The Establishment-v-The British People...Who has the Brains to Get the Country out of Debt and create a Dynamic Future Economy? I would say the latter !

       


The 'elitist' thinking that they are the only ones with the solutions (politicians, Whitehall civil servants and the business-university model) is a complete fallacy. Unfortunately these people get in power and the real thinkers never have a chance to emerge. This is because vested personal interests kicks in and where these people do everything in their power to keep the status quo and keep all others down in the interests of the 'steady-state'. Indeed these people are morally bankrupt as they are simply helping themselves all the time to the total detriment of all our future generations to come. In this respect they stifle and kill off any chance of a dynamic innovative economy ever emerging.

    Newton the polymath
Lowly carpenter John Harrison  

In this respect as a single example, the polymath thinking is associated with the great scientists of history. But history has shown that they did not have the answers either to global practical problems. A prime example of this is in the 17^th century where ships were being destroyed near to coastlines costing the most powerful nation on earth both a kings ransom every week and hundreds of vitally needed seafaring lives. The British government offered a sum of £50,000 if someone could solve the problem (an enormous sum at the time). All the great thinkers of the time put their minds to the task. Enter into the ring Sir Isaac Newton and a man named Harrison. In the left hand corner a man who had revolutionised the concept of the universe and created the ‘Calculus’ and in the right hand corner a mere carpenter and amateur clockmaker who tinkered with time pieces. Any betting man or woman would have put all their money on the left hand corner and where the right hand corner was seemingly a no brainer. But history has shown that it was the lowly carpenter and clockmaker Harrison who won the day and Newton did not get near to a solution. Therefore the greatest mind that the world had seen and an acknowledged polymath was defeated by a man who used no more than his hands and basic knowledge that he attained by attending school up to the age of 12 years. The same will hold today and where there are many Harrisons laying dormant and where these are the real people that we have to find and nurture, not polymaths who have had a limited impact on the ‘practicalities’ of human development and making life continually better for the human experience. Indeed Harrison did more for humanity and international commerce by solving the problem in practical terms that Newton did with his theories that were purely knowledge based on the ‘shoulders’ of others as he put it himself . The elitist ‘establishment’ were so surprised and intellectuality dismayed that they initially denied Harrison his prize as it showed that they were no better than their fellow (lowly) man and where a mere carpenter had beaten them at their own game. The concept of a polymath is therefore all wrong as we all live on continuously ‘shifting sands’ of more enlightened knowledge and no-one can ever collate all that is needed within such a dynamic environment...especially the 'Establishment' who have sold the people of the UK down the Swanny for their own wealth and riches.

But the main reason why Harrison is cited as an example is because there are many modern equivalents of Harrison who live in Britain today. Indeed the history of science and technology tells us that over 75% of all the fundamental thinking that has made the modern world what it is today did not emanate in our elitist university and business centres of R&D but from the minds of people outside the confines of this system. Therefore the 'Establishment' has provided little but taken out of society and where others (the common man and woman) have been the catalysts of the world's modern being. Indeed if the 'Establishment' and elitists were so good. why has the UK declined in economic growth for the two and half decades now in 'real' terms?

In this respect Price Waterhouse Coopers one of the big four global accountants in 2009 on far better predictions of economic growth stated that the UK's total debt as a nation (personal debt, government debt, off-balance sheet government debt, UK business debt and bank debt...everything) was projected to be in excess of £10 trillion by 2015. Unbelievable but where PwC's chief economist stated this and where PwC's figures were,

Households Debt - £1.9 Trillion
General Government Debt - £1.4 Trillion
Non Financial Company Debt - £2.2 Trillion
Financial sector Debt - £4.5 Trillion

(but where they stated that the range of our debt could be as high as £11.5 Trillion - http://pwc.blogs.com/press_room/2010/11/pwc-projects-total-uk-public-and... )

The sad fact according to ONS is that the UK is worth no more than £8 trillion... everything ! So even if we sold up to say China lock, stock and barrel and moved to another country, we as UK citizens would still owe over £2 trillion to the world. I think they call it bankrupt and where we are in the worst mess financially that this nation has ever found itself. Indeed when we were in this situation before but not anyway as bad, we went to war to cut our debt through conquest, just like Germany did through the Nazis. We cannot now do that of course as others would unleash their weapons of mass destruction and the threat of MAD.

So who are the idiots, the people or our elitist 'Establishment' who think that they have all the answers but where in reality they clearly have not. Therefore the nation's future still lies in the hands of the creative thinking of UK citizens not the 'Establishment', but where because the people of the UK are the underclass, they are not allowed by the 'Establishment' to express their creative thoughts and where there is no system in the UK to do this. Don't think either that such things as the NESTA are doing this as this quango is controlled entirely by the 'Establishment' and will not let anything other than their 'pet' subjects (that do not hit the bottom-line of big business) have the opening to air their creative views. We know this as we advised on the NESTA's creation but where the 'Establishment' took hold and a good idea was killed off at birth. This is what happens in self-protectionist Britain today and where the elitist few reap up to 85% of all new wealth and the 90% of the people only receive no more than 15% of all new wealth at best. This at the fundamental level is the main reason why we have such vast inequalities in living standards today and where the people must change all this. Unfortunately there is a constant rear-guard action within the 'Establishment' that stifles innovation for their own vested-interests and where anything that is a threat to the profits and bottom-line of investments is never allowed to see the light of day. That is why Snowden and Assange are so important, as they and others are exposing what is really going on in the world behind closed doors and why in many ways the top 100 richest people last year increased their personal wealth by a staggering $240 billion and enough according to Oxfam to end global poverty 4-times over. This is not just immoral but utterly obscene where the whole of humanity is concerned and where these super-rich individuals give very little indeed of their wealth away to alleviate and stop poverty worldwide. It appears that they are more interested in personal power that vast wealth gives them over politicians and the people of the world. They are indeed 'masters of the world', but where they have little heart or indeed soul for others when it comes to human suffering or starvation. Indeed many are now starting to see these people as equivalents in many ways indirectly as the Nazis who had very similar mentalities and where they had no empathy at all for their fellow man or woman, only themselves which is basically why the world is as it is, constantly involved in minor wars and struggles for survival, but where inequality will drive people to escalate this situation in the years ahead. In this respect as the 'West' declines in economic power over the next half century, internal civil wars and anarchy appear to be what is on the horizon for western countries due to the self-greed of the few and the actions of corrupt politician leaders who will provide a fertile ground for anarchy to prevail.

In finishing this article the Foundation outlines just a very few further examples of countless numbers of people who were not the 'Establishment' figures that have transformed the world through their fundamental thinking and have been the basis of new global industries. These are,

Logie Baird (television) - Frank Whittle (jet engine) - Berners-Lee (WWW) - Jack Kilby (the 'chip') - Bessemer (steel) - Joseph Aspdin (cement) - Fleming (penicillin) - Faraday (Electricity generation) - Wright Bros. (Aeroplane/Aviation) - Peter Durand (the tin can-that revolutionised food preservation) - Samuel Brown (internal combustion engine) - Richard Trevithick (railway engines) - Tomlinson (email) - Tim Paterson (MS-DOS basis of all that has come out of Microsoft) - Thomas Saint (sewing machine) - William Borne (the submarine) - Semmelweis (antiseptics) - Benjamin Franklin (bifocals) - Konrad Zuse (Z3-the world's first electronic computer) - Rudolf Diesel (diesel engine) - Goddard (liquid fuelled rocket propulsion) - Thomas Edison (light bulb etc, etc)...the list is endless but where the Foundation has an in-depth analysis of all these normal non-establishment heroes who changed the world forever that goes to 79 pages and where it gives their background (many came from poor homes and poverty, but had an inherent creative mind to change humanity for the better).

That is why the UK, if it is to have an economic future and prevent anarchy arising, has to put in place the creative infrastructure for the people so that new global industries can emerge. For without this new thinking in place we shall see Britain decline in living standards at an alarming rate. For we as a nation are fully reliant upon imports and without the means to pay for them we ultimately run the risk of not being able to feed ourselves in the decades ahead. Indeed if you have not the ability to pay your bills, just who will come to our rescue is the question?  We can't see anyone and not even the UN has enough financial muscle to keep the UK afloat and its people. Therefore we are currently on a high risk trajectory that can only get worse as the years march on and where the present economic systems are only adding to the nation's debt year-on-year...for do not believe what our politicians are telling you that things are getting better, as the writing is on the wall for economic decline and that is why it is of paramount importance to get our politicians to simple listen to new ways forward, not the old stuff that we still use that got us into this horrible debt mess that we are really in today ! In many ways debts that we have not presently the ability to pay off if truth be told and one of the primary reasons to why we simply have to use our intelligence and provide and install the systems that will provide our independent salvation as a nation. For you know now why successive UK governments have been loathed to leave the EU, as they think in their ignorance that the EU will be their ultimate guarantor. Unfortunately this stupid mentality and thinking is flawed as the EU will eventually disintegrate over the next 20-years through progressive economic decline and the emergence of mighty economies in the East.

Dr David Hill
Chief Executive
World Innovation Foundation