not all are automatic watches as you may think.

Molinja - one of the favoured bases for Marriage watch conversions

The Soviet Union produced many quality watches for Military and Transport use, even producing pocket watches into the late 1980s and beyond, the Molnija factory (meaning 'lightning' in Russian) produced this style really until the end of the Soviet state and beyond. It like other makes such as Raketa, Pobeda, Zim and others kept people in jobs in the Communist era even though Quartz watches took over the Western market and killed the Swiss mechanical market for everyday watches.

A Rolex enhanced 3602 movement improved by Molnija

Often based on Swiss movements like the Rolex 624, meant that the hard work of development was already mostly done, making for quality and accurate movements. 

A lovely retro style Molnija dial Marriage Watch with Gothic style numerals

The Soviet era produced some great retro looking dials too, whether based on Gothic numerals, block markers or unusual combinations of numerals and block markers in the bauhaus style of form and function. Perhaps the Soviet Union being behind the West in some ways created what we now call 'Retro' looking pieces.

Repurposed Swiss Longines watch from the 1920's

The availability of pocket watches in great numbers and the relative scarcity of their wristwatch equivalent counterparts in the Swiss makes for example market, created an obvious avenue for a new market. 

A Swiss Longines converted Marriage Watch might be sat £200 or $275 USD, against say £1300 or $1600 USD for an original vintage wristwatch version. Plus,the Marriage Watch is easier to read, the originals often having smaller dials.

An Omega repurposed is an obviously striking time piece

Obviously, with a Swiss name and a large dial on your wrist, there is an obvious 'wow' factor going on. However, the mysteriousness of a Russian Cyrillic name on the dial also invokes curiosity and the in many cases retro look and unknown watch face also starts conversations.

Roman Miller -  A Soviet Molnija based piece comparable to a 1920's Jaeger  -

fashioned from a batch of unused Molnija 'Rolex' origin movements

Whilst a converted Yuri Gagarin picture dial watch has its own appeal as a bit of fun, there is the old adage of you get what you pay for and for me, these Molnija Marriage Watches tick many boxes - they don't break the bank, are stylish, reliable and interesting - many are unique and one off dial designs too. The Retro appeal is there too, whether as a 1920's style or a Bauhaus looking piece.

There is always going to be that snobbery in watch collecting as in many other collecting fields, your repurposed Omega may be frowned upon by some, but at least conversion saves many from being left in drawers or worse, broken for the scrap value of the silver cases and the moan of ' no one wants pocket watches'.

From a collecting point of view, I think the Soviet ones have their following and are appreciated for what they are, stylish, fun and reliable. Under the glass you may often be getting a Swiss origin watch movement too. 

For Swiss movements like the Omega and Longines, it allows you to own one for a reasonable price that is often a unique creation if the dial has been created specially.

So should you buy? For the price and the style, I would say yes, plus the fact that they are at this time not expensive to buy.

Molnija Russian Marriage watch review - with Swiss watch movements makes these great to collect

 

                                         Marriage Watches offer a lot of watch for your money - 

      and have plenty of interesting 'retro style' too like this Molnija aviator style watch

I had not seen Molnija watches before and although many watch fanciers might gravitate to the big names such as Longines, Rolex and other big price ticket watches, Molnija and other similar oversize watches are starting to gather something of a following, often based on 1950's and later watches which have been rebuilt and repurposed often from pocket watches. 

The marriage watch concept was again something I had not discovered, so what do they offer the collector or someone looking for a unique watch at a reasonable price?

                 Classic styling and large easy to read faces make these great to wear

Despite their larger case size of 43mm +, they are in many cases not 'heavy' in weight

So, what is a marriage watch? in this case, it often became in recent times an unfashionable and inexpensive (due to lack of desirability) pocket watch upgrade. The movement was sometimes just given external lugs take a watch strap or was re-cased and sometimes given a new dial and turned into a wristwatch.

Lets face it, a pocket watch is not the most practical of timepieces these days, but there are literally shedloads of great looking, quality movement pocket watches about, with many Russian made ones often based on Swiss movements that really offer great value for money. Other watch makes such as Glashutte, Omega and Longines often get converted too - are they worth buying? Lets take a look.

With Swiss movement origins, these watches offer great value

Molnija means 'Lightning' in Russian and their factory survived until the early 2000's having a long history of making high quality watches for the Soviet Military forces and Railways. 

These watches often have nice quality movements with some of their movements based on the Swiss movements of the past, like the Rolex 624, which Molnija improved to an 18 Jewels type as used in the Roman Miller marriage watch, a batch of these 18 Jewel movements was discovered unused in the factory when it closed and used in the Roman Miller brand watch akin to a Jaeger Le Coultre, Longines or Omega style watch from the 1920's.

A particularly attractive 'Gothic' style of face Molnija, 

with Acrylic glass back panel on the rear showing the movement

A Molnija Swiss origin movement

The typical case size of these Molnija marriage watches have a crystal size of around 43mm with a case size of 45-48mm typically. Some are larger, depending on the case size used, some of the Railway style watches have larger cases of around 50mm or larger. Saying that, they are not heavy on the wrist.

On the wrist, the watch is impressive -

without being 'too large' for most wearers -

the strap was swapped from a NATO one to a conventional one

There are a whole range of very interesting looking marriage watches on the market based on other Russian movements, from Luch, Roman Miller, Sturmanskie, Zim and others which look really classic and unusual in design. These are nice quality movements if a bit plain, but look workmanlike and do keep good time.

A large size CYMA Swiss Watch with a case of around 53mm across without lugs!

These type of watches are certainly eye catching, not only because of their size but also their retro design style. They are hand wound mechanisms but don't be alarmed,many of the nice modern Swiss watches are not automatic movements but are hand wound. 

                         

                                               CYMA Swiss Watch movement detail

When quartz movements became widespread in the 1970's it helped to kill off the large scale Swiss mechanical watch market. Which is when Soviet and Chinese factories bought the tooling and the rest is history. 

The Soviet watch market continued on with making mechanical watches long after the Cold War finished, winding a watch was cheaper than finding and fitting batteries. Plus it kept people in work. 

The 'old school' look of the Soviet era timepieces often based on the bauhaus ethic of simplicity of function and form in the design, kept these watches looking of a certain time and that has in retrospect been a great selling point for them now.

Even within the Molnija range there are variations in dial design - 

this blue dial one has the CCCP logo whereas the other one shown above, does not.

Prices vary on the market, some Molnija watches are not high priced and start at around £89 or $100USD, its a case of see what is out there for sale and there is often a good deal to be had. There are some nice watches for less than £200 or $250 USD to be found.

They won't break the bank, look good and are reliable timekeepers, what is not to like? 

A nice 1920's Longines re-cased and repurposed as a marriage watch -

for around £200 as opposed to around £1200+ for a new, 'stock' Longines watch.

Fancy going upmarket to a Swiss marriage watch? Then why not try a Longines or similar brand marriage watch? At the prices they are offered at they are often way under what you would pay for a 'conventional' wristwatch from the same maker, plus you often get unique dial designs and in many cases original dials from around a hundred years ago.

A superb Longines from 1914 repurposed into a nice marriage watch

In conclusion:

In my view, marriage watches in general offer great value for money, they look good and are a lot of fun. I find the Russian made ones from Molnija and similar are attractive and individual. They are presently inexpensive and look different. 

At the other end of the scale, a repurposed Swiss make like a Longines offers the same great experience but with a higher price tag, which does go in its favour for resale value. But it is still an affordable product from the Swiss watch world if you really want a great watch with the Swiss origin.

That said, I still rate the Russian Marriage watches as great value and worth collecting for their own merit. Besides their good reliability and timekeeping - bear in mind their military and transport origins with demanded this. Plus, whilst quartz watches keep best time, they need batteries.

Why not try one? 

And these Marriage watch products also benefit helping watch creators in Russia to reach Western markets to create jobs and new customers and start successful small businesses too which helps their economy. Plus a lot of old pocket watches are getting new lives rather than just being broken for their silver cases.

Covid 19 and the move to a Basic Income payment system. Is Universal Credit dead?

 

The way we work is changing - 

in the future, less jobs are going to be available....

So, where are we going? A Basic Income system is the answer

Where are we going? Good question. 

Covid 19 is going to cause unemployment, it is also a means for us to re-evaluate what we do for work and how to pay people that won't have a job.

The old unemployment benefit system is out of date, so is education. They are two ends of the same scale, it is criminal to keep pumping out sausage machine style education, for students who may not be qualified for anything in the future.

Sure, they will have a piece of paper, but in a few years, that paper may be worthless in their search for employment.

Automation and robotics are taking jobs, many menial and boring ones. That is as we were told in the 1950's going to free us up for any manner of leisure activities. It is moving us into a new phase of human activity. We must manage and plan it properly.

We as humans waste a lot of time working for other people to profit from our endeavours. Human jobs are being lost at an alarming rate year on year, we see industries automated and fewer humans in the workplace. We see people displaced by age, it is illegal but it happens.

So a new approach to work and social security is required. 

Universal Credit has been less than successful to be polite. To throw another 8 Billion at it is a moment when we need to say 'stop and think.' UC is not the answer. It is not the future we deserve.

We need to move to a Basic Income system, where everyone from age 16 until their demise gets paid by the government. 

Say for sake of argument we pay anyone in this bracket £14k a year. Most of us can get by on that. It is an improvement over the measly £3,500 a year from Universal Credit if you are unemployed. That is if you don't get hit by sanctions which cut your benefit without warning. 

Give people money and they often will spend it, this money goes back to the government as taxes, money spent in businesses that creates wealth, people with a guaranteed income and a financial safety net are able to start new ventures that will enrich their lives and others. It avoids the net loss of Universal Credit where some people may be on it for decades.

Basic Income is what we should be doing, encouraging entrepreneurship and self-starting, not hobbling people into finding work that isn't likely there and not allowing them to train to get a better job which is the current system.

This is complete madness but is how the system currently works. But this is the sort of Kafkaesque 'reality' of the current system which is a shambolic failure and no one has the ability in Government to do anything about it, it seems? Why? It is an obvious failing, if people can get new skills, they might get or create a new career, what's not to like?

Universal Credit if you are unemployed pays out a 'minute' existence allowance of less than £100 a week, it does not help you get back to work, afford to run a car to get to a job, if you can get one in many situations. It helps exacerbate the 'Catch-22' scenario of being unemployed. This helps no one.

As the job market shrinks, a new strata of society opens up for those without a job - this is the means to create work which you can do, maybe as a carer, a helper of people, start a new business venture for example, if a co-ordinated and organised strata is established, people will be able to enrich their lives and of others. It will also benefit the government in financial terms through GDP growth, skills, national wealth and in collected taxes. What isn't to like?

With Basis Income, people can start businesses with a financial safety net, the nation will prosper from this, this is the way forward, it just needs someone to grasp the nettle and boldy do something about it and dump the failing Universal Credit system.

With Covid 19, just asking  people to go back to offices isn't going to do much to re-populate cities.

The government don't get it or are trying to tell us we are better off in offices. No thanks, many of us have seen the light. We don't like the office, many of us prefer home working, a basic income system would allow many of us to do that when the robots have moved in even more than at present and taken more human jobs.

We hate wasting our time travelling to work and paying massively for it, we hate the stupid pratts and the stress of the office, we like working at home, free of this and we have more time to do our own things. Living in a rural location, it has massively reduced my stress levels.

Our human lives could be so much richer, where jobs are lost we can grow our own jobs under this new system. We live in a consumer society that is 'oversubscribed' with things we don't actually need.

We must move forward and embrace the future, not piss about trying to put a sticking plaster on something that is becoming no longer viable, long after this situation is declared over.

Covid 19 and the future of human work and the work from home situation

What is the future of human employment?

Do you enjoy home working, is this the new future for many?

And where do we go from here?

Covid 19 has in my view changed human employment markedly and may be ushering in a step-change in society that has been expected for sometime. In 2009 I worked for a company that was changing hands, prudently I checked the jobs market, I was ok in the end and was able to continue thus. 

Even then, I was surprised at how the job market had changed in the last 6 years since I had last been on the job market.

In 2016 a job ended and I spent sometime looking for work. What struck me was that the quality and quantity of work situations on offer had changed for the worse, markedly since 2009. 

The DWP was trying to get me to take zero hours crappy retail jobs, the problem was then that 20 retail shops a day were closing and there were far better qualified, newly unemployed retail workers on the jobs market with those skills. With Covid, many businesses that shut are not to reopen, which will have a big hit on those looking for work. We have too many 'niche' consumer actors that provide things we don't actually need, Covid is acting as the Grim Reaper in destroying many of these 'industries.' Fashion, Coffee shops etc. take your pick.

                                          Why the demise of the human worker?

Robotics and automation had taken many jobs since the 1950s, the new human normal is to get transferable skills you can take from job to job that is still true. Preferably skills that a computer can't currently do but you can, things with your hands for example. 

In 2016 I asked my MP about Basic Income - the reply was then 'that the government wasn't even considering it'. Step to 2019 and a civil servant 'was looking at it'. Suddenly, someone realised the potential impact of the non-human future of employment and how it would change.

The loss of jobs to machines tends to then create new jobs for humans, but this is now a scenario that is changing in this current industrial revolution. Humans are being bypassed this time, Robots are the future. We are at present just adjuncts of them or maintain them. How long before they achieve that situation where they do not need us?

                                                                  The Covid 19 factor

Working from home or being paid to just be at home by the state is the recent norm. I see this as being part of the human work future. Many now prefer home working and a form of 'Basic Income Payment' in the form of the furlough scheme was the only answer to unemployment because the risible benefit payment from Universal Credit would possibly have led to anarchy and public disorder ,when people had no money and no jobs.

For those thinking that the Universal Credit payment would be 'enough to tide them over' would have been in for a nasty shock had they had to endure it at the old level of payout. It is a very measly payment even with the bumped-up Covid 19 era increase. 

The quiet high street is impacting the real high street trade because the walk-in trade is gone and on-line retail is becoming king. I expected this to happen a while back. In 2016, 15 high street retail shops closed a day and this has largely not reduced. 

Back in 2016 I suggested that with employment falling, the state would have to pay a set Basic Income payment amount of say £14k a year to anyone over 16 and not dead, over a strata of say six status conditions - 16, Student, Employed, Unemployed, Pensioner and Disabled. You would transfer from one to another as required. Easy, no nasty DWP rules or sanctions. 

This payment would be regardless of being employed or not. The beauty of this is that people would still spend money and the high street would survive because people would be shopping if not working, that is spending in pubs, restaurants, other interests and hobbies areas etc.

So the state would quickly get their money back in a 'money-go-round' situation - in the main, this would have had many aded benefits, the care sector costs for example could have been curtailed because people could look after children and the infirm instead of work if they had a payment instead of jobs if those were lost. It would increase the economy and tax revenues to the government.

People would be less reliant on being wages slaves and be able to start their own ventures, with the benefit of a financial safety net. This was what I saw as stage 2 of human work development. Until this current situation of Covid, which has in some ways accelerated the change to the work environment this seemed a way off.

                                                             The Covid 19 work future

The new work normal is likely to be many working from home through choice - this has many benefits : it alleviates overcrowded commuting in high density areas, people may prefer home work, people may prefer not having to encounter stress or idiots at work, we have more time to do things because of less demands from needy people and we have time saved not commuting - maybe 2 plus hours a day to do things with for themselves, the public transport system is not overloaded. And we are calmer.

Plus the big one, you save money not travelling. And that's another bonus, the environment is better for us too -  not jetting off to Malaga and other places over Covid, there are more Bees, better air quality and quieter roads. Why fly quarter full airliners to the same place at the same time? Maybe 1 or 2 full ones a day rather than say 10 or 20 underused ones?

Brutally, why is it necessary for 100,000 people to go to a football match for 90 minutes of activity and then travel home? How much environmental damage does that do? I am not a Greeno tree hugger but I do believe in minimising our impact on this planet and this situation should make us rethink our future.

                                                                 What is the future?

Back in 2016 it was the same level as it is now. We move away from the current work or now historic work situation, to one where we use machines to 'do' for us. We build a society where humans get value from life and expand their own abilities, not slog away at meaningless work just to exist. And wonder at 65 'what was that al about?'

We need to build the sort of utopia that scientists were enthusing over 50 years ago, where machines work for us, we then have time for leisure and personal advancement  - otherwise what are we here for, what is our purpose? 

Just biological computers that consume the planet's resources, being enticed to buy things we don't need, run up needless credit card debt and ultimately die, presumably wondering if there is an afterlife and 'what the hell was that all about'?

Have we considered the lemming-like lunacy of racing into workplaces everyday, putting up with idiots we detest just to get money to pay for expensive houses and perhaps aspire to lifestyles beyond our means whilst racking up serious debt on credit cards? 

The future could be very good, we need to plan it and learn from the mistakes of the present.