The above picture was taken within a couple of months of arriving at Possum Valley.  I bought the place as ‘tenants in common’ with Mike Cheshire who took this picture and kindly sent it to me a couple of days ago.  We had just set up camp by dragging a few sheets of tin through the rainforest and fixing to a few spindly bush poles.  There was no track in.  This shed had 2 walls and and a roof with 2m headroom where I am sitting and just over a metre at the other end.  A few metres to my left I have a little faded 2-man tent.  The shed was right at the bottom of the valley looking over towards where Blackbean Cottage now stands.

After the shed was the job of finding some 4WD access for our ancient clanking 1962 Landcruiser.  Using our skills from exploration work, we bought stereo high-resolution photos of the area.  With stereo, we could see the slopes.  In fact there is about 10x vertical exaggeration.  The way we found started many kilometres from the present track and came through an adjacent farm and 7 gates.  My neighbour kindly allowed us to go through his property for the next  12 or so years.  The old ‘Crown’ stove and chimney would have arrived on the back of that Landcruiser.  I think I still have the chair I am sitting on.  I think I got some idea of the conditions the early settlers laboured under, and the isolation from the rest of the world.  When it was really wet, not an infrequent occurrence, even the Landcruiser couldn’t get out and we would hike to the road and hitch-hike to town and back-pack the supplies back to PV in the rain.  It didn’t seem like hardship back then, more of an adventure.

Next job was to build a house.  Nothing flash as we didn’t have much money at all, just labour and enthusiasm.  For the previous 2 years we had been working out bush in remote parts of WA and QLD with just a swag roll and blackened billy as we saved money to buy PV.  No tent required, it only rained once in those 2 years.

Blackbean was constructed entirely from timber outside and inside.  It was the first building on the property and constructed entirely with hand tools before the power system was built.  It was started in 1976 without benefit of plans, knowledge, building approval, or money.  Completion time was about 11 months at a cost (1976 dollars) of about $1,400 complete with doors, windows, plumbing, wood stove etc.  A third of the cost was the tin on the roof.  Building approval was obtained 25 years later.  Originally, there was a porch and wood store where the entrance corridor and bathroom now are.  The ‘bathroom’ was a long drop on the other side of the creek and 50m up the hill.  When my wife was heavily pregnant, especially on wet windy nights, I was told in no uncertain terms that an upgrade was required.

All the materials for the present buildings were brought to PV by that old Landcruiser and it was our sole means of transport for about 15 years.  We bought it at 15 years old for $750 and sold it for $750 when it was 30 years old.

Mike and I both got married, and while a couple of blokes can get along in a small house, it is not suitable long-term for 2 couples.  So we both built a new house.  Mike built Maple Cottage, and I built the Homestead and we soon had kids.   Then Mike’s wife wanted to move to Brisbane where her family was, and with considerable help from my mother, I bought out Mike’s share.

I now had 3 houses and a couple of sheds.  It seemed the obvious thing to do B&B.  There has been no master plan for my life, I just went with the flow. I don’t regret any of it, except perhaps the failure of relationships but that’s another story.  I am rapidly approaching the traditional retiring age of 65.  I have worked for wages for perhaps 5 of those years, probably less.  I have enjoyed the freedom of having my time to myself and paid the penalty of having little money all my life.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

Possum Valley has been having the hottest temperatures for several years this last week, reaching 31C .  The highest temp ever recorded at PV in the last 38 years is 33C.  I know, I know that is nothing in Oz where 50C is not unknown and a place like Darwin exceeds 31C just about every day even in the ‘winter’ and right now Brisbane is 10C hotter at 41C, but I do find it a tad uncomfortable.  Even more disconcerting is there is no sign of the Wet season.  No storms, no monsoon troughs, not even a shower.

It is great for my guests, who can go for walks in the shady, naturally air-conditioned rainforest without being molested by leaches which retreat and sulk in damp places in the dry weather, but it is not good for the rainforest in general.  I walked under some trees today and it was continuously raining leaves.  Wild ginger leaves have curled up to conserve water and many others are limp and sad.  There will be many other plants and animals suffering from heat and lack of water normally expected in copious amounts at this time of year.  Personally, I have the minor inconvenience of the hydro power being down to 1/3 or 1/4 of full power as the creek dwindles away.  No matter, the 30 solar panels are doing the heavy lifting.  Once again I am glad I am not a farmer helpless in the grip of Australia’s famously erratic weather.  I believe weather variability has been compiled and reduced to a number representing deviations from the normal climate.  Australia stars on this index.  Global climate change will likely make that index climb to destructive levels.  Generally expected in most models, is that the tropics will stay as wet or a bit wetter and most of the country south, already dry, will get dryer.  Not a good prospect.  And now we have a government that wants to put its head in the sand concerning global climate change.  Well, at least they’ll have plenty of sand to go round as the deserts expand.

Happy New Year to one and all and I hope you had a great festive period.  I certainly did as my daughters with 1 grandchild and 1 partner came to stay for a few days.  Between them they had trekked 7000km to be here.  Also for a feast designated as Xmas, to which my wife and her partner came bearing gifts and garden produce.  Modern families get complicated don’t they, but I’m glad to say that ours is without animosity and can get together and have a warm and loving occasion.  The feast above was early because of work commitments, which allowed me to have 2 extra Xmases with other friends.  One was in perhaps one of the most beautiful places imaginable at a high farm at Tarzali with a great view over the rolling Tablelands to the distant mountains.  Dinner was ‘al fresco’ under the shade of a spreading African tree which bears huge red flowers in season.  The weather was superb, the meal delicious, the wine excellent, the company friendly and humorous, the animals around wanting a piece of the action amusing, and the environment as the sun went down was stunning.  Best meal ever served off a pallet covered with an elegant tablecloth.  You just had to be careful where you put your wine down.

In the foreground is Maple Cottage which has a view down to the largest dam on the left.  Next up towards the horizon is the games room.  Next up and to the left is Blackbean Cottage down in the valley and nearest the horizon is the Homestead, the rambling mansion of Paul the host, manager, cleaner, repair man, receptionist etc.  Most of the picture is on the property of Possum Valley with World Heritage forest rolling over the hills for several kilometres.  Just cut off to the right is a dam where the sauna is located.

In the distance Queensland’s highest mountains.

This Xmas and this environment has reminded me how lucky I am.  In all of human history, few have enjoyed the simple luxuries of good and dependable food, a pleasant uncontaminated environment, a long life supported by a competent medical system, a stable society, unprecedented access to information and entertainment, freedom from violence and repression, a loving and lovable family, clean water that is hot and cold as I desire, and the list of luxuries goes on.  All this achieved with little money and a lot of luck.  Only in a couple of years in the 1970’s I think, did I have to pay tax.  Thereafter my income was too meagre to attract tax.  My advice is to go directly to your goals without going through the mediating medium of money.  By your own efforts create the lifestyle you desire.  By directing your own labour to your own goals, you can bypass the legions of 10%ers, or in the case of government the 30%ers, who want to profit from your labour.  Along the way, you may avoid being ripped off by the banks who increase the pain with interest.  Come to think of it, perhaps you can also avoid the veracious parasite called insurance.  Just bearing the consequences that fickle fate can bring, may be better than paying regular amounts for dubious outcomes.  I leave you with this seditious propaganda and hope you have a great new year.

I have been doing B&B for about 21 years now, and it’s great.  I live in a beautiful place, people come here, give me money, and leave with nothing except the experience.  Many to return again.  What a brilliant way to earn a living.  My thanks to all those who keep me in the luxury to which I have become accustomed.  Not that luxury includes a substantial income, as I haven’t troubled the taxman in years.  My luxuries include beautiful environment, no alarm clock, no commuting, freedom to order my own time, time to potter about with things that don’t produce any return, and a general contentment that comes with lack of ambition.  I feel a little like Tom Bombadil from LOTR, mostly untroubled by the rest of the world.

But I do like greeting guests.  Many are returning from having stayed here before and it is like greeting friends.  How comfortable is that.  They have voted with their feet that they like they place, and know exactly what to expect.  I can relax knowing they will be satisfied.  It won’t be just the same as their last visit as the weather and wildlife can be vastly different, but the general experience they appreciate.  I especially like greeting guests who have never been here because Possum Valley is a bit on the wild side and not as predictable as a motel in Bowra.  Some are shell shocked and ashen-faced from the gravel road in and gripping the steering-wheel with white knuckles.  Some say what a beautiful drive in.  Then I get to show them a cottage which were built for a family to live in rather than for tourist accommodation.  There is a delicate balance between what guests get and what they expect.  The expectations are built up from previous experiences of accommodation and levels of amenities, my advertising and responses to inquiries, my website and pictures, the tariff, and a dash of the guests imagination.  The complex calculation of all those factors to determine pass/fail is reached within 10 seconds of being shown through the door.  The gestalt impression is very quick.  I am pleased to say, if I say it myself, that I nearly always get a pass.

And my impression of guests is equally quick.  I have had over 20,000 guests by now, which is a statistically viable sample of the population on which to make draw some conclusions.  In the brief time when I am showing guests around the cottages, I find I really like you and pleasure in the meeting.  A tiny percentage I fail to make any connection with, usually because they are so tight, I can not detect any sense of humour.   Sorry, I just cannot seem to connect with people without a sense of humour.  I am sure out of 20,000 people, there has been nobody I actively disliked.  This gives me great faith in the general good nature of people.

I especially like kids having a good time here.  For them to be exposed to what I consider the ‘real’ world.  Though I have to admit that now most of the world’s population now lives in cities, what is the normal reality is up for debate.  I like to think ‘real’ is where trees grow with reckless abandon, and the animals roam doing their own thing.  Kids are some of my best customers and drag their parents back here, I hope not kicking and screaming.  It is very satisfying being a B&B operator.

 

 

The rainforest is a dynamic living environment with a multitude of life forms, plant and animal, trying to make a living.  They have been at it for millions of years and I have recently intruded into their space to live here.  Blessed with abundant sun energy and water, a rainforest is life in the fast lane.  I have to accept and deal with the consequences.

I went up to the top cottage this morning to clean the windows and upon opening the door was greeted by the most awful stench.  Hmmm… expecting guests in a few hours, this will not do.  I checked in the cottage, but no obvious culprit, so I knew I had to grovel round in the roof space.  Please, please let it be a possum and not a python.  You see a possum can be ‘collected’ with a plastic bag using the supermarket deli technique of picking it up with hand in bag and inverting the bag thereby not touching the stinking remains.  The skin and fur retain the rapidly liquifying remains.  For some reason, snakes decay at an accelerated rate and the skin is not strong enough to contain the contents.  The roof space consists of rafters and battens with the ceiling of thin cement sheets.  Can only progress on hands and knees only putting weight on the woodwork.  Oh no! its a snake, right at the edge of the roof where I can only just get to it crawling in there lying down.  I retreat for dustpan and brush, so I can scoop it up.  I also have a bucket of detergent as I know I will not be able to scoop cleanly.  With all this equipment plus a headlight for illumination, I crawl, like a snake, into the tiny space which is the last place on earth I’d rather be.  The stench is overwhelming, I have 300mm headroom and my nose almost above the liquified remains.  A multitude of inch long black beetles are already at work and I flail at them to deter them from coming in my direction. That is too much information already probably, so I will spare you the bits about fluids splashing in all directions, oops, I said I would spare you that.  Many accommodation providers boast about going the extra mile to look after their guests.  That was the extra light-year.  By the time the guests had arrived, the stench had abated greatly.  In fact I couldn’t tell if it was even detectable. My olfactory overload still had me smelling the corrupt remains, interspersed with flashbacks of ‘spice’ fragrant oil which I put around the cottage.  As I showed the arriving guests around the cottage, I decided to ‘fess up’ in case they could detect any lingering smell, so I could assure them the problem had been dealt with and any odour would decrease rather than increase.  Honesty still remains the best policy, even if economics and politics have abandoned it.  My wonderfully tolerant guests expressed an interest in returning again.

In nearly 20 years of B&B, this was the most difficult to reach and the most unpleasant to deal with.  It is not the norm and I have only had to deal with 4 or 5 such incidents in the 20 years. Hopefully the next incident is years in the future.

 

 

I recently sent an e-mail to an old friend in the UK about a possum which had raided my house over a decade, and been virtually adopted by my kids.  He remarked ” I can see the attractions with the rainforest, you probably have a very close relationship with it that would be hard to beat in the developed world.”  Well yes.  My first ten years were in a big city which is virtually sterile except for pigeons crapping on the statues.  Then I moved to a country town (if that is not an oxymoron).  There was a variety of birds and a few rabbits and I used to watch little trout staying in place in a fast stream.  Now I live in a tropical rainforest bursting with life.

I think I should tell you that it is always beautiful and enriching, but not always convenient.  I long ago gave up on growing a vegie garden because of the long list of villains lining up to get a piece of the action before the produce got to a stage I would call ripe.  First hurdle would be fungi and insects.  There could be a million species of each within a hundred meters of where I plant the first tender seedling.  Then there are the birds and animals. Amongst them are some of the most expert burrowers and climbers on the planet.  It needs fortifications resembling Fort Knox to keep them out.  After a few years of end-to-end disasters, I now get my vegies at the supermarket.

Then there is the issue of home invasion.  Yes, not only is there a vast array of critters out there, some of them want to move in with you.  I can roughly divide them into two categories.  Those that want to raid, and those that want permanent residence.

Those that raid include the possums and Lewin’s Honeyeaters.  Sometimes they forget I am there at all as they scrap in a turf war over territory.  Those that want to move in include the normal imported rodents, your everyday mice and rats, plus the native species such as melomys which are a protected native species.  I can either politely ask them to leave, which hasn’t worked in the past, or I can engage with Parks and Wildlife in two years of paperwork to ‘relocate’ them.   Interestingly, I had an invasion in my workshop.  I went to change speeds in my pillar drill and found a nest and a pygmy possum staring at me with its rather pop-out eyes.  It is about the size of a mouse but with an extraordinarily long tail.  I gently closed the cover and decided the Black and Decker could do the job.

A couple of days ago I passed an unused bedroom and spotted 2 slender long turds on the bed.  A little tentative prodding in the dust pan revealed they were mostly feathers.  Confirmation of the suspect was found on top of the cupboards.  More turds and a 2m long snake skin.  Almost certainly from a red-bellied black snake.  It is the most common snake round here and by Australian standards only mildly venomous.  If bitten, you’d be out of hospital in a couple of weeks and regained most of your organ’s capacity in a couple years.  The good news is that they have about the same desire to seek my company as I have to seek theirs.

I share my bedroom with a bat.  In the tropics it is normal to leave windows open.  The bat will have a permanent roost cave, but seeks a temporary roost cave for rests during its foraging at night.  My bedroom and the entrance corridor serve that purpose.  As it flies around my bedroom it makes a sound rather like flapping a tea-towel.  Fortunately, it hangs in the corner of the room and not above the bed.  For those biologically interested, I can report that bat poo is very much like mouse poo , but twisted and bent.

Then there are occasional invasions like from cicadas.  This is a huge and beautiful insect seemingly designed to make noise.  Rather similar to a chainsaw in your living room.  So many decibels from such a small creature.

Recently, the world passed a milestone where more than half the population now lives in cities.  A denuded and almost sterile environment.  Except for microbes and viruses of course, as they can’t be excluded from any environment.  I accept these minor inconveniences caused me by my fellow critters, all trying to earn a living as I am doing.

Through the blogospere I was asked by the web master of World voices to write my life story.  He seemed to be interested in the way I had largely avoided the rat race without an inheritance or other great fortune, so I made that the focus.  I thought I may as well put it on my own blog , so see below.

 

Alternative Economics

I was born in Manchester England in 1950. My mother a housewife, my father a salesman in an engineering company but steadily rose to high management. He was quite conservative but could entertain any idea and judge its merits, and he liked to debate. He was quite willing to be devil’s advocate and make a spirited defense of ideas he didn’t adhere to. That was when I began to question just about everything and started my career as a rebel.

I failed the 11+, a single test at age 11 which purported to determine if a child has academic potential. Somehow, in my last couple of years at school, I got sent to an age-old part-boarding grammer school. It was super conservative and the teachers still wore gowns and mortar boards. It reeked of tradition, privilege and snobbery. This was where I honed my and hardened my rebellious streak. I was in the headmaster’s office at least once a week. At university (mech eng), I toyed with joining the Socialist Society which was the most radical group, but they said and did such silly things, so I joined the Peace Society and got to do demonstrations (peaceful of course) and started to pick up some flower-power, hippie ideals of sharing and caring, love and peace man! I began to see how unfairly money is distributed in a country and around the world. It still is, worse perhaps.

I managed to do enough work to graduate with honours, but did not want to get my nose to the grindstone of a career, so worked a couple of months in a warehouse stacking boxes and headed of on the overland hippie trail to the the antipodes. A couple of years and many adventures later I found myself in Australia. I was now an expert on living on a shoestring and out of a backpack. Suddenly, due to a genocidal maniac called Ida Amin in Uganda, the commonwealth changed all the immigration rules. By immense luck, I was entitled to be a permanent resident of Australia, just by being in the right place at the right time. It has been very difficult to come to Australia since that time.

I then put in the longest period of work by far in my life. Two whole years! Doing exploration work in central Western Australia. With one other guy, or sometimes on my own, I did 4-6 week projects in some of the most open and deserted landscape on the planet. The job paid labourer’s wages, but food and swagroll was provided, and there was nowhere to spend money. Great way to save. I spend the money to buy an empty block of land at the other end of the country. From flat, desiccated, blistering desert to hilly, lush rainforest in far north Queensland. 156 acres of cloud-forest on top of the great dividing range. Now to really become a self-sufficient hippie recluse, maybe even start a commune! No money left, no knowledge of how to build, grow, live etc, no road in, no tools …….. no problem. I invested my last few dollars in a machete so at least I could get to the place. I worked a couple of months out in the bush to buy a 1962, 3 geared Toyota landcruiser for $750. The exhaust valves were blown and many other things wrong but got it going again. I got stereoscopic aerial photos centered on my block and used skills I had acquired doing exploration to see the land around in 3D so I could spot a possible route in. 4kms long and totally unmade, it went mostly through a neighbouring farm.

I started building a house with very little money, no idea how, no plans, not even a sketch on the back of an envelope, no power and of course no council permission because it didn’t even occur to me. I used a considerable amount of discarded scraps from local saw mills, bush poles for free, secondhand doors and windows, scrap fencing from the tip to reinforce the concrete stumps, discarded 1 inch thick boards from 3 inches wide to 20 inches. They were used in two layers for the outside cladding and cost $10 per ton on average. A local planing mill sold reject packs of planed wood such as floorboards at a fraction of the retail price. So I built myself a house of 90 sq m for $1400 complete with plumbing, wood stove etc etc. A third of the cost was the tin on the roof. 35 later it is not only still standing but has not required any maintenance beyond a bit of paint. You can check it out if you like at www.possumvalley.com.au . It is now called Blackbean Cottage.

I built a hydro-electric system utilising a 20m high waterfall and knowledge I acquired at university. I built a water system to provide water to the house utilising a smaller waterfall and a ram pump to deliver what most take for granted:- water coming out of taps. I built sewerage systems to deal with the stuff most don’t even want to think about. I enjoyed all my successes at the most menial things. I love getting things to work.

I got married, have 2 daughters, started doing wood craft and carving to sell at local markets, and whenever I required money, dug spuds for the local farmers. Hard work I can tell you. Anytime the farmer looks round and sees anyone on the digger with any time to spare, he finds another gear until everybody is flat out. Tractors have a lot of gears. When I started digging, spud bags had a nominal weight of 70 kgs. They mostly weighed 75 kgs as they were packed by volume and hand sewn with twine and a 6 inch needle. It was quite a skill as they mustn’t leak spuds in all the handling on the way to market. On average they were filled, compacted, sewn and stacked in 11 seconds. I liked it though. It was satisfying. There is no product more important than a potato. There are products of equal value like an avocado or a cup of rice, but the humble spud is my personal favourite.

So at last, I get round to the subject in the title. Alternative economics. At 63 years of age, I can now analyze my chosen path in life for it’s economic and social benefit. I have worked for wages perhaps a total of 4-5 years. I have paid tax in only two years when I did exploration. I have also worked as a builders labourer, a carpenter building a school in Darwin (which got flattened 6 months later by cyclone Tracy), and perhaps the best was as a ski lift operator in New Zealand. Great…. the spell-check has never even heard of New Zealand. I still don’t earn enough to pay tax. I now use two houses to earn a living at B&B. It is to my great personal satisfaction that people mostly have a wild and real experience at my rainforest retreat.

I have mostly worked directly for myself, building things I need without the overheads of tax on what you earn, other taxes, fees, insurance, travel, profit and other costs which multiply when you employ someone to build your house etc. And of course interest on the mortgage you require to get started. So my strategy has been not to go into debt. If you haven’t got the money, don’t do it. I have always valued my freedom and debt is the antithesis of freedom. I have maintained my financial freedom throughout my life by being debt free which enabled me to pursue many opportunities. Of course having children is a lifetime commitment with no remission, and which I undertake gladly. So I am not free of obligation or responsibility. Please, if you escape the rat-race don’t think you will have freedom. It will just morph your responsibilities onto a different landscape. Perhaps a better landscape, where your concerns are family and friends rather than money and debt.

My income for the last twenty years has come from 2 fully self-contained cottages. I don’t provide meals so the work is servicing, maintenance and washing linen and towels. I work perhaps a few hours in the day. It is a small non-taxable income but I have no debts and few non-business payments. I have few expenses, generate my own electricity, and the biggest bill every year is the rates. So I have a small income but nearly all of it is disposable.

It had been my idea decades ago, to opt out of the money paradigm altogether, but I soon found that is not practical. Most of my life I have had very little or no money, arriving in Australia with US $11 and knowing no one. It never bothered me. I have lived on rice alone for weeks. Now I live surrounded by a beautiful tropical rainforest with the nearest neighbour 5 kms away. I stay at home and other people come here, give me money and go away again with a large percentage returning. I have plenty of time to do just what I want. I have done many interesting things in about 70 countries around the world. My alternative economics has served me well. So my message is not to do what I did, but to go directly to your own goals without the detour of having to collect money to get there.

Here is a picture taken a few years ago.  You will be glad to know this is not the track in to Possum Valley, but the main road from Kenya to Ethiopia.

I like hosting a great variety of people with a great variety of reasons for coming here. I take pride in what I do, and satisfaction from providing a good experience. People come here with their personal items, and good food and wine. They leave with their personal items and without the food and wine. My product is intangible, it does not exist in the physical world, it only exits in the mind.

I have many guests who have been here many times. Some 20 times. Of my early ‘frequent flyers’, I remember a family of 4 who lived in Cairns and spent virtually all their holiday time at Possum Valley.  4 or even 6 weeks of the year.  Their 2 children under 10, a boy and girl (the elder), used to like to come down to my house and spend time with me in the workshop which is a rambling tip of a place crammed with tools and shelves of odd bits of stuff I keep because it ‘may come in handy’.  I would help them make things out of the junk and bits of wood.  A little plaque with “love you Mum” or something.  Sometimes I would let them use a power tool. You can’t go too far wrong with an orbital sander.  Then paint them with the last remnants at the bottom of a can. I was surrogate grandpa.  They were great and intelligent kids who argued, but always seemed to be able to work it out fairly in some sort of compromise.  They should have been running the UN.

Then the father’s job took him to Brisbane.  On their last visit I was talking to the kids and saying to them they could take a bit of Possum Valley with them in their minds.  And all they had to do was think of it to be able to go back to a beautiful place. I had in mind the ‘meditation hut’ deep in the forest with a little creek flowing underneath. A magic spot for me. Think ‘Fern Gulley’. Bliss, serenity, Tao, harmony.  What the kids thought of was my tip of a workshop.  Their father was there and gave me a look and a nod. He knew what I meant.

Five years later they were traveling with other friends and came back to stay at Possum Valley.  I was delighted, but worried that the kids, now sophisticated teenagers, would be disappointed, that Possum Valley would seem so much smaller and not be so magic.  On the first day they came down to the homestead and immediately went to look for the walking sticks they had deliberately left there 5 years before.  They were still there.  They were so delighted. I had no recollection of them placing the sticks there, but because of my neglect, they found these tangible links to their childhood. Nothing is lost from the past, we just add new layers to become the people we are.

This was a precious moment for me, and one of the reasons I love to provide accommodation, services and experiences.

I have been following “The Slog” by John Ward of UK resident in France mostly.  I enjoy his hard-hitting criticism, well-informed, wry, colourful prose.  He asked for this essay to be re-blogged, so I have.  I think it an important glimpse into a not very cheerful future.

If you want to follow his other ramblings go to http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/ .

THE SATURDAY ESSAY: More looting-levies, more asset taxes. Now it’s default or die.

Why electing defaulters to power is the only way left

Friday having seen the enthusiastic support of De Nederlandsche Bank President Klaas Knot for Djisselbloem’s plan to pick the pockets of every despositor in Europe, there are now hardly any major nations still in the closet when it comes to Global Looting.

On Thursday, Canadian bloggers cottoned on to the plans of their government via the annual budget statement. On pages 144 and 145 of “Economic Action Plan 2013″ (already submitted to the Canadian House of Commons), it openly proposes ‘to implement a ‘bail-in’ regime for systemically important banks’ there.

The second wave of evidence about what’s coming I referred to yesterday: the banks hastily sending out acres of fly-shit to their customers to blame any future disappearance of money-substances from their accounts. The general line of defence being offering by these creeps is “ve are only obeyink orders”. The first one out of the blocks appears to have been Santander. Yesterday, the one from HSBC started landing on Slogger doormats. Guess what? The wording and headings are exactly the same as the Santander mailshots.

In short, the entire operation is being coordinated and run by the Treasury. Any chance of Ed Miliband – our friend in tough times – asking a PMQ about this next Wednesday? Don’t hold your breath. Our MPs these days simply do as they’re told, or what they want – whichever is the easiest and most profitable route at the time.

What we are seeing come to pass at the moment is what those previously nutwhack sites from three years ago were screaming at a deaf audience: in the end, they’ll confiscate our money to bail out the lunatics. But where will it end?

There’s a Radio 4 audio clip of Michael Winner at his best in the BBC archives, grumbling two decades ago about how restaurants steal from their customers. Winner says:

“I called a waiter over and said look, you’ve added an obligatory 15% service charge to the bill and a cover charge of 10%. Now my credit-card slip has arrive and you’ve left a blank space so I can add a further gratuity on top. Should I just undress so you can have my clothes as well?”

Bizarrely, we now have to ask ourselves the same about Djisselbloem Plan…and where it will end. After all, there’s plenty to go at.

For example, behind the guise of us “all being in this together”, George Osborne could painlessly announce an emergency Budget in the UK, and slap a 5% levy on all houses valued over £250,000. “The rich must help depress house prices so the young can get on the bandwagon” the Squeaky Draper would allege. If nothing else, this would please Vince Cable, who has been demanding a ‘mansion tax’ for two years already. Note the use of ‘mansion’ there, to suggest ‘a tiny minority of the rich’. But it wouldn’t be of course: a good 60% of all houses in London are now worth over half a million, and the average British house price is currently about £160,000. So at least 40% of property owning Brits would have to cough up £10,000.

How they’d raise it is another matter – which is why thus far the emphasis has been on theft via a willing intermediary. There, the government takes what it already knows you’ve got available….without taxpayers having to bother the poor banks for a loan, they too having no money either, allegedly. The increasingly vicious nature of this circle is mind-blowing.

But such complications about property are seen by Treasury nomenklatura (and their accountancy advisers) as merely obstacles needing some creative thought applied to their removal. One said to me earlier this week, “It would actually be remarkably simple: the tax would be declared, payable with interest on the sale of the house. It would simply be a disguised way of bringing the Stamp Duty further downmarket”. Easy when you know how innit?

The problem for the Brussels-am-Berlin rapists in Greece was that they were (and still are) forced to demand tax monies from those who haven’t got any left. When one gets to the same stage of madness as Louis XVI, it’s time for a rethink. Cyprus was it, and this is now – quite clearly – going to be the future for all of us. But care must be taken not to turn a depression into a slump, so direct takes on future purchases have to be avoided: even the FinMin mobsters can grasp that much.

So the next stop could be property. But how much further could they go after that? I would say “not much”…because again, it is a classic case of taxing the sans coulottes and raising the price of their bread: you don’t collect any tax, and it results in Bastille-storming. Greece is, I would say, very close to this stage now, as is Italy. I suspect that only Tsipras and Grillo can stop it. Who might come after them, however, doesn’t bear thinking about.

For what it’s worth, here’s my two-pennorth: I suspect that what we’ll get is banks being ‘rescued’ worldwide, the quicker to empty them of SME and private deposits. It would be Communist seizure spun as national necessity.

Take the situation with Britain’s RBS. The Treasury has been trying to flog it for eighteen months without any success, and its CEO Stephen Hester has tried to rape his SME customers but been caught, stupid boy. Along the way, to save its subsidiaries the bank has had to inflict several ‘glitches’ to avoid paying some £80 billion by a certain date. But the situation inside the bank remains as dire as ever.

The official date suggest that ‘the taxpayer’ already owns 82% of the Royal Bank of Skullduggery, which is of course bollocks because all we own is a ginormous debt. The Establishment owns and runs it as a means of trying the fleece the taxpayer. But it would be a matter of two days work to nationalise (“save”) the bank completely, and then enact a Laika-style assets freeze. The rules having been changed already (see mailshots previously spotted) the Treasury would simply say to everyone – “the rich” – with monies over £100,000 in the bank that they they were no longer insured. Money is then printed by Carney the Canuck in Threadneedle Street to amortise the RBS debt into a ‘Bad Bank’, and the rest goes into the freezer….aka Her Majesty’s Government. What’s left – smaller savers and investment banking – is then given to another disaster like HBOS, thus making their balance sheet look better. Sorted. Until HBOS goes tits-up.

Of course, in the end you run out of things to nationalise rationalise.  A wannabe popular Labour administration could dash in to stop electricity, water, gas and local councils ‘profiteering’ at the citizenry’s expense….an election winner if ever there was one. This gives you a free hand to put up all the prices and hand them straight over to the HMRC. But then you run out of things to improve, save, rescue and freeze. Inflation goes up and economic growth goes down. So ergo the tax take falls. What then?

It isn’t going to work.

The answer is that there is no “what” to happen “then”. The strategy is so obviously doomed, it cannot possibly get that far. Once the wealthy have all the ‘glitz bricks’ property and the gold, the global system will ban gold sales to the public. FDR did it, this mob wouldn’t hesitate to. For real people, there will be nowhere to invest, no way out of being levied, and in the end, nowhere to work.

But this still has no, zilch, zero and f**k all chance of monetising the debts, derivatives and other insurance calls sitting out there in the ether. What the Eunatics are doing today – and the other leeches will do the day after tomorrow – is a pointless waste of time, a last few yards along which to kick the battered can before it finally rolls over the cliff, has a string attached to it, and they all promise that hanging onto the string is the only way, and thus represents our socio-patriotic duty.

Wake up Dumbos, it isn’t going to work.

You’ve tried taxes, you’ve tried austerity, you’ve tried levies, you’ve tried asset freezes, and you’ll try every sneaky-snakey trick in your little black book: but it isn’t going to be enough. More and more money will go to Asia, more and more worthless fiat money will be printed, more and more debt will accrue in the West, and then one day when nothing is being produced and bond markets, stock markets and commodity markets are going through the floor, we will end up with what I identified years ago as Indeflation – inflated Sovereign demands, deflated goods value, and zero demand.

You will I’m sure all be bored by this by now, but as I have been saying since Spring 2009, debt forgiveness is the only way out.

The current asylum inmates will never do that: never never never. Be they BamBers promoting their euro, Wall Street running Washington, Beijing exporting crap and owed trillions by its buyers, globalist bankers, multinational producers, politicians, tax accountants or corporate lawyers, they will never relent. They can’t: if they do, the problems will be horrendous but soluble. Their downside is that there will no longer be any place in it for them.

While we still have the democratic electoral power to do so, the one and only way now to force debt forgiveness globally is for we, the People, to elect politicians who promise to default on all debt the day after they are elected. Yes, I know this will evoke a crisis via immediate capital flight from that country, but they’re just going to have to live with it. The alternative is, as I’ve tried to outline above, an unthinkable can-strewn road heading towards mass lemming impressions.

The first country to do this, I imagine, will be Italy. Greece may well be next, but I think Spain could still beat them to it. Without doubt, the nation that can do it with the least pain is France – given its relatively sparse population sitting on a huge amount of food-producing land. For Britain – dependent on services and hugely overpopulated – it would the the end.

But once such things happen, the game really will be up for mercantilist globalism. ‘Siege economies’ need be no such thing: self-sufficiency by nation – with judicious trade in surpluses – remains the best way forward: and the only way to avoid a cataclysmic thermo-nuclear conflict in the end.

Too many visitors to this site see me as ‘doom-mongering’, but they rarely leave anything in the way of rationally argued support for their opinion. My prediction is very simple:

1. Global Looting is coming and it will be self-defeating.

2. The people at the top are mad and stupid.

3. They will not countenance debt forgiveness, so they must be replaced by those who will.

4. The mercantilist model of global economics and Friedmanite econo-fiscal ideas are a busted flush.

5. Self-sufficient Sovereigns trading in surpluses represent the best future for the human race.

Tell me why I’m wrong – with the facts to support it – and I’ll happily listen. For me, it’s Page One sanity compared to what we have now. Over to you.

And for the rest of us who know the self-styled élite will wind up killing us all given half a chance, I’m making a special appeal for you to forward and repost this essay in as many places as possible. Hits are of absolutely no importance to me beyond the raising global awareness of the need to do something before it’s too late. Thanks.

A previous essay at the Slog: The Cyprus questions no politician wants