Justice for Pensioners - Letters to the Press.

January - 2009 - The credit crunch
March 2009 - Reform of the rates
April 2009 - MHKs Pay Freeze and Pensioners
May 2009 - Value from Manx Radio
July 2009 - Two Kinds of Nostalgia
August 2009 - Morality and Business

August 2009 - Morality and Business.

Two recent letters in the Examiner (18 August), one about the evils of privatised industry and the other concerning our godless society, have prompted me to record some thoughts of my own.

Society certainly seems to have lost its way somehere, about the basic qualities of kindness, fairness, honesty and truth. The motives of profit and greed seem to have taken over. Business no longer asks: "How can we give a good sevice to our customers, and make a fair profit for ourselves and our workers?" but: "How can we sqeeeze the most from our customers, by doing and spending as little as possible? This is specially true in the case of "pivate equity".

Those endless complaints about the Steam Packet and the airlines. Those adverts which give "fares from...", that bear no relation to what you actually have to pay. Why can't they be honest, and openly display their fares like a restaurant's menu? Some firms get the last penny out of their customers by bullying them to pay "on line" or by direct debit, or by using "087" phone numbers where you pay them to keep you waiting.

So called "free credit" is just included in the price to hide its true amount, and get round the sonsumer credit act. Changing your gas or electricity supply is a myth, when it all gets mixed up in the same pipes or cables. Government inflation figures are distorted downwards to keep our pensions low. We no longer trust the professions we respected years ago, especially the banks, that charge us when we borrow, up to 200 times what they pay us when we save. How would we feel if supermarkets made a 20,000% (twenty thousand percent) profit on our food?

With such examples to follow, is it any wonder that personal morality is falling, leading to drink, drugs, crime and family break up?

During my very early days at school, over 70 years ago, the teaching of how we should behave to one another was based on the Christian faith, including the Ten Commandments, and parables such as the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son. Is this all lost today in multiculturism or conflict with science? Or can we teach ethics without religion?

Must we have conflict beween science and the bible? For instance, consider the virgin birth in the light of modern fertility treatment. For an advanced form of life to make contact with a planet of inferior beings and teach them how to live, what better method than to be born, and grow up as one of them?

I remember once attending a Christmas show at the London Planetarium, where the presenter was searching for explanations of the Star of Bthlehem. These included the planet Venus, various comets, and exploding stars in distant galaxies. A pity perhaps that the witnesses to those events of long ago, had no word for a UFO or spaceship!

Does anyone have further thoughts?

July 2009 - Two Kinds of Nostalgia.

There seems recently to have been some nostalgia about Radio Caroline, and the freedom it has brought for the young to enjoy their kind of music.

However, I feel sure that I speak for many of an earlier generation, in reflecting nostalgia of a different kind.... the progressive loss of their kind of music. Before the advent of Radio One, we had a wonderful diversity of music in the Home, Light and Third programmes of the BBC. Music throughout the day would satisfy everyone's taste from symphony concerts to "Music While You Work". There were so many bands, orchestras and instrumental groups, all with their own distinctive sounds. Today, we have mainly disc jockeys playing pop CDs.

Now, to cut a long story short, somehow or other, I developed a flair for composing music in the syles that I had reviously enjoyed, and built up a collection of keyboard recordings. With no commercial market for these styles, and having rejected various forms of self publishing, I have more recently seen the internet as a possiblity, and opened a website to provide free downloading of about fifty original melodies and songs.

The point of all this is that I cannot be unique, and there must be many others of my generation, more able than me, to put a few notes together to make a tune. Perhaps we could unite in some way, to show a pop dominated music industry that we can well do without it, after more than forty years of neglecting us. It is surprising what professionally sounding recordings can be made with comparatively modest equipment. The further task of setting up a website is fairly simple using a basic domestic computer.

It is all perfectly legal, provided the work is your own, you have retained its copyright, and given permission for its use. It will not make any money of course, but will give the satisfaction of sharing your pleasure with others. There could be something to be said for: "music from the heart - not the purse".

A further suggestion might be a "Silver Songwriters" competition. Over sixties only; no entrance fee; no prizes. Let's do it just for fun! You never no - it might produce a "hit"!

Anyone wishing to support, or join in this kind of activity is welcome to contact me at:-

www.unchartedmusic.com .

May 2009 - Value from Manx Radio.

You ask if Manx Radio gives value for money (Independent May 15). I regret the short answer must be "No".

We pay the same licence fee as the UK, which should cover the cost of a local radio station without advertising. Instead, our government pays about an extra million pounds to Manx Radio, and we have to suffer the most irritating and juvenile styles of advertising imaginable. Not just an occasional interruption at discreet intervals, but seemingly every two or three minutes during a news programme, we are subjected to this loud cascade of noise, including drum machines that distract from any underlying message. Particularly objectionable is the distortion caused by over-compression of adverts to make them sound louder. It just makes me reach for the off switch.

Another major complaint is the predominance of pop music, to the neglect of older listeners. With two other local stations devoted to "pop", is it not possible for Manx Radio to cater for the more mature and discriminating listener? There are those who long to hear again the tuneful sounds of earlier times. And dare I suggest the use of locally produced music, instead of that obscure "playlist" dictated from somewhere on high in the music industry. Local music on local radio?

My general impression of Manx Radio is that of a good professional team of presenters and journalists, wasting most of their time on just running a pop station. Can we not use their skills to produce more programmes of Radio Four quality, and leave the Radio One stuff to the other stations? And please - can we do something about those silly adverts w which seem to come straight from the early days of American broadcasting?

More listeners, including myself, might be attracted to programmes like Talking Heads, if it were not for the intrusion of pop music, and those seemingly endless streams of noisy adverts.

To make such improvements possible, we should of course press for some funding from the licence fee, which throughout the UK includes the cost of local radio.

April 2009 - MHKs Pay Freeze and Pensioners

So MHKs and civil servants are to get a pay freeze? (Independent 17 April).

Welcome to the real world with the rest of us, especially the pensioners, whose income in real terms continues to dwindle at an alarming and increasing rate.

Now, despite an extra generous state pension rise this year of 5%, (still not enough), there seems to be a ploy by some pension providers, of selecting a month of low inflation rise to determine their pension increase for the year. In my case, the December rise of 0.9% was taken. With the recent record price rises in food and fuel, we all know that such a figure is ridiculous, and is probably the result of distortion by Christmas sale price reductions.

Has anyone else experienced this? You can find me at :-

www.justiceforpensioners.com

This seems to be just another misuse of statistics to ensure that the citizen or consumer loses, while the government or big business wins. We must all be familiar by now with the "ratchet effect" as interest rates rise and fall, to ensure that the banks gain over their investors and borrowers; and the distortion of inflation figures by including the latest gadgets, that start high and fall quickly in price.

As bankers walk away with massive handouts from the chaos they have caused, and UK MPs draw their extravagant expenses, let us continue to just dream about honesty in business and government.

January - 2009 - The credit crunch

It is often said that as we get older policemen look younger. To this I would add that as we get older politicians seem more stupid.

We older folk have seen an overheated economy fuelled by debt, and low interest rates forcing house prices to unreal values. We knew that boom must lead to bust, yet politicians were so surprised by the the "credit crunch".

The UK government's answer seems to be the borrowing of vast sums of money, to pour into the banks and stimulate even more debt. Could this be like putting out a fire with petrol? Was it not the "buy now - pay later" culture that caused the trouble in the first place?

But with all the banks broke, and people drowning in debt, where does a government borrow this kind of money? Global markets perhaps - but are they not all broke as well? So will they just print it? Or is there such a thing as a "virtual loan",where they print it and destroy it later? Would they pay "virtual interest" by destroying more than they printed? Silly questions perhaps, but a silly situation.

Throughout our lives we have seen one government mistake after another. The Beeching rail axe, followed by the Thatcher "great car economy", have given us today's traffic jams. We all know about the war in Iraq and the "weapons of mass destruction". And now, in the face of targets for carbon emissions, there are plans for huge airport expansions. Where is the sense?

Now might be the time to ask if our own (Tynwald) government is prepared for all the possible consequences of a recession. For example, industrial unrest and strikes in the UK may lead to interruptions in transport to the Island. The fall of the pound by a third may soon filter through as an extra fifty percent inflation. Even a record five percent pension increase will not touch such a rise in the cost of living. Are we prepared to ensure self sufficiency and fair distribution of essential supplies? And will all be able to afford to heat their homes?

So what does 2009 hold for us? Are we facing a period of austerity and shortages like that following World War Two? We then had the benefit of fair shares by controlled prices and rationing. We also had community spirit, family values, and a hope for the future. Is there any chance that these qualities might be revived to help us through the present crisis?

And a final thought. If politicians, instead of spending millions on whizzkid consultants, were to rely more on the wisdom and common sense of the older generation, would there be less government blunders?

March 2009 - Reform of the rates

Our government is again to consider changes to the rates system. (Courier 26 February). Let us hope that this time they can come up with something fair and related to the ability to pay. "Capital Value Banding" sounds very much like the "Council Tax" across, and we all know the distress and poverty that causes to pensioners. Property based taxes may have had their time in the past, but today they fall hardest on the lower paid by taking a greater proportion of their income.

It is a very unequal world. We see fat-cat bankers walking away with millions after wrecking the world's banking system, and foul-mouthed entertainers paid more millions for their filthy outpourings. No one can truthfully say that either have earned or deserve their money. On the other hand, people may have worked hard all their lives, served in the forces, cared for children or sick relatives, and yet spend life in retirement huddled with a blanket over a one-bar fire because they cannot afford the central heating. Or worse still - have no home at all.

One cannot put the world right in a day, but what I am asking here is that we just put right one tax that unfairly penalises the poor. The amount taken from from a single state pension is very significant, compared with the same amount from one or more professional salaries coming into a household.

There is not space here to discuss all the ways of doing this, but could I please ask the Chief Minister, Tynwald, and the various local authorities, to at least get together and talk about it. There is no point in tinkering with an outmoded and unfair tax. It needs to be reformed for the twenty-first century, and related to the ability to pay.

The UK council tax is iniquitous. Let us show that we can do things better here.

Back to: -------- Home page . ------ Main menu.