How Do They Do That?

THE MONDAY MOAN - A once a week spot for us to moan about the stuff that perhaps we should all be moaning about that little bit more... 

In 2015, VW admitted 11 million cars worldwide - including 1.2 million in the UK - had software that reduced readings of emissions in tests.

Landowners are in receipt of '£9.40/m for hedgerow laying, £9.50/m for filling in gaps and £25/m for stonewall restoration.'

These are just two examples of very different business' doing 'whatever' and with little regard for the public or for the environment. I mean, VW defrauding their customers and farmers ripping up hedges and being paid at public expense to put them back in...

VW ought to be out of business. Their factories ought to be closed and all VW vehicle owners ought to have been compensated. Any wind up monies should have been put into a pot to provide research grants for those looking at further reducing vehicle emissions.

And landowners, a very different business area but come on, being paid to maintain their boundaries that they must have neglected? Is being a landowner a licence, not to print money, but a licence to take public money and make it their own? I think that's just about right...

The moan here is that there appears to be rules in place that protect big companies, no matter what they do, and rules in place that assist those that are already wealthy. We should not be surprised about that.

I don't regard major landholders, so the big estates or farm owners as caretakers of the environment. That's what we are led to believe that they are, but quite clearly they are not. And I don't regard large business as key players in leading a clean environment revolution. Neither have the environment as key drivers in their business plans. There is no way public money ought to be given to landowners, for anything. Did you know that a good proportion of all UK land is still in the hands of the families that were given it by William the Conqueror. And he stole it!

If they can't be straight with their customers, let or make them fail. If they can't make ends meet, let them fail. Let their cars be made by greener and more honest manufacturers. Let their fields revert back into forest and let their best land be turned over to the local community as allotments or as community agriculture cooperatives.

Cars and hedges. The link is, of course, environment. Cars emit and our desire to be green consumers has led to lies about the polluting nature of car manufacturers products while farmers are in receipt of taxpayers money to put back in or repair the boundaries that they are 'caretakers of'. These boundaries were removed at taxpayers expense through to the '70's or have simply been neglected over very many years.

So we have to wonder how do they do that? How is it that VW is still a thing? How is it that we still trust landowners to do the right thing when quite clearly they very rarely do...

It's like they are magicians that have successfully hypnotised us and have us believing their reality...