The Sunday Ramble: Easy street?

I was thinking this morning how easy it is for some people to make money. According to Myleene Klass (what  a name), 2 million quid buys a ‘garage’ in London. “Some garage,” said Nick Clegg, trying not to look too smug… (fail).

Whippets

Anyway, my advice to Myleene is to buy the garage on a low interest mortgage, park her car in it or maybe keep her whippet in it. Then she can wait ten years for the price to double and retire to the Black Country with a couple of million to live in a style to which she would like to become accustomed. This is Easy Street. She could have a couple of whippets in the shed, her own hoss and with a couple of million she could probably buy a house near the pub. There’s a few houses going cheap up Darlo…

Doesn’t Myleene sound like a cleaning product? I cleaned the car with Myleene to a dazzlin’ sheen… That could catch on…

Sunday afternoon

It’s grey and ‘orrible outside.  I need sunshine so I can go out this afternoon and take my photos. I’ve been patching my photos together into a video slideshow that you should be able to see next month. Unfortunately, while the processing was going on. I resized and moved some of the photos, so I’ll have to do that again. It will be a good video though, of all my best photos from the first 4 months of 2014. It would be all of 2014, but I decided to make it in 3 parts so as not to be too boring.

Private investors

If you’re a regular reader you will know that I’ve saved a few quid and I invest it in the future of this country by buying shares on the stock market. However, many new things are being financed by foreign investment. The Chinese government is investing in our new nuclear power stations and even water companies. Yesterday, I read that rich Arabs want to invest their oil money in HS2. Do we really want all our utilities and major industry owned by foreign governments? Why not private investors? The traders in the city make huge amounts of money from institutional investors, (your pension fund) and from investing on behalf of insurance companies. These charges and commissions are under investigation.  The commissions private investors pay (on top of stamp duty) need to be investigated too, because dealing services charge way too much. Then maybe, we can invest in the wealth creating industry and commerce in this country instead of buying garages in London and watching television while they double in value. Perhaps people could be encouraged to save and invest rather than borrow and invest. The financiers call borrowing, leverage, but it’s debt and we should really be trying to put the culture of debt behind us or at least be more responsible about it. Who do you want owning your electricity supply and water company, private investors like me or overseas governments? I remember buying shares in the Thatcher era only to get stung for a dealing fee of over £30 when I came to sell them. It seems a bit much now that dealing is all on-line and computerised, even though fees are now lower. The standard fee on the service I use is £12.50. On a £1,000 trade, that is £12.50 plus £5 stamp duty when you buy and another £12.50 when you sell. That computer might make more money if private investors could deal more frequently, instead of waiting for dealing discount days.

This country seems to be driven by greed, perhaps we could change the culture and give people more security. Make building a home more important than investing in property. Make equality more important than aspiring to be a celebrity like Myleene…

What do you think? Do you want to invest in industry and commerce or become a slum-lord with borrowed money? We can change the culture of this country if we try. You can share your views in the comments box or follow me on Twitter.

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