Fed up

The constant  selling off or selling out of the assets and opportunities which this country worked hard to acquire appears to reflected within our county and this has me wondering; how do they expect services and features to be cheaper or  managed with any improvements to effeciency  when they cannot control the costs and we cannot elect the shareholders?
 

Whilst at times I have been considered too liberal for the Conservatives or too conservative for the Liberals however my flag has always been planted firmly in the idea that the Internet, the NHS and our education system are fundamentally important to keeping our heads held high in modern society.
 

I am left frustrated and angry and I  feel that enough is enough.  That in 30 years of making an effort, contributing, playing fair and paying my taxes that I would be helping to dig ourselves out from under the debt incurred by the poor planning of previous and current governments.

I am just about ready to give up; to give up on Banks which do nothing more than store my money and take a percentage, from a democracy which appears to accrue more opportunities for fewer people and from an infrastructure that appears to leave an increasing burden on future generations. 

Make a small enough change to make a big enough difference

There were no deliberate plans that we should be here today; unless you proscribe to a more paranoid conspiracy of ruling bodies. It is not possible to implement sweeping and sudden change in our current environment but if we looked at one small problem and together we contributed to it then we might make a small enough change to make a big enough difference.

In this particular example “small change” is very appropriate.

I am looking to the crowdfunding and micro-lending communities which are steadily supplanting our dependency on existing financial institutions. Microlending communities  are providing a  means for investing or borrowing and it is through websites like Zopa, Kiva and Crowdfunder that people may be changing the nature of how money is working.

By enabling a means for community project costs to be covered , funding for new businesses or unsecured loans that can help with businesses growth micro-lending is providing the funding not through a single institution but from a large number of people who each contribute a small amount of money and the lending sites take a small percentage for the administration of this.
 

It is the users who judge where the money should flow and having personally dipped my toe in the water of Zopa and in working with a startup who will be operating in that market I am convinced that these small changes are uncomfortable for banks and for traditional investors. If we can turn our back on the banks what other long term institutions might we decide are past their prime ?

I wonder if Mahatma Ghandi would appreciate that his oft used quote “be the change you want to see in the world” might now be interpretted as “Give the change to what you want to see in the world”