Thank You

To the 976 who voted for me: thank you.

Was it enough to create change?

In 2008, 47 votes were enough to scare the Income Tax Department back into obeying the law

In 2010, 97 votes were enough to persuade the government to create a Sovereign Wealth Fund.

So what will 976 votes be enough to do the job this time around?

Will it be enough to force government to start obeying the law again and sort out the problems I highlighted?

Well, we'll have to wait and see on that.

The first changes won't be seen until everyone has forgotten the election so it will still be a couple of weeks yet.

An interesting glimmer of hope is the number of politicians who claim to have voted for me or have said that they found my videos thought-provoking.

If just 30 of those 976 votes came from States Members, then things can change.

Again, we'll have to wait and see

I'll keep you posted here as to developments

Once again, thank you to everyone who voted for me

The End Of Government

This generation is going to see the end of government

According to Nobel Prize-winning economist Fredrich Hayek, it is a fundamental right of every person to be able to produce their own money.

This right was taken away from us by government and then shared with the banks which is why we're in the mess we're in, why there are periodic collapses like the one ten years ago (and the one just around the corner) and why no one can seem to fix it.

While government has control over the money supply, it has control over you.

Now that control has been returned to you by two little things called the internet and block chain technology. Now I'm not talking specifically about BitCoin - but the technology that runs it because that technology means that anyone and everyone can produce their own crypto-currency and are now free to set their own value in the world marketplace.

Once you have control over your own money, you no longer need government

You're free to pursue whatever you believe in without having to wait for the government or even the majority to agree with you first.

If you want more renewable energy, go online, connect with like-minded people, crowdsource it, crowdfund it, do it.

If you want to stop deforestation, go online, connect with like-minded people, crowdsource it, crowdfund it, do it.

If you want affordable housing, go online, connect with like-minded people, crowdsource it, crowdfund it, do it.

If you want to save the penguin, well don't take the wrapper off.

The only question remaining is:

What do you want to do first?

Is The New Hospital Building Making Things Worse?

So in an earlier post, I talked about Paul who had suffered outrages at the hands of the Social Security.

But they weren't the worst thing to happen to him.

As I said, he got cancer. They performed an operation to remove a chunk of liver and a kidney and put him on this course of drugs to deal with a cancer too small to be operated on. Over the months, this cancer seemed static.

Then his blood calcium levels rose. The consultant said that it was nothing and indeed Paul's blood results were better than his.

The blood calcium levels continued to rise. He was given some drug to counteract it and told not to worry. The drug didn't work

Over the months, his blood calcium levels contained to rise. Paul's condition worsened. His wife, who was an ex-Nurse, knew something was wrong and demanded that he be seen by another consultant.

The second consultant told Paul that elevated blood calcium was usually a sure sign that the cancer was attacking the bones. So he did some tests and required Paul to stay at the hospital until the results came back. As soon as the consultant got the results, he strapped Paul to a stretcher and flew him to the mainland for emergency Radium treatment. Paul's body was riddled with cancers. Well, it was too little too late and Paul died a few months later.

That was over 15 months ago and Paul's widow has been trying to get a meeting with these specialists. She's not interested in suing any one or pointing a finger of blame. She just wants to find out how Paul could have got so bad whilst under the hospital's observation. That's a reasonable question, isn't it?

The hospital is ignoring her.

To add insult to injury, a friend of Paul's widow had exactly the same condition as Paul but because he didn't have Paul's consultant, the problem was spotted early, treated and the doctors have given him another 2 years at the least.

So has life and death in Jersey become a lottery depending on which doctor you see?

So would Paul be alive today had he seen a different consultant? I can't answer that because I'm not a doctor. All I know is that there is definitely something very wrong with a society where we even have to contemplate a question like that.

So I'd like to end by leaving you with 2 questions to think about:

1. Would the outcome have been different if we had built a new hospital building.
2. Do the problems with the hospital go deeper than that but the building is diverting vital attention and resources away from the real problems and putting peoples lives at risk?

A Cure For Tax Addiction

Just a quick update on the health warning I raised earlier about tax addiction

Initial reports stated that the number of people who were suffering from tax addiction was only 91 and restricted to the group calling themselves politicians. Well there have now been reports of major outbreaks amongst the general population as well

A nasty symptom of tax addiction is that you want everyone else to pay more tax than you by suggesting a new tax that doesn't include you. So we have a suggestion of a tax on the rich, or a tax on businesses or politicians who don't care who they tax because they can always vote themselves a pay increase that more than compensates for any extra amount of tax they might have to pay - at your expense of course.

Is there a cure for tax addiction where we don't have tax anybody any more than we do now? Well there is hope

In 2008 and 2010, I suggested an alternative to tax in the form of the Sovereign Wealth Fund and the government listened and created one - although they called it a Combined Investment Fund so they didn't have to give me any credit. In those intervening 8 years, it has generated at £220 million or £27.5 million a year. Without it, every taxpayer would've had to stump up £500 a year of £4,000 over the 8 years.

So, it proves that you can make money as a government in ways other than taxation.

Are there others?

Yes there are:

1. A smaller Sovereign Wealth Fund dedicated to offering venture capital support to local businesses for a piece of the equity. There are plenty more industries on this island than just finance, farming and tourism. There's online gaming, for example. That's not online gambling. These are games like "Farmville" which generates £600 million a year. Wouldn't it be nice to have a slice of that pie? Or how about "World Of Warcraft" that makes £110 million per month, every month. Wouldn't a chunk of that help with our economy. Are our kids up to it? Yes they are, they just need a little guidance.
2. A bank of Jersey. When I raised this idea to Mr Cook in an email, his reply was that he couldn't see a need for one. Well, if you're reading this, Mr Cook: Because banks make money. I would've thought someone who is head of Jersey Finance would've known that. We could loan money for housing and even student loans at much lower and more sensible rate rather than leave them fending for themselves and at the mercy of less compassionate banking
3. Lose the Club of Quality. Having our own bank would open us to more flexibility with banks which are not part of the top 500 - banks like Tesco Bank and Aldi Bank.
4. Bonds. What is wrong with letting islanders fund capital projects like the airport?
5. University Hospital. What about setting up our hospital as a centre of excellence and learning? That would attract better staff than a new hospital building
6. Keep the money in the local economy. The worst offender is the government. Every chance they get, they give the money away to some other country. They grow richer and we grow poorer.
7. Use the civil service. The same problems that we're facing over here are faced by everyone everywhere in the world. If we fix them here, we can sell the solution anywhere. We could send our people out as consultants. Imagine that
8. Use the ageing population. Just because some is retired doesn't mean that they are useless. There are tons of ways for them to still be useful that they would love to do. They're not a burden, they're a wealth of knowledge and expertise that we're failing to tap

How much would they have to earn? Well first off, they would target the £100 million deficit left by Zero/Ten that no tax has been able to fill. After that, if they earn even more then we could even think of tax cuts.

Gosh! What an idea!

How We Really Treat The Ageing Population

I wanted to show how just how bad the government's money grabbing was by showing you the pettiest example I could find

And it is this.

My proposer Richard has recently celebrated his 93rd birthday. Because he has been sensible and has a private pension in addition to his states pension, he has been informed that he earns just a few pounds too much each month to qualify for a free TV licence and so must pay for it himself

Well, that sounds fair enough, doesn't it? This is something that is mean tested to ensure only the most deserving get this benefit.

The problem is that it is all a lie

The BBC TV licensing law clearly states that anyone over the age of 75 automatically qualifies for a free licence from the BBC themselves. There is no mention of size of earnings or anything else. No, as far as the BBC is concerned, if you reach 75 years of age, you deserve to view their programmes for free.

So my question is: what happens to the money that Richard pays each year for a licence that he should be getting for free?

Is it given to the BBC? I don't see why because they don't want it.

So keeps it? And what do they do with it? What essential plan could justify stealing this money from a pensioner?

Now a couple of years ago, The French government honoured Richard and small number of his compadres with the Legion d'Honneur for his part in helping to liberate the people of France in World War II. So in another country, he is an honoured war hero and a national treasure.

Over here, he is just a vulnerable cash cow for some civil servant to cheat and steal from.

Does that make you feel proud of your island?

But it's not all bad.

At least now we have an answer to the perennial question - what is going to done about the ageing population.

And the answer is: why, they're going to fleece us for every penny they can get, of course.

Isn't that something to look forward to?

The Need For A Department of Re-Training And Re-Deployment

What do you think of Charlie Parker's new plan for turning Jersey into a copy of Whitehall?

It all looks very exciting, doesn't it?

It promises to save money and reduce jobs. Well we've never heard that before.

What a steaming pile of bovine faeces that is

Except it isn't in its present form. Instead it is going to be a repeat of the nonsense with Ag & Fish where the department was closed, but the staff continued to go to the same place, sit at the same desk for the same money and pension - and no one knew what to do with them any more until they eventually gave up and they became invisible. I recently asked a civil servant how many people from Ag & Fish were still there being paid to twiddle their thumbs all day and I was told "Not many"

How many years has that been?

To stand any chance of success, the plan needs another department. Let's call it the Department Of Re-Training and Re-Deployment to put these "unemployed" civil servants in.

Why bother with a whole new department? Two reasons:

1. Because Charlie Parker states that 22 senior civil servants are going to lose their positions and that some 3,300 job profiles are barmy and inappropriate. 3,300! That's almost half the official number of the civil service. The last thing we want is them disappearing into the background and getting paid to do nothing We need to keep track of them over time because if we can't fire them, we're going to have to re-train them and re-deploy them.
2. How much is training going to cost? If we're talking about 3,300 needing re-training, that is not a small amount and it needs to be budgeted for - and planned. You know, things like timetables and deadlines.

Do you know who has least faith in this plan? Charlie Parker himself. He thinks that all of this change and re-training is only going to save over £1 million a year. That's a saving of 1/6% of the budget. 4 years ago, Senator Ozouf was promising an annual increase in efficiencies of 2% or 12 times higher

And how long is it going to take to realise that £1 million a year saving? Well the first 2 1/2 years will pay for the pension plan pay-off of the previous CEO. Probably another 1 1/2 years will be needed to pay for all of the consultants we're presently consulting with. Oh that's 4 years of upheavel for nothing to show for it just in time for the next election.

Are We As Bloodthirsty As The Aztecs?

I was told off by a member of the Reform Party the other night

I was telling him why I hadn't joined the party. I had some differences of opinion with it. I told him how I didn't believe that Jersey society was polarised into Haves and Have-nots. I believe that Jersey society is engineered to turn Haves into Have-Mores but stealing from the Have-Nots. I believe that we don't have poverty in Jersey. We have created poverty by preying on the vulnerable. We have  created an underprivileged underclass that is denied, disinherited, dispossessed and deprived of being full members of our society. I believe that this is a cancer of the soul and if it isn't cut out, it will end up killing us all because a society that seeks to excludes some members for the benefit of the others ends up excluding everyone. We all become expendable.

After I finished telling him this, he told me off. He said

"Phil. You're not making this clear. You need to use these exact words to get this message across"

Well, maybe he has a point. I have used those exact words many times in the last 10 years but I haven't used them during this campaign - mainly because I've said them so many times before. Maybe I've been unintentionally pussyfooting around the issue. I thought that just by telling you of the terrible things I've learned that you would be equally horrified and find it equally unacceptable. "Surely", I thought, "everyone wants to live in a more humane society"

But here's the point where I really differ from the Reform Party and which confounds my critics. I don't believe that a more humane society should cost more. I believe that it should costs less. Our cold, callous society isn't just costing us our humanity, it's costing us money as well. If you only care about money, then you should want a more humane society because it will cost you less tax.

Let me give you an example to illustrate. This has to be the saddest indictment of our present government. Recently, a standing member of the States admitted that he paid a consultant £13,000 to listen to the public and he thought that it was money well spent. The government paid someone to listen to the public. If we had a more humane government in a more human society, we wouldn't have needed to pay that money and it could've been spent elsewhere.

Now, a more humane socety costing less shouldn't surprise us. Architects have known for over a decade that building with nature rather than fighting against her actually both reduces building costs and running costs. Business people learned the same thing back in 2006 with the "E2 Initiative"

So I'd like to leave you with a simple question:

Which would you prefer to live in - an expensive and uncaring system that will grind you under its wheels should you ever stumble; or a cheap and compassionate system that will offer you a hand up?

Choose carefully.

Because if you choose an expensive and uncaring system, it will only be a matter of time before it turns upon you and those you love in its instatiable hunger for human sacrifice.