#CostofCameron More like #CostofMiliband

I Posted a few days ago about Miliband's ridiculous idea to make me change Bank Services Provider even if I am perfectly happy with who I currently use. I was wondering how bad for the Economy Miliband actually is so I thought I would look at the effects of his words.

The Twittersphere is awash with the #CostofCameron being pushed by Labour at the moment, essentially Labour pushing the myth that if they had stayed in charge then despite constant rises in the previous 13 years prices would have suddenly stopped going up somehow. And please don't be deceived in thinking that Labour want to keep down inflation, inflation in an economy is only used to reduce the size of government debt, therefore the party who is the biggest debt addict will also necessarily be the biggest inflation addict.

Anyway, as I said, I wanted to know exactly how bad Ed Miliband is for the UK economy, bear in mind this is only as "Leader" of the Opposition, Were Labour to get control of the economy this would only get worse.

Before Ed Miliband started to leak the details of his "Forced Bank Moves" policy then the UK top four Banks had a combined market capitalization of £617 Billion, After he had finished and the news had been discussed widely the Market cap had fallen to £608 Billion.

Therefore the #CostofMiliband is around £8.979 Billion per speech.

Now I know that many people may think that this is just the Rich being hit so why should we care, but don't forget that less than 1% of shares are held by individuals, If you have a pension, then Miliband just made you poorer.

Even more directly he has also reduced the value of the Government's investments (80% of RBS and 33% of Lloyds) the effect of Ed Miliband's speech on the coffers of the Government were:
Value before speech £38.533 Billion (Actually £38.533.518.240)
Value now £37.346 (Actually £37,346,059,216)

Therefore the Direct #CostofMiliband is £1,187,459,024 

To add some context, according to The Guardian this would be enough to build 23 Hospitals or 39 Secondary Schools - Or Heaven forbid, actually pay off some of the debt taken out by Labour in the first place.

So next time you hear that the #CostofCameron is £1,600 after three years in power, remember that Ed Miliband cost us all (Well anyone with a Pension, Savings or who pays Taxes) £8 Billion just by opening his mouth.

Just to make things more transparent, here are the figures I used.

Gambling in the High Street is already controlled

I read an article on the Guardian this morning by journalist Greg Wood, in it he is urging the BHA (British Horse Racing Authority) to fight against the "Toxic" influence of Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (Basically machines with casino style games) It was funny as the link I followed on twitter said "Greg Woods has a reasoned look at FOBTs" I did find it very funny therefore when the sub headline read

"British Horseracing Authority must end shameful policy towards toxic presence of betting terminals on high streets"

Obviously my formatting but hardly what I would call  reasoned. more prejudiced and biased would be how I would describe it. essentially the gist of the article is that governments need to do more to protect people from these insidious machines, what they have not taken into account is that like all businesses these machines are already controlled, like all commercial ventures they are controlled by Supply and Demand, if there was no Demand for the machines then no one would use them and they would close down. It really is that simple, they exist because people want them. I can never understand why this fact escapes certain people, I can only assume it is because certain areas of the country believe that they know what is best for people and can do a much better job of controlling them than if they had free choice.

Another one of the elements that is discussed is that as they can only have 4 of these machines you are starting to get multiple betting shops on each high street, well the answer to this is obvious, cancel the limit of 4 per shop, this is a problem that is caused by government regulation, not because of a lack of it!

I do have one solution that would have an effect on the number of betting shops on the high street but I highly doubt it will prove popular, Stop paying benefits in Cash! If you remove cash benefits and replace them with vouchers that can not be used to gamble you will essentially be stopping a state subsidy to betting shops and market forces will be able to balance up the supply and demand so we only have the number of betting shops that are wanted.