More Jobs, But Are They Worth It?

I went up to Bicester yesterday to help my son move from hid flat. It's been a good few years since I went up there and had the time to look around.

The town was targeted as a new "Garden City" where the majority of new Homes on the Oxford-Cambridge belt will be built.

Bicester has gone through substantial changes in the 10 years since I left and none more so than the last five years. From a huge new housing estate, to massive retail parks springing up. The extension of Bicester Village, the posh retail park has effectively reached it's limit and now there is a further retail park being built across the road.

What struck me is all of this expansion in jobs is in retail. I've blogged in the past how retail jobs aren't sustainable. The problem is with retail jobs that people work in retail, get paid, then spend their money in retail. It's just a circular path for the money with big corporations syphoning off their profit and paying very little tax. The money ends up offshore, so we're bleeding money away.

The only way of propping this model up is by increasing the money supply. Pumping fake money into the economy so that we can buy more stuff.  It's not a sustainable model. The country cannot keep inflating the economy forever. In the end it all collapses. As it has several times in the past.

The country has to move away from the unsustainable retail model and start to move towards a more sustainable economy, where the majority of money is not inflated, but instead earned.

We have to start making money, real money by making a profit - as a country. We have to start making things within our borders to sell outside the UK.