A World Shortage of Fairy Dust...how this threatens the green economy

We underestimate the importance of fairy dust. Not only is it essential to the new green energy but it provides a critical fertilizer for the money trees we need to make that green economy operate properly. So we need to understand that there are limited sources for the fairy dust.

#Source One: Fairy dust from the deep mines of Aelfhame. This however would be a concern to those worried about human rights since the gnomes mining the dust are not, in any recognisable sense, free. Or for that matter paid since they are under Oberon’s geas for mooning at his daughters.
#Source Two: Treated moondust. Not strictly speaking fairy dust – I wouldn’t recommend running your Mini on this – but an acceptable substitute in most cases. However, you must go to the moon to get the dust (opting for a day when she isn’t green cheese and the man is away).
#Source Three: Manufactured or Synthetic Fairy Dust. There are many recipes for the dust all of which require complicated process, appropriate spells and careful timing. Even the most experienced thaumaturgical engineers have struggled to design systems much better than those used by an individual mage working alone.

The result of this is that we have a world shortage of fairy dust. For all it’s environmental credentials, there simply isn’t enough of it to provide the means of operating the fairyland economy proposed by the greens and their friends. And what little there is remaining has been carefully hidden and well-guarded by The Gentry.

We will have to go on – I fear – using real energy sources that actually work to get us about for the time being. Like oil, coal, gas and uranium. It’s a pity, I know, but what else can we do?

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Try talking about a three-day week to the small business owner!

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I have been pondering how I might comment on “21 hours”, the latest piece of “research” from New Economics Foundation – who are to economics what homeopathy is to medicine.

This evening as I walked through Bingley, the real truth came to me. I walked – at about 6.15pm – past Ophiuchus. Run by Donna and Oliver, this is a hairdresser. And it was open. I wondered what this couple would think about:

“A ‘normal’ working week of 21 hours could help to address a range of urgent, interlinked problems: overwork, unemployment, over-consumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being, entrenched inequalities, and the lack of time to live sustainably, to care for each other, and simply to enjoy life.”

I suspect the answer would be somewhat a somewhat bemused shrug. After all let’s look at Donna & Oliver’s work:

*The shop is open six days every week – seven days during busy times such as approaching Christmas or before the school summer holidays

*Most days someone – usually either Donna or Oliver – is working from 8.30 in the morning through to 6.30pm or even later if there are still customers

*When the last customer’s hair is finished there’s the shop to clean, tidy and lock up – another half hour each day

*And then there’s stock to order, books to keep, tax and VAT forms to fill, staff to manage and tradesmen to arrange

Assuming it’s a normal week, Donna and Oliver probably clock up 100 hours working. And it’s stressful – margins are tight, business is tough and there’s plenty of competition. And on top of this Donna and Oliver have two kids – who have all the demands and needs you’d expect of young children.

Talking about “21 Hours” is an insult to these hard-working, decent, caring people who happen to have made the life choice of running a small business. The “21 Hours” idea is the product of people who have no clue why people work, what business is about or how the normal life of normal people operates.

We’d all like the “good life”. But some – like Donna & Oliver know it only comes from hard work, effort and good service. So New Economics Foundation, you know where you can stick your “21 Hours”?

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