Tag: economics

not all poetry has to be ‘good’

i run a run of six six sixes, 

the diabolic average

the paupers’ economy is for sale 

if you can afford it you are rich

the father of the bride has spent the 

marriage in remission

so rock your hips back and forth, 

and first and fourth and fifth 

and back to tonic

ending on it

ending right

here

i kept going on runs of 6.66 km. the other day i got an insurance quote for £6.66 a month. i had to take a day or two to think it over. seems risky. a compact with the devil.

the paupers’ economy was an idea i had. there are multiple sort of pricing points in the economy. shops for rich people, shops for poor people. and for the marginalised, there is a cheaper, underground economy. counterfeit fags. stolen stuff. where there are buyers there are scoundrels making money. when people are priced out of the economy, they find or make another one.

his false profits

i’ve seen a pandemic 

and recessions, 

i live in the aftermath 

of depression 

i’ve seen inequality 

rise inexorably, 

a corresponding decline 

in provision

of the services required 

for the good of all of us 

so extinguish the myth 

of the self made man 

and his false profits

life has been tough for my generation. i graduated in 2008 into the great financial crisis. then we had a decade of austerity. then the culture wars – scottish nationalism, brexit, covid, anti-trans fearmongering. now we have the ai bubble and falling standards of living. and all this while the rich have got significantly richer. 

inequality destroys societal cohesion. it makes societies inefficient. it makes people poor and insecure. and it is a political choice. every impoverished child, every person sleeping rough and begging – are decisions people have made about the allocation of resources.

the hoarse foreman of the acopalypse

the firewater fades to a numb, dumb dysphoria

as we tag along 

behind the hoarse foreman of the apocalypse 

on foot due to cutbacks

we lost the yoga word to an armed counter revolution 

modish clatty vogon rogues 

namaste, karaoke, ok? 

technological advances continue at a barely digestible rate. yet we must always find efficiencies and makes savings. the nation states have given up on space travel. now, that is only affordable for the owners of multinational corporate groups.

we have more resources, more potential, than at any time in human history. yet we must increase the retirement age. and cut the welfare state.

as a disabled person, i worry. i could lose my job. and there would be nobody there to stop my fall. i’d have to spend all my savings, sell my flat, and only then could i claim £75 a week or whatever the dole is. enough for an ok lunch for two at a restaurant.

i’m not flash. i am happy with cheap beer, pasta and cheese. bananas. i could give up holidays as long as i still had time off. but i’m unusual i think. i think a lot of people would like to have children and buy a semi in the suburbs, but they just can’t make it work in the current economic settlement.  that sounds like failure to me.

if everyone had to pay market rent on their home forever

if everyone had to pay market rent on their home forever
the market would reach an equilibrium that would be better for everyone
except the rentier class, who belong in gaol, and may well end up there

so my idea is essentially to fix the housing crisis by replacing all property taxes with a new ‘market rent’ tax.

the tax will be charged at the full market rent that the property would achieve on the open market. any rent or mortgage paid in the same period relating to the same property would be deductible from the tax charge.

if the mortgage or rent paid in the period was greater than the market rent, the excess would be given to the tax payer as a tax credit.

this would mean that lots of old people who live in large houses mortgage free would have to sell up. the mass of properties becoming available would reduce the market value of properties (at the moment, the property market is extremely illiquid – only, say, 1-2% of properties are on the market at any time, which creates artificial scarcity, driving up both rents and house prices.

by using the tax system to recalibrate the market so that everyone is effectively paying rent, we would effectively increase the size of the property market to 100%. there would no longer be any scarcity and the market would reach an equilibrium at an affordable rate.

it would also destroy landlordism, as landlords would have to pay market rent on the properties they own, whether tenanted or not.