You Tube keeps you warm

I hate to start with a cliché, but we really can learn from our children. Let me illustrate how this has hit home for me through the use of You Tube. It started when we had a couple families around to our home to join us welcome in 2011 on New Years Eve.

The boys decamped to one room to follow the aged old tradition of shooting the bad guys. Before I was a child it was with toy soldiers, in my childhood it was with Action Man and now it’s using the paddles of an X Box. The girls headed to the largest empty room to start planning a dance routine to latest Olly Murs album (2010 Runner up for the UK’s X Factor).

During the great tidy up the next day I found that the CD player that the girls were using was broken. Using all the deductive powers of Sherlock Holmes I asked my daughter how the dancing had gone and to my surprise she was full of how they had learned a new routine. And how did she play the CD I enquired? “Oh we couldn’t get that to work its broken. We just logged on to You Tube and followed the dance routines there.”

Fast forward a month to one of the last precious weekends before we have a screaming baby in the house, and I came home from work Friday to find the radiator had mysteriously fallen off the wall in my son’s room. Don’t get me started, I have a stream of consciousness on that little gem, but we’re not here to explore the father son dynamic of family life.

Following a ram raid on B&Q for extra strength raw plugs, I drained and re hung the radiator and after proudly packing my tools away tried not to think too much about it. The following morning when we needed our central heating system it started making noises like my wife’s stomach after a curry. Loathed to pay for an emergency plumber I spent half an hour staring the big thing that holds the hot water in the cupboard that keeps the towels warm neither me or the kids were starting to smell any sweeter.

So with the sweet sound of my wife’s nagging ringing in my ears I headed to my new source of how to do everything, You Tube. A charming man with a Yorkshire accent helped me discover I have a combi boiler, how to check it’s water pressure, how to increase it’s water pressure, and most importantly by combing all of this new knowledge - how to stop the nagging ringing in my ears and stop us all from smelling.

Crowd sourced economic policy

Who’s a clever boy then?
No sooner had I posted a missive to put the economy into the correct perspective and another to put it squarely back on the right course; that clever clogs George Osborne has set about doing some crowd sourcing for more ideas.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/04/chancellor-crowdsources-budget-ideas-george-osborne

I’m not going to make a political point about not having a clue, as I think he has the right idea. More Government should be run like this. Go the pub with your mates, get the old economic creative juices flowing and before you sober up, pop them in an email to Her Majesty’s Treasury.
I have, we’ll see just how sensible an idea it is. Roll on 23rd March.

Don't Panic, innovate

Following on from my Frazeresque (Dad’s Army, not Seattle) piece on the state of the economy on Monday, I thought I would set out a simple approach to saving the economy.  It is pretty well proven that;



• Small businesses can generate employment faster than large enterprises;


• Small businesses will seize on opportunities faster than large organisations can bring together a cross departmental working group to even write 2 sides of A4 on what their ‘terms of reference are;’


• Younger people save less and spend more as they start to build a home for themselves and think buying anew car is somehow an investment;


• Iced on top of these universal truths are political leaders that proclaim how to remain competitive the UK must be leaders of the knowledge economy and we have a greater number of graduates today than we have had at any time in the past.

So now, more than anytime in the past 30 years, the Government should use fiscal policy to generate a massive shift in their own and investors approach to small companies that can innovate. What does this mean?


Well, any company that employs less than 100 people should be able to hire up to 1 employee per 10 already employed on a 24 month fixed term contract. As long as they are under 25 years old at and paid least twice the minimum wage (around £23.5k). In return the Government will let them deduct the total tax take for that individual from the company’s corporation tax (around £3.5k excluding NI) for the first or second year as chosen by the employer.

These are generous terms that would contribute to increase the UK’s aggregate demand, generate growth from spending, reduce unemployment and the long term burden on Government spending.

More importantly than benefiting the economy as a whole, is the lasting effect on companies that innovate in a tough environment that will gain the most. These organisations would be able to access bright young talent more cost effectively with a manageable risk profile and have a global advantage to go on and innovate even more.

Never in the field of human economics

UK GDP growth has slowed to the pace of South Eastern train passing through London Bridge, unemployment is proving to be stubborn, especially for young people, inflation appears to be uncontrollable by the cadre of venerable olds that run monetary policy and the pound is as popular as fart in a space suit.

All roads seem to be leading to some kind of stagnation, although politicians will use wording that won’t panic the masses of home owners for whom the margin between what their home is worth and what they owe on their mortgage continues to narrow.

There seems to be several solutions being peddled endlessly with out a taker. The Banks should lend more money to more people, everyone working within the banks ecosystem should not take bonuses and the Government should give up on their endless march to return the public sector to a size more aligned with the value it can really deliver. Each repeated with gusto daily in the press and broadcast media, none that can be seriously executed without seriously affecting another part of the economy.

Surely there hasn’t been a time for the need of some Herculean innovation since we were led by Winston Churchill into the field of human conflict.

So what would I do if sufficient people had failed to read their ballot papers and voted to me in charge? Well a part from taking a leaf our of Mr Berlusconi’s for being entertained by talented young meteorologists, incentivise innovation.

Details in my next blog.