And bloody well time too

A miniscule amount of intelligence has emerged from the controlling Lib. Deb. management on the subject of Ulverston Car Parks.

And I imagine Cllr Willis will be expecting us to be grateful.

Not on your life. The controlling Lib. Dem. SLDC councillors have been sitting on the Stockbridge Lane Car Park issue for literally years - probably five.

It's a sign of their disastrous financial management that our car parking in Ulverston is in such a mess.

It's also a reflection of our inept Ulverston Councillors that they got away with this situation for all this time.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that Multi Cllr James Airey ( until recently Town, District and County Cllr  with his wife a District Councillor too, power power power) will be claiming the credit being a close runner up to out of town Cll Willis for allowing common sense to struggle to the surface of this mire filled pond.

I was at the SLDC meeting in Kendal eighteen months ago where council charges were discussed  and far from showing the fire that Cllr Tom Harvey from Grange can breath,  James like a pet poodle, gently nuzzled up to the powerful arrogant Kendal Lib. Dem. councillors and looked up lovingly into their eyes and whined "Please, please. Couldn't your most worshipful and illustrious important people be good enough to smile more kindly on us very deserving Ulverston folk. Please please, pretty please."

 Not exactly his words maybe, but you get the drift. Cllr Hodgson was a bit gruffer and Cllr Jenkinson was her polite affable ladylike self with a poorly put together argument based on Lancashire charges.

By contrast Grange Councillor Tom Harvey, on another issue at that meeting, came across as a German trained Doberman and had to be restrained. He was persuaded to be quiet by a deal being struck off-stage away from the prying eyes of the press.

It's time for some rational but emotional, fighting Cllrs to stand up and represent us - and who do we have stepping forward but well meaning but hardly effective, Cllr Helen Irving.

At the Town Council level Cllr Norman Bishop-Rowe can't been seen to be cooperating with members of the public and for a long time hid the fact that the Stockbridge Lane car park income was only the paltry sum of £4,000 per year  which represents I seem to remember a measly 2p /hour per car park space.

It's unbelievable how much ammunition that our Cllrs are hoarding in their precious briefcases instead of loading it into the Sten guns they should be aiming and firing at the controlling SLDC management. What is it ? It costs SLDC £400 / per week to operate each loo under their control?

They spend months digging up the really good cobbles in Market Street ( that don't need touching) and leave us with the shambolic ones further down the street. Leaving an Aimey foreman who is doing the work to describe the actions of Cumbria County Council as crazy.

Just to remind you:-

There are some new kids on the block and let's hope they can string two punchy words together and fight the Ulverston Cause more effectively than those in the past.

Euro crisis looms even larger

Instability in both France and The Netherlands could well rock the Euro boat.

This will come on top of the problems in Greece, Italy and Spain.

I can't believe that we will ever see our 'loan' of 10 billion to the IMF again.

At some point the Euro is bound to crash. We need to tighten our seat belts. There will be massive financial reprocussions.

Here's the situation in Holland  - that in France is much in the news already.

 Here the suicide of a 77 year old pharmacist shocked the Greek nation:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/apr/05/greek-mourners-suicide-video
 Please put up with the ad beforehand.

 Here the Dutch Crisis :
 http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/matspersson/100016541/worrying-news-dutch-pm-resigns-as-the-euro-crisis-continues-to-claim-political-victims/

 Here is the view of the Financial times: http://www.ft.com/indepth/euro-in-crisis

 All very sober making reading.

Those of us that have the ability to reflect on what is happening around us - beyond our immediate location and affairs need to strengthen ourselves to deal with the enormous instabilities that lie ahead.

I am deeply disturbed that many very intelligent people lack the maturity to digest what is happening in the wider world. Instead they focus entirely on what is happening in the own homes and the superficial happenings around them - football, television, the Olympics and Facebook.

Even the current local elections offer little more than party posturing, with voters poised to choose based on who can make the glossiest presentation. I can feel the pressure myself.

We all need to develop as well rounded individuals who can operate at different levels at all times.

Meanwhile in Greece . . . .

Yesterday   Greece debt: Austerity-hit Spartans resent Athens

Vasilis's restaurant and catering business faces bankruptcy

"I feel very angry inside," he says.
"When you try to do the best for your country and your children and your neighbours, you still get treated like garbage by the authorities," he says.
"It is psychological violence. Maybe the terrorists we see on the television - this is the process they have gone through."
His words are greeted with nods around the table.


A week ago Greece urges citizens to repatriate money held in foreign banks

Greek money moved mostly to banks in Switzerland and Cyprus. Greeks eager to offload deposits have also been reported flying to the UK with "suitcases full of cash" used to snap up prime properties in central London.
Estate agents in the capital said that over the course of the past year Greeks had scaled the rich list of foreigners acquiring £2m plus properties in Britain "often closing deals in less than a week."

Recently the Greek media reported the case of a man in Crete who had hidden a vast amount of cash in his home only to discover that it had been destroyed by mice.

mouse eaten money

*      *      *      *      *      *      * 

It seems to me that the concept of the Euro is basically flawed. It assumes that all member countries have a similar attitude to material wealth. 

What happens when some contries don't trust their banks and the govenment controlling the purse strings?

What's happening in Greece and now the States

I was shocked to hear on the news that United States is close to defaulting on its commitment to keep down its debt.


What is the debt ceiling exactly? It's a cap set by Congress on the amount of debt the federal government can legally borrow. The cap applies to debt owed to the public (i.e., anyone who buys U.S. bonds) plus debt owed to federal government trust funds such as those for Social Security and Medicare. 


Read here 
 

"The European debt crisis has threatened the very existence of the Euro, but the United States has had its own potentially cataclysmic event lying in the weeds: the potential of a default if the debt ceiling is not raised by August 2. If such an outcome occurs, the most profitable positions to take would be long gold, long Swiss Franc against currencies such as the Australian Dollar, New Zealand Dollar, and Canadian Dollar.

 

The prospect of a default by the United States would destabilize the global economy. With both political parties deeply entrenched in their respective doctrines, and the Euro-crisis temporarily put on hold, the market’s collective eye is now set to fixate itself on the debt crisis evolving in the United States. 

Does anyone understand how serious this is - presumably what will happen on Aug 2 is that Congress will again raise its ceiling. "

Sounds like the world's finances are skating on thin ice .

Should we be taking precautions regarding our finances and the health of our banks to deal with collapse.

Can anyone enlighten me?

I suggest that the markets are jumpy as illustrated by the 25% rise in the price of gold over the last year 

At last Labour tell it as it really is!

Photograph: Junko Kimura/Getty images

The Guardian reported yesterday:

Darling warns that the economic times faced by Britain and the rest of the world "are arguably the worst they've been in 60 years". To deepen the sense of gloom, he adds: "And I think it's going to be more profound and long-lasting than people thought."

I have been really disappointed with Gordon Brown, not for not solving our financial problems, but for not telling us the truth - that we are all in for hard times ahead.

This will make a lot of decisions hard for me as a County Councillor in future. Voters cannot keep asking for improvements - a lot of times I will be recommending that people wherever possible help themselves. We cannot continue expecting the government at any level to keep running around doing things for us. Where possible we will have to do things for ourselves and the role of government will be to facilitate/coordinate our own actions.

The other thing that must be reversed is for us all to be more self supporting. It could be a good thing if Russia cuts off our supply of oil if it makes us sit up and take note that we need more of our own energy producing industry - preferably renewable.

Hopefully we will again, one day, start producing our own steel, instead of buying our nails from China.

Times are going to be really hard and we're going to have do what feels like lifting ourselves up by our boot laces.

Don't throw those old overalls or tools out - we are going to need them. I'm rolling my sleeves up - are you!

Luckily we've a few role models to follow - look at Keothavong's expression above!