BULLSHIT JOBS.

I have written in the past, certainly in my book and I think on this blog, that the vast majority of jobs are completely unnecessary. Now someone has written a book on the subject. Although it is unlikely he is more intelligent than I, he is almost certainly more learned. I have also said in the past that my opinions, most of which I have held for decades, are now becoming accepted by others and even occasionally by the mainstream, here is another example. The book is called “Bullshit Jobs: A theory” by David Graeber. Like me he is an intellectual maverick but unlike me he has already made his name with his first book, “Debt: The First 5000 Years”. This book shocked many. If the whole point of capitalism is that it is supposed to deliver efficiency, how come it creates so many pointless jobs? Because it is the only way to keep the capitalist show on the road. The man has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands would be a mortal danger to their status quo. In 1930 the economist John Maynard Keynes said that by the year 2000 technological advances should mean that most people in the US and the UK would only have to work 15 hrs a week. The rise of the robots has meant that this has actually happened, but we have made up jobs for people to seem to be working, because politicians have decided that having a job whether of any use or not is an intrinsically good thing. The full horror of bullshit jobs is seen in the higher levels of finance, where you can make millions doing nothing or even something positively harmful. Finance is simply a way of getting other people into debt and extracting money from them.

In a study that attempted to put a monetary value on the social value or cost of jobs it was calculated that nurses add £9 of social value for every £1 they are paid;  City bankers destroy £7 of social value for every £1 they are paid. If every corporate lawyer went on strike nothing much would happen. If every nurse went on strike then it would be a catastrophe, so why on earth do we pay lawyers more than nurses? Makes you think doesn’t it, if it doesn’t it certainly should.

A VICTORY FOR COMMON SENSE 2

Further to my post as above I subsequently shared a post on Facebook about Lord Hague saying cannabis should now be legalized for medical and recreational use. I wouldn’t normally agree with Lord Hague but I do wholeheartedly on this occasion. A friend replied that there is no scientific evidence to support the medical benefits of cannabis, the following was my reply:

“John Marrow There is no scientific proof because all research on cannabis was banned several decades ago. As all scientific research on drugs is carried out by big pharma they will not be interested anyway as there is not much profit to be gained from something that grows naturally. They are however producing synthetic versions, which of course will not be as effective and will have worse side effects. It has been shown to help a variety of conditions and the recreational use has given pleasure to many, as has alcohol. I have lost several friends to alcoholism but it would be unfair to ban it when it gives pleasure to the vast majority of users. It should be up to the individual to decide what drugs they take, not William Hague or the government. It is unfair and illogical that many drugs which are relatively safe are illegal while many which kill millions of people are legal, especially pharmaceuticals which kill and maim more people than all the illegal drugs put together. Also, legalisation would produce vast tax revenues, which at the moment goes to criminals.”

Subsequently I came across an interesting book review, the book is called, “Too Many Pills. How Too Much Medicine is Endangering Our Health and What We Can Do About It by James Le Fanu Little”. I have written at length about this subject in my book and probably on my blog so I won’t go into it all again. But Le Fanu, a retired GP, posits that over-medicalisation began in 2004, when Tony Blair, that bloody man again, committed to increased spending on the NHS and introduced “The Quality and Outcomes Framework”. This promised to save 30,000 lives a year and financially rewarded GPs for doing tests and prescribing drugs. It has cost £30 billion and Le Fanu asserts that it has saved no lives but it has condemned millions to lifelong medication with all the risks and suffering that involves.

In 2007 an Israeli doctor discontinued 320 drugs that were being prescribed for 100 frail nursing home residents. In the following year the number of deaths halved and emergency hospital admissions fell by two thirds. The doctor Doron Garfinkel, pity he’s not called Simon, concluded that polypharmacy (the use of multiple drugs) was a disease with potentially more complications than the illnesses they were prescribed for in the first place. In the UK in 2015, the steady rise in life expectancy that had been going on for 200 years suddenly went into reverse; 600 more people were dying every week than in 2014. Why? Because the Israeli old folk and the British public were being dosed to death.

It seems to me that an unfortunate side effect of the “war on drugs” sidelining research into the benefits of cannabis as a medicine means we have overlooked what may well be a universal panacea. Psychedelics have also suffered as a result of the “war on drugs” but are now undergoing a medical renaissance; LSD from its accidental creation in 1938 to being banned in 1967? was used to treat a variety of conditions especially addiction to alcohol, quitting smoking and reducing anxiety and depression in terminally ill patients. The co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson was one of the early beneficiaries. As far as I am aware cannabis has never killed anyone but if it did at least you would die happy. The plant also has many other uses; as well as its early use for rope making and caulking the decks of wooden ships, it could replace wood for paper making, especially toilet paper (get a buzz every time you wipe your butt) and many types of plastic, it can even be made into super insulating blocks to build houses. It seems that at last logic is replacing ill informed prejudices albeit about 40 years too late. It’s just a pity that mobile phones and social media developed so much quicker, but of course the man was profiting from those, as the man in the form of big pharma has profited from sidelining cannabis. So, come on folks bin all those pills and roll one you will be happier and healthier.

PATIO MAGIC

 

 

My patio has needed some attention for a while now, all the mortar in the joints was coming out, some I never got as far as pointing in the first place, the flags are not perfectly level and some a little wobbly. I raked out all the old mortar in a couple of hours but couldn’t face re-pointing it all. Bright idea, mixed a bit of soil and compost in a barrow, tipped it out and brushed it into all the joints with a stiff brush. It will naturally get grass and moss etc and I will plant some more stuff deliberately, adds a bit of interest. If it gets too long I will just go over it with the lawn mower. It will disguise the unevenness, when the roots start creeping under it might even stop the wobbly ones. I bought some orange scented thyme seeds which give off an orangey smell when walked on, but when I opened the packets there was another even smaller packet inside with about 20 minute seeds. WTF do I do with these I thought. All I could do was mix them with some compost and put them in a wide shallow pot, I will plant them in the joints when they germinate. This has been another useful tip from whaleoilbeefoct.  

A VICTORY FOR COMMON SENSE.

I am very pleased to read the news that Billy Caldwell is to be allowed to have the cannabis medicine he needs to make his and his mother’s life more bearable. The cynic in me, actually I am nearly all cynic these days, wonders if this is more to do with the government needing to make a popular gesture, as their credibility and popularity plummet, rather than humanitarian reasons. Likewise, with the extra money for the NHS. I wonder if they are going to call yet another election soon? However, whatever the reason, both of these items are good news for once. Let us hope they spend the extra NHS money on frontline staff rather than more managers, more contracting out and more money to big pharma.

What is needed now, if they really mean business, is to make cannabis available for ALL those who would benefit from it; in fact why not go the whole hog and legalise it for recreational use as well. They might even pull back some of the youth vote from Jeremy; in fact it would also be popular with most of my generation who were potheads in their youth but stopped when they found themselves with more responsibility and could no longer risk the illegality. It seems totally illogical to me that drugs which are relatively safe are illegal, while drugs which are known to be harmful and kill millions worldwide every year, especially tobacco and pharmaceuticals, are legal. Is it even relevant for the State to decide what you can and cannot take?

Which is more harmful alcohol or cannabis? The debate has been going on for decades, I don’t think there is much in it; we are probably better off without any drugs at all, but on the whole the pleasure derived by the majority outweighs the harm caused to the few. Probably there would be less violent crime and domestic violence from a nation of potheads than there would from a nation of boozers. The fact is that a lot of people like taking drugs, the demand is and always there, making any drug illegal just transfers money from the taxpayer to criminals. War on drugs, they might as well have a war on sex, neither are going to work. In the US, States that have legalized pot have made millions in tax revenues and deprived criminals of that money in the process.

AM I RIGHT, OR AM I RIGHT?

What have I been saying about too many managers and not enough workers? Rolls Royce are due to axe 4000 managers and back office staff in an effort to cut costs. Chief Executive Warren East has long argued that RR is bloated with unnecessary costs, duplicated roles and too many layers of management. The cuts will target back office staff rather than it’s 18,000 engineers; all we need now is to cut further and deeper and include top management jobs. It won’t happen; the people who make the decisions are not going to cut their own inflated salaries or jobs. What we need is more shareholder revolts but that is not going to happen either as most of the shareholders are funds, including pension funds and even unions, whose top management also have inflated salaries, so they won’t want to rock the boat. At least it is a step in the right direction and other companies may follow suit.

NOW THAT’S A GOOD IDEA.

I am not a great believer in more legislation, but one simple law would make the world a much better place. All big companies would have to comply with the virtuous claims they make on their websites. At the moment it is all bollox and just adds insult to injury.