These fascinating pictures are of a piping foot M purchased for her sewing machine.  I hope that those of you that know me well acknowledge that I am not a ‘bread head’ – owning or retaining money has never been a particularly high priority in my life – I have been lucky enough not to have to care much about it. So it came as something of a surprise, when for just about the first time ever I found myself quite outraged by the price of something. The item you see on this page, which is little more than a glorified paperclip  cost £15.00! That ranks second only to what Volvo charge for the software download to get a stuck CD out of your CD player which I believe is £350.00 about a third of what I paid for the car.

I can only conclude from these two anecdotes that money in terms of its relation to the utility or value of goods has ceased to have any meaning whatsoever.  Like God money has become a myth, something that some of us have to believe in in order to retain a sense of worth. Isn’t it about time that prices  reconnected with even a basic notion of value to life. I am far from sure of what the economic implications of this would be but I know what I would like them to be. The greedy people (this includes me) who insist on scamming the rest of the planet and chucking money at people who already have lots and aren’t inclined to share it, just so that they can install another outdoor hot tub or to own a piping foot should jolly well pay more tax so those people who need a loaf of bread or antibiotics can get them. Surely that isn’t a controversial idea? But I can already hear the tiresome rejoinders about Capitalism being the only way of providing the wealth necessary to bring about this sort of change. I am afraid I just don’t believe that we have tried very hard to find other ways – after all once you are in your outdoor hot tub it’s hard to get out again, he says shamelessly but metaphorically luxuriating in one.

Herewith our global track record courtesy of the UN

• 925 million people do not have enough to eat – more than the combined populations of USA, Canada and the European Union;
  (Source: FAO news release, 14 September 2010)
• Nearly half the world’s population, 2.8 billion people, survive on less than $2 a day.
• About 20 percent of the world’s population, 1.2 billion people, live on less than $1 a day.
• Nearly 1 billion people are illiterate and 1 billion do not have safe water.
• 98 percent of the world’s hungry live in developing countries;

A £15.00 piping foot