Where are we going?

[cromwell]

As a country, I mean.

It's just struck me recently how much busier this neck of the wood has become. So many more cars on the road, cars parking on both sides of the street. Housing estates being thrown up everywhere - even though the houses are only selling slowly in some cases. Countryside going under concrete forever.

All this does I suppose generate the Holy Grail of "economic growth". We seem to live under an economic system that says it is impossible to have too large a population. More people = more consumption of goods = more profits (for somebody). Certainly when you look at the official figures for our population they seem to me to be a bigger work of fiction than the Beano.

What are we storing up for the future though? We aren't discriminating as to who we let in. Educated or illiterate, rich or poor, skilled or useless, all are welcome. Because everyone needs food to eat, clothes to wear, uses a bus or a car, etc etc.

There are obvious drawbacks though. Schools that are full, hospital a and e departments creaking under pressure, more traffic jams, more pollution, more waste to landfill etc etc. Besides this though technological advancements are going to decimate jobs in the not too distant future. Drones will be able to deliver goods, as will self driving vans. Jobs will continue to vanish in retail and banking due to the progress of on line transactions.

So unless we can replace all these jobs, what are we going to be left with? More and more people (and their children) who have been imported into the country to boost the economy but who now can't find a job but who will still need keeping. Thereby putting taxes up for those who do work or have assets. More pressure on government finances and the welfare state.

I hold my hands up to being a pessimist. I hope this country has better days to come but I doubt it.

[Aggers]

I hold my hands up to being a pessimist. I hope this country has better days to come but I doubt it.

Me too. The world is getting too crowded, and the more people there are, the more pollution of the planet's
atmosphere will happen, and the nearer will come the end of life on this earth as we now know it.

[Workingman]

You do not have to be very observant to have spotted that these issues are bees in my bonnet.

A report by the ONS a week or so ago claimed that at current rates 900,000 jobs would be lost in the retail sector by 2025. Given that the rate will increase due to online shopping and improved technology the figure could go anywhere upwards of 900,000. Add in the support services these retail staff use and other sectors will also be affected. The vast majority of these jobs are not skilled work so a dog-eat-dog world will be created with people fighting for any jobs that do become available.

Leeds city council is also predicting that the population of the city will grow to over one million by 2020 - 2025, an increase of over 200,000 people. Where will these people be coming from? What work will they do? Where will they live. How many schools, hospitals, fire stations, police stations, sewage works and water works will have to be built in order to cope?

As for the economy; it has us all trapped in the growth and profits spiral. Economies always have to grow and so do profits and they have to take into account growth and inflation. The markets slaughter companies whose profits do not meet expectations, and God help any that issue a profits warning! It is complete madness. The only way for growth and profits to keep rising is for there to be more customers - population growth - and the world cannot support more people.

[cruiser2]

We go out on the M6 before 7.00 p.m in the evening during the week. There are always a lot of cars and HGVs in both directions.
The amount of trafiic has reduced when we come home after 10.00 p.m. More HGVs when there are less cars to hold them up.
I often wonder who is actually working, producing something with all the cars driving past on the motorways.

[TheOstrich]

It's just struck me recently how much busier this neck of the wood has become.

I know. I've been down to Coventry today (Sunday). There's something like 8 trains an hour scheduled between Birmingham and Coventry - the 9 carriage Pendolino I was on going down at midday was 60% full; the return journey at 5:00 was an 11 carriage train and I was hard pressed to find a seat! Birmingham city centre was comfortably busy, and the retail park alongside Coventry station was positively humming.

It never used to be like that on a Sunday .....

The impression I get is that our whole society, certainly our economy, is not unlike a South Sea Bubble. Sooner or later, I suspect, everything's going to collapse .....

[cruiser2]

Read an article in yesterdays paper saying the HS2 train may come off the tracks if it goes too fast.
Reduce time from London to Birmingham, but it does not go into the centre of Birmingham. You will have to change trains. Who thought that one up?

[Kaz]

HS2 is a massive White Elephant

[Suff]

Who thought that one up?

It's fairly common in Europe. So you can guess who won the architecture and will win the contract.... Another less than successful project massively over budget tendered out to the lowest (lying), EU bidder, who is backed by their government.

In fact France is currently building a whole new high speed rail service from Paris to Bordeaux. It will reduce train journeys and increase the frequency of services by allowing both faster and slower trains with the slower trains dropping off the high speed track to service the stations on the older (high speed) track.

The French believe this will distribute more business from Paris out to more regional areas, something they desperately need. Also it will allow someone to come from Germany, to Paris, transit Paris and get to Bordeaux, in under 5 hours. Which is a good thing for cross EU business travel.

The French are right, it will redistribute work and wealth. The British complain constantly about everything being in London and the South East, then violently resist any change which will allow the gradual distribution of that work and wealth to flow out of the city tied by high speed links which do not mean Air travel.

Honestly I really do not understand the contradictory position. If you want wealth and work to flow out of London then you need to allow the life blood to pump from London and back to it. It won't work any other way.

Whilst I would prefer an East Coast link I do recognise that Birmingham and Manchester are vital draws for this kind of travel.

The massive difference between HS2 and LGV2 is the price. Estimated £42bn for HS2 and a probably €7.6bn for France. This is down to two things. Most of the LGV2 will go through open farm and forest land which is already broken with road and rail links and the land that HS2 must go through is the most expensive in the world, let alone in the EU. Whereas the LGV2 will go through some of the cheapest land in the EU and French compulsory purchase is more like smash and grab compared to the British process....

Secondly only French companies win French state construction contracts. Companies who know the laws, the regulations and, critically, the land over which they will build.

A lot of messages there for the UK.....

Even then, most of that £42bn for HS2 will find it's way back in taxes on land sales, workforce taxes and other service costs which are taxed. Rather than a white elephant, it will more likely be a revitalisation (short term), for a whole bunch of UK companies on the project....

Although we need to be much more European about tendering for contracts. I mean, you can just imagine a UK company winning the contract to provide German infrastructure. Even at 25% of the price.....

[Workingman]

The French believe this will distribute more business from Paris out to more regional areas, something they desperately need.

Something the UK desperately needs.

Our government also believes that business will flow from London, outwards. However, there is a huge difference between 'belief' and 'reality' and the reality will be somewhat different unless there is a huge shift in the London centric thinking of our government and businesses.

We can build all the HS rail lines we want to England's three largest cities outside of London; Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, but they will also need the same level of infrastructure spend as London and the S. East gets or they will always be behind. The fear, a real fear, is that unless these other areas get the same spend, per head, as those in London receive, the flow of business will be to London and not from it.

A quick glance at this Guardian article shows how obscene the difference in funding between London and the Regions actually is. Unless that is addressed, and possibly reversed, the government's pet projects such as the recovery of the West Midlands and the Northern Powerhouse (or 'Poorhouse' as it is known locally) will be nothing more than pie in the sky.

[TheOstrich]

...... but it does not go into the centre of Birmingham. You will have to change trains. Who thought that one up?

Actually, Cruiser, it will more or less go into the centre of Birmingham (the old 19th century Curzon Street terminus). Additionally they intend to extend the city centre 1/2 a mile to the east under a regeneration scheme to meet it.

If the mountain won't come to Muhammed, as they say .....

They are also planning to extend the Midlands Metro trams to it, and on to Digbeth. Mind you, judging by their current rate of progress trying to get the existing line to New Street Station, I doubt it will happen much before 2040!!