SNP CUT GLASGOW AIRPORT LINK & CUT HOUSING SUBSIDY - WE PROPOSE KEEPING THEM BOTH AT FAR LOWER COST

The Scottish government have announced their next budget which is cut due to there being a recession. The Scotsman says:

THE Glasgow airport rail link, social housing and economic development have become the first major casualties of the Scottish Government's spending cuts.

The axing of the £115 million rail link was the most high-profile of a raft of cuts announced by finance secretary John Swinney yesterday in the draft budget for 2010-11.

Others included a proposal to cut social housing spending by £180m,

This rail link was always political pork barrelling for the Glasgow Labour establishment. When the previous, Labour, administration set it up their own inquiry said that it made no economic sense & indeed would not have done so even if it achieved twice the expected passenger levels. Back then the cost was indeed quoted at around the £115 million mentioned but it has been rising ever since to anything up to £400 million now.

However the government already have an alternative on the table. ULTra, who are building am automated monorail for Heathrow offered to build a monorail from Glasgow Airport to Paisley Gilmour Street railway station for £20 million.
This, as I reported previously, & again was rejected on the grounds that, without seriously investigating it is not be seen to be "so completely superior" to the rail link as to be worth investigating. I suspect that if an actual assessment were made of the monorail option it would indeed be found not merely to be an order of magnitude cheaper but also superior.

The idea of an automated monorail for the 1 1/2 miles from the airport to the station has the following advantages other than cost:

* Because there are trains from Paisley to Glasgow Central every few minutes it would usually be quicker than waiting up to half an hour for special trains.

* Creating a hub airport - Paisley Station is on the same line as the station at Glasgow's other Airport, Prestwick, to which trains already run regularly. Thus this link would allow people to cross connect turning the 2 airports into a regional hub.

* Modern appeal - monorails, particularly fully automated ones do give an impression of modernity that traditional railways don't & would make an appealing gateway to Glasgow.

* Speed of construction. The world's first passenger monorail, constructed in 1888 between Listowel & Ballybunion, a distance of 9 miles, took under a year so, with modern technology, it should be easy to have this 1 1/2 mile stretch built well before the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

* Encouraging innovation in public projects - there are many such public projects which seem to be rejected purely because of what looks like Not Invented Here syndrome (this happened to a Forth Tunnel which could cost a few tens of millions & to the Scottish Tunnel Project which could have revolutionised the whole Scottish economy) but one such project could lead to others.

* Land saving - since a monorail moves above the ground almost no land is taken out of use.

* Ease of access - Gilmour Street Station is already elevated so a monorail from the upper level of the terminal to the station platform would be a simple & easy trip.

* Government investment - a growing economy has to invest as well as just current spending. By cutting this project the SNP government has ended one of the very few actual government investments is existence.

* Green - since the Scottish Parliamentarians have, unanimously, decided that not creating CO2 is so important it is worth destroying half the Scottish economy the importance to them of the fact that small monorail cars travelling such a short distance use little energy & since there need be no trains added to an already good service there would be no extra there, literally cannot be overestimated. While it would save many cars & buses.

--------------------
There was also a cheaper version involving a 1,000 yd monorail to the Paisley St James station which would run roughly along the spur the proposed railway would have taken. Since it attaches to much less used line than the main proposal it would , though cheaper, have far fewer train connections & only has the advantage of being the lowest bid.

=======================

On the other main cut proposed - cutting spending on social housing - I blogged a few days ago about how how using shipping container sized modular housing units could produce as much housing as wanted at a very much lower cost than current building. This would require some reduction of government regulation which currently appears to be designed to prevent the building of affordable housing but if government can no longer afford to, at the same time, subsidise such housing removing barriers would be a more efficient compromise.

SARAH PALIN, HOPEFULLY AMERICA'S NEXT PRESIDENT.

She has quit running Alaska & the US media have been attacking her restrained only by the fact they know the people there know what she stands for. Britain's media are not so restrained.

In fact her resignation statement available online here is a very well crafted document & she clearly knows what she wants to do - to reform America which will probably, but not certainly if it would interfere with that aim, mean running for President. Her programme

free enterprise and smaller government; strong national security for our country and support for our troops; energy Independence; and for those who will protect freedom

is one which sets her directly against Obama & is very close to ours. All she would really need to match ours would be an X-Prize Foundation & I have hopes she will go for that.

The US media, let alone our own, do not seem to have noticed that she has also set herself firmly against the "catastrophic global warming" (now rebranded climate change") scam:

I don’t want any Alaskan dissuaded from entering politics after seeing this real “climate change” that began in August when she was elected

If only even one of the Scottish MSPs who unanimously voted to destroy 42% of our economy had 1% as much integrity & gumption as her.

Meanwhile expect our press, broadcasters & politicians to continue being surprised & affronted & not a little scared that ordinary American people no longer want politics, lies, bureaucracy, quangos for the boys & failure as they have been able to serve up to us here for so many decades.

"THE RECESSION WILL LAST LONGER IN SCOTLAND, ON THE BRIGHTER SIDE THE CLIMATE CHANGE BILL PASSED UNANIMOUSLY"

Said Gordon Brewer on BBC's Newsnight Scotland
Which demonstrates that the allegedly impartial non-party BBC is quite open about its commitment to eco-fascism.

Another reporter then stated "climate change is happening, that is beyond doubt". The 9% Growth Party challenges the BBC to explain why, with temperatures having dropped since 1998 & currently falling faster it, is impossible to doubt they are currently rising at a catastrophic rate. We undertake to publish a BBC reply if they feel it possible to defend this total & totally party political, lie.

With current falling temperatures & the fact that there has never been any actual evidence for catastrophic warming the 9% Growth Party say that it is now impossible for any honest politician or journalist to maintain the case proven for warming. Any attempt to obtain money by making this claim is clearly fraudulent.

That being the case, in response to the recent decision by the Scottish Parliament to cut our CO2 by 42% by 2020, Neil Craig sent this letter to most Scottish newspapers - the highlighted portion being published by the Scotsman:


"In 1856 a young African woman Nongqawuse said that the ancestors had ordered that all cattle be killed, that all stored grain should be destroyed, that no grain should be planted and that everyone should purge themselves of all charms and witchcraft. If this were done then the world would be saved, the Xhosa people fed & all would be well.

Not all believed, not even all their leaders & indeed threats & violence were used against sceptics & deniers. The mob hysteria was unabated even when the first predicted dates for this transformation failed to happen. Finally it was predicted that the Sun would rise coloured red on 16th Feb 1857 & unlimited cattle be provided by the ancestors.

Obviously the Sun rose the normal colour, the Xhosa were not fed & 10s of thousands of them starved to death.

Compare & contrast this with the Scottish Parliament which has unanimously, unlike the Xhosa leaders, adopted a law that we should destroy most of our economy. The correlation between energy consumption & wealth is one of the clearest in all economics. As part of what has correctly been called "The War Against Fire" they wish us to destroy 42% of Scotland's fire producing facilities over the next 11 years & 80% by 2050. In a display of added insanity they want to close down the only substantial other source of power - our nuclear generators. This will ultimately reduce us to a level of energy usage & therefore standard of living unknown since Victorian times. We will sink into a 3rd world society as the BRICK (Brazil, Russia, India, China, Korea) become the dominant 21stC economies.

Nor do the Holyrood MSP's have the excuse of ignorance the Xhosa tribal leaders had. They lived in a world where people genuinely believed in the magic powers of the ancestors whereas we know that the scientific method works & that a science is only as good as the experimental predictions it makes. While Nongqawuse's predictions had less than a year to fail "catastrophic global warming" has had 30 years now & we know global temperature is not now demonstrably higher than 1979. Like all other massive catastrophe predictions made by our self appointed "environmentalist" shamans (global ice age, acid rain, pollution caused cancers bringing life expectancy down to 42 by 20 years ago, peak oil by 1993, increasing millions of deaths by starvation annually starting 30 years ago, radiation deaths etc. etc.) global warming, even when rebranded as "climate change" is not only a "theory" but one disproven by massive evidence.

Every single MSP knows this. Every single journalist pushing this hysteria has seen the facts. They are doing this merely because it increases their power & sells newspapers. Not a single one of what is now de facto a single party in Holyrood can ever again claim to be in any slightest way motivated by a duty to help constituents. Not a single one of these parasites can claim to be honest.

Since nearly 3,000 Scots already unnecessarily die, annually, from fuel poverty we may expect the ultimate death toll in Scotland from the War Against Fire to greatly exceed the 1856 hysteria."
--------------------------

Using figures issued by the BMA that each reduction by 1% of GNP causes 21 deaths per 100,000 (ie 1050 across Scotland) we have been able to calculate that the Climate Change Bill will provably cause the deliberate & unnecessary deaths of 6,346,050 Scots over the next 91 years though this excludes lives which would be saved or extended if there would otherwise have been any economic growth in those 91 years . he calculations are clear, verifiable, simple & involve no hidden algorithms & are therefore much more valid than any estimates produced by the IPCC, let alone Al Gore.

Calculations are accessible here & have not been disputed as to fact.

That being the case the unanimous decision of the Scottish Parliament to order these deaths proves either, in the generous option, that every single MSP is clinically insane. The less generous estimate being that, for the sake of power, money & the chance to impose ever more control over the people of Scotland & to produce fear they have deliberately engaged in mass murder, treason & an attempt to destroy civilisation. If so they could only be barbarians who do not understand civilisation & wouldn't like it if they did.

The 9% Growth Party calls on Her Majesty to dissolve the body & bring its murdering treasonous fascist members to trial, if judged sane.

UKIP FOR THE EU ELECTION

I am not standing for this election. Having to decide who to support I have had a look at UKIP's policies page. Here are MY COMMENTS

-UKIP will leave the political EU and trade globally and freely. We will re-embrace today’s fast-growing Commonwealth and we will encourage UK manufacturing so that we make things again. YES ON ALL POINTS

-We will freeze immigration for five years, speed up deportation of up to a million illegal immigrants by tripling the numbers engaged in deportations, and have ‘no home no visa’ work permits to ease the housing crisis. YES

-We will have a grammar school in every town. We will restore standards of education and improve skills training. Student grants will replace student loans. YES

-We will radically reform the working of the NHS with an Insurance Fund, whilst upholding the ‘free at the point of care’ principles. We will bring back matrons and have locally run, clean hospitals. YES

-We will give people the vote on policing priorities, go back to proper beat policing and scrap the Human Rights Act. We will have sentences that mean what they say. YES

-We will take 4.5 million people out of tax with a simple Flat Tax (with National Insurance) starting at £10,000. We will scrap Inheritance Tax, not just reform it and cut corporation taxes. YES, CUTTING CT WAS A PRIMARY 9% GROWTH PARTY POLICY, INDEED IT WAS OFFICIALLY THE REASON I WAS EXPELLED FROM THE LIBDEMS

-We will say No to green taxes and wind farms. To avert a major energy crisis, we will go for new nuclear power plants on the same existing site facilities and for clean coal. We will reduce pollution and encourage recycling. YES - PRIME 9% GROWTH PARTY POLICY AT THE SCOTTISH ELECTION TO WHICH ALL THE MAIN PARTIES WERE OPPOSED AND THE SNP AND LIBDEMS STILL ARE - WITHOUT THIS THE LIGHTS GO OUT

-We will make welfare simpler and fairer, introduce ‘workfare’ to get people back to work, and a new citizens pension and private pensions scheme insurance. NOT SURE IF A NEW PENSION SCHEME IS AFFORDABLE IN THE CURRENT ECONOMIC MESS BUT OTHERWISE YES

-We will support our armed forces with more spending on equipment, military homes and medical care. We will save our threatened warships and add 25,000 more troops. NO, WE CAN'T AFFORD MORE SPENDING ON ANYTHING JUST NOW & WHEN WE CAN WE SHOULD GO FOR NEW TECHNOLOGY RATHER THAN NUMBERS

-We will be fair to England, with an English Parliament of English MPs at Westminster. We will replace assembly members like MSPs with MPs. And we will promote referenda at local and national levels. NO RETAIN MSPs AND HOLYROOD BUT IF MPs WERE VOTED IN ON A DEMOCRATICALLY PROPORTIONAL SYSTEM THEY WOULD BE INTERCHANGEABLE. ENGLAND SHOULD HAVE A PARLIAMENT IF THEY WANT ONE

-We will make customer satisfaction number one for rail firms – not cost cutting and will look seriously at reopening some rail lines that Beeching closed. We will make foreign lorries pay for British roads with a 'Britdisc’ – and we will stop persecuting motorists. BEST WAY OF SUPPORTING RAILWAYS WOULD BE OUR POLICY OF FULLY AUTOMATING THEM. THE POLITICALLY CORRECT HATRED OF MOTORISTS IS SERIOUSLY DAMAGING OUR ECONOMY

-Last, but never least, we will bring in fair prices and fair competition for our suffering farmers, and restore traditional British fishing and territorial waters. FREE TRADE WITHOUT EU RESTRICTIONS WOULD SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCE FOOD PRICES TO THE CONSUMER & FREE FARMERS FROM THE GOVERNMENT FARMING REGULATORS (A CLASS WHICH CONTAINS MORE PEOPLE THAN THERE ARE FARMERS.

ALL IN ALL A SENSIBLE PROGRAMME WHICH WOULD KEEP THE LIGHTS ON AND SIGNIFICANTLY IMPROVE ECONOMIC GROWTH. WOULD BE NICE IF THEY HAD A MENTION OF X-PRIZES BUT YOU CAN'T HAVE EVERYTHING. THIS IS CLEARLY A CREDIBLE AND SENSIBLE PROGRAMME WHICH IS HEAD AND SHOULDERS BETTER THAN THE OTHER PARTIES.

The EU’s Enterprise Commissioner Gunther Verheugen said in an interview with the FT this week (OCT 2006) that EU legislation now costs European business €600 (£405 billion) a year, on the basis of a new evaluation of the administrative costs of red tape.

That is equivalent to £70 billion in Britain alone now or £2,500 from every wage packet in the country. The official figures of actual cash handed over are on top of that. Expect this fact to remain unmentioned by the BBC and most parties, particularly LABOUR and LIBDEMS who made a Manifesto Promise that we would get a vote on the constitutional treaty and as soon as the election was over cynically broke it

It is impossible for anyone with the slightest self respect to vote for people we know to be corrupt lying war criminals who clearly have no respect for those who voted for them.

And UKIP don't lie about the Catastrophic Global Warming we are all allegedly suffering from like the rest of the tax increasing leeches.

9% growth party says

vote ukip

on 4th June

don't let them grind you down

UPDATE The blogger Mark Wadsworth has told me that he was involved in drafting their policy on eorkfare & pensions & that, though much to complicated to explain in a 1 line sentence it is practical. Having read his blog I accept thaty.

HOW WE CAN GET OUT OF RECESSION - What politicians who say they will "do whatever it takes" would do if they meant it

FOR SCOTLAND while remaining part of the UK:

1: Cut government spending by £3 billion (10%). Since we spend about 20% more than the UK average per head this is clearly practical.

2: Endorse nuclear electricity. We could still persuade the French to invest heavily here if we were sufficiently enthusiastic about letting them build.

3: End business rates. This is a pretty extreme step, in principle business should pay something, but we are in a drastic situation. This is a fairly close analogy to cutting corporation tax to 12.5%, like Ireland's for which we need Westminster support & though the SNP are committed to doing so they don't seem to have been putting on enough pressure. In theory cutting CT is marginally more effective because it rewards the most profitable best whereas rates rewards the most property intensive but it is a relatively marginal difference. This would cost about £2 billion.

4: Cut the laws on Health & safety & other regulations & the enormous bureaucracies that enforce them which do so much to push up the cost of projects here.

5: Tell Donald Trump he can start investing his £1 billion tomorrow morning. Apart from his own investment how many billions have we lost by convincing other potential investors they would not be welcome?

6: Cut the regulations that prevent people building houses.

7: Provide an interest free bridging loan of 20,000 pounds to any off site manufactured home for the period from completion of manufacture until installation & a grant of 5,000 pounds to direct purchasers of such homes, so long as they are for their personal use as first homes. This system to last only until we are building 30,000 a year. This would encourage the establishment here of a modular housing industry which, in due course, the English would be clamoring to buy.

8: Scottish Tunnel project - start cutting tunnels to the Cowal peninsula & the Scottish islands. Cost £7 m per km

9: Forth Tunnel instead of bridge & start digging tomorrow. Since the official cost of the bridge has been reduced to two & a half billion massive savings could be made this way & it would be ready far earlier.

10: Privatise Scottish Water thus saving the over £200 m it gets annually.

11: Schools vouchers. It should be a matter of shame & is instead a matter of complete disinterest in our media that our schools, for the first time ever, are underperforming southern ones. The long term future of the nation depends heavily on education.

12: Fully automate the Glasgow-Edinburgh train system.

13: Stop subsidising bloody windmills. Apart from the total waste of money we have as beautiful a countryside as anywhere in the world & should stop desecrating it. This would save between £500 m & £1 billion depending on whether we are allowed to end the subsidy to the production of electricity as well as to building the windmills.

14: Scottish X-Prize Foundation. £50 million a year would give us an even chance of gaving a Scottish built orbital plane in 5 years & would certainly attract a significant part of the world's satellite industry (£1 billion a year & growing)

15: Spend the extra money we have saved on improving roads with the exception of

16: £1 billion to cut Scottish income tax by 3p, the full amount allowed. If that doesn't get people wanting to move here nothing will.

--------------------
FOR THE UK:

1 - Cut the size of government spending - I would go for a no new hires rule & price freeze in the government, probably excluding new doctors & a few other proven front line requirements - this should be about a 5% real reduction year on year. Also completely prune particular departments described later. 5% of the budget is £30 billion so including both actions over a couple of years that is probably about £100 billion. Mark Wadsworth comes up with a similar figure from different directions. This doesn't itself increase the economy, indeed cutting the non-productive £100 billion would cut the economy by £100 billion (ie 7%) but gives us money which can be used with a real multiplier effect & long term growth benefits.

2 - Cut corporation tax to Irish levels - cost about £30 billion & this is the main bit of what got Ireland's growth up from 2% to 7%.

3 - Lets go overboard & cut business rates too - about £20 billion at half the effect.

4 - Gut the Health & Safety Exec - if it saves the work of 4 million workers that is 14% of the economy.

5 - Allow the free market to build as many nuclear plants as the market needs, starting tomorrow. There are arguments for & against the government paying for & owning it but lets keep it simple & at zero cost.

6 - Improve transport - better roads, particularly motorway junctions, allowing airports to expand & the road tunnels project. Cost a few billion. Improving transport infrastructure is one of the things where government expenditure actually works.

7 - Adult job training. Hire retiring plumbers, electricians etc etc to do evening classes in some of the schools empty in the evenings. Adult, particularly male, technical education is the part of education which shows real worthwhile payoff in productivity.

8 - Automate the rail system & introduce lightweight vehicles based on road vehicle technology. My guess is this would be about £10 billion annually but once it is done rail costs go way down & capacity way up.

9 - Quit the EU. The Bruges Group have said the EU costs us £55 billion in direct costs. The EU's Enterprise Commissioner says the regulations alone cost £405 billion - ie £67 billion to us.

10 - Allow almost unrestricted housebuilding & encourage modular methods. This should let them cost about 1/4 the present price. Housebuilding is pretty much the biggest industry in any country & that would give us an enormous boost.

11 - End most of the sort of "environmental" regulations which have stopped Trump investing his £1 billion here for 3 years. This alone has cost the Exchequer £360 billion (£12% a year).

12 - This has already been done, albeit accidentally & need not be extended - Letting the £ drop is a major stimulus to the productive sector though exports. It worked in Major's time too - also accidentally.

13 - An X-Prize foundation & a free market regime on Ascension Island as a British Space base. So long as the Foundation is guaranteed an increasing amount of money at approx 5% above the rate of growth & able to offer prizes based on what the fund will be in future it can offer multiples of the current cost & in turn the gain to the economy will be multiples of that figure. Of course if nobody wins such prizes it has zero cost - that being the worst case scenario. I would suggest £1 billion a year as starting payment which would certainly put us at the top of the space & high technology trees attracting many times that level of investment & even more importantly, many of the world's best brains.

14 - I see that though we have saved £155 billion plus we have only spent about £70 billion. Put the rest into cutting taxes (28p off income tax or equivalent!). I would also support raising alcohol taxes since it discourages something socially damaging whereas most tax discourages productive stuff. It wouldn't take many years of excise duty rising faster than a Chinese style growth rate to pay for all the size of government here.

- These are a bit of a flyer not to be done till we know the economy is recovering:

15 - Build some floating islands, probably around Ascension island, probably about £1 billion each.

16 - Make a purchase guarantee for a factory to mass produce turnkey operation nuclear reactors in Britain, for use here & around the world. If it can be done with a new design & much smaller & hence less economic reactors it can be done for normal 1 gw ones. Invite the best designer, probably Ariva or Westinghouse (which used to be British owned but the government forced British nuclear to sell it off). We guarantee that if they can make a production line turning out one, turnkey operation reactor, a day we will purchase the first 2 years supply at cost if they can't sell them abroad. Assuming £350 million (70% of the current minimum price) a shot that puts us on line for a £255 billion liability & I am working on the assumption that, since there is currently a backlog they would actually sell. That is a bet but a reasonable one & if it works we would lead ourselves & the rest of the world to unequalled prosperity & end up with the sort of role in building the world's electrical power that the US has exercised for decades in world aircraft production.

- I think it would be conservative to say that most of the above individually, excluding #1 in each set, would increase growth by more than 2%. It would be optimistic to assume they would all work cumulatively but but even so that would be pretty good.

Alternately doing only a small amount of this would still have us matching the most successful economies in the world.

A POLL ON WHAT HOUSE YOU WANT

(penthouse, 10,000 sq ft, 6,000 ft, 3,000ft, 1,500 ft homes)

Suppose you woke up tomorrow in an alternate reality where housing was built according to free market priniciples & had been for a long enough for prices & supply to stabilise. We will assume in some inexplicable way that this did not feed through to the general growth rate so we don't all get to be much wealthier in other ways. However, since long term housing costs are 4 times what they could be you get to choose 4 times more housing. Housing would be mainly modular, unloaded off the back of a few lorries over a day or 2. Like mass production car manufacture, which it would probably resemble there would also by all sorts of hi-tech optional extras of the sort currently available in Bill Gates mansion. For Gates these are expensive because it is a one off deal. If a computer run house with its own plug in lighting, heating, cooking, security, ordering from ASDA, & if desired rubbing your back & wiping your bum (separate attachments) systems were being manufactured in the hundreds of thousands they would be affordable in the hundreds of thousands.

As pointed out yesterday 34% of average disposable, after tax, income goes on housing. So if your present approx 1500 sq ft home was only going to cost you 8.5% what would you do?

Your question
	Invest the rest in share. pension fund etc just hope that pays back as well as housing once did.
	Spend it on wine, women amateur dramatics.
	Move up to a house 4 times the size.
	Move up to an automated house twice the size that cooks your meals mixes your drinks wipes your bum
	Buy one twice the size and a 2nd one in the country
	Move to beyond suburbia get a home of 6,000 sq ft
	Spend more of your income on housing build yourself a 10,000 ft mansion in the countryside
	Spend more get a penthouse flat with all the extras
	Other - please comment
pollcode.com free polls

Obviously nobody is likely to take exactly any of these options but choose the closest.