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2011-02-21T10:07:00.001-08:00

This was just a stop gap whilst the new website was completed. Now it is.
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The land of austerity

2011-01-02T15:14:00.000-08:00

Hello again

I have been busy these last few days. I don’t normally appreciate enforced holidays, but this year they have been quite handy. There are several changes that you will see shortly with GDP Resources. Firstly there is the new website which is nearly ready. All the content is complete, we have just to upload the products for download to the new server and set up the paypal links. That’s all in the hands of my webmaster.

Next I have 3 new products on the go. One is virtually complete and the second is being done now. The plan is for these to come with verifiable CPD, just waiting to hear from the GDC on that, which as I am sure you can understand, sometimes takes an absolute age. The third product won’t be out for some time, and it relates to HTM 0105 and the CQC. Only so many hours in the day unfortunately.

I have also written out my goals using my Mastermind Alliance product (remember, I originally did it for myself), and have set some very strict financial challenges to accomplish. There will be strong spending restrictions, and increased revenue via structures to limit tax. And that’s just on the personal side.

Shame the government can’t pull their finger out and do the same. The beloved Chancellor took a very small hatchet to the national finances, cutting spending by £8 billion....... and the promptly promised half of that to Ireland. They are still spending like maniacs, as has been seen by the record deficit last month. Don’t forget of course, that’s your money they are spending.

Of course my opinions on this are irrelevant. I know about as much about the nations finances as I do about quantum physics.......... basically enough to make it sound like I know what I’m talking about. So I will concentrate on the finances I can control, my own. This is going to be a very testing and interesting year.

If you have not already down so, getting control of your spending would probably be advisable right about now. Of course nothing in this newsletter should be seen as financial advice, heaven forbid. Just thought I would pop that in to keep the lawyers happy. It would seem to me that reducing your outgoings and increasing you incomings would be a tad prudent right now. I feel I have no need to mention the CQC and HTM 0105, which I feel are both topics beaten to death recently.

So let’s look at the average Brit. Just look at the price of petrol, which will increase the price of all other goods due to increased transport costs. Oh look, VAT. The UK consumer is about to get squeezed, especially if interest rates go up, which they pretty much have to unless the spike in commodity prices gets itself under control. Strange how the measure of international shipping (the Baltic Dry Index) is in the toilet showing trade between countries is way down, and yet commodities are up in the stratosphere. Copper and Gold being fine examples. There’s something not right about that.
The American consumer certainly isn’t the cause, despite the pathetic psychotic scenes of American shoppers fighting to get into shops to buy pointless Chinese plastic trinkets (that they didn’t need) just after the Thanksgiving holidays. Speaking of China, let’s not mention the empty cities, completely built but with no-one to live in them. Let’s not mention the billions of cars and trucks sat unsold in huge fields or the billions of square feet of new office space that remains empty. Yes, perhaps we shouldn’t go there.

This recession is far from over. In fact it’s probably only just started. So are you prepared? Are you ready to weather the storm that’s gathering on the horizon? Because if you’re ready then you will be there to witness the dawn of a new day with clear skies and soft breezes. You may even be able to profit from the situation.
But if you’re not ready, if you’re still living beyond your means, living pay cheque to pay cheque, then that storm’s going to hit you right where it hurts.
And perhaps I’m wrong, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time. Perhaps the economy is set to take off and boom like never before. And how would it hurt to have lower debts, lower expenses and a ready store of cash?

But I’m not here to tell you what to do. It’s just that I have the same sense of unease as I did at the start of 2008. Only this time I think most people sense it too. We are starting to see how truly fragile our society is. A few days of bad weather and the local Tesco saw its shelves empty because people weren’t prepared so they panicked. A few weeks of sub zero temperatures and the water infrastructure of Northern Ireland starts to collapse, and the national water board struggles to cope. A few days of snow and the world’s busiest airport shuts down, and turns into a basket case because it wasn’t prepared. They hadn’t factored in the worst case scenario. So when the snow fell, and to be fair it wasn’t even all that much, they were left undermanned, underfunded and overwhelmed.

Not a good position to be in when a crisis hits.

So have you made your plans to protect you, your family and your business? Or are you just going to wing it? After all, everything will probably be ok. And hey, we’re British, so stiff upper lip for Queen and country eh old bean. Stay calm and carry on.
It is very easy to be accused of being a pessimist when you talk like this. But that’s a bit like saying you’re a paranoid doom monger because you have insurance for your business, or a spare tyre for your car. We have these things for a reason. We have these things because sometimes the practice floods or you walk out of Sainsbury’s to find you’ve got a flat tyre. Preparation is not paranoia, it’s common sense.
How many people in Northern Ireland do you think will be keeping a few cases of bottled water in the cellar from now on?

How many people have now bought snow socks for their tyres or grit for their drive way?

Doing this after the fact at least shows you learnt the lesson........... but it’s a hell of a lot better to do it before the fact.

Be prepared, that’s what the scouts always say isn’t it. Do your SWOT analysis, or whatever way you want to do it, but get yourself ready. Yes the storm clouds may pass off into the distance and the sun may come out. But what do you think?

Personally, I think this year is likely to be one hell of a ride.

Yours in commerce

Stephen: Hudson the authorised representative for the legal fiction Dr Stephen Hudson BDS, MFGDP, DRDP

Please help support the Sick Dentist Scheme and the BDA Benevolent fund by buying my book atChoose Your Reality. A proportion of the profits from its sale are split equally between these two charities

PS: Please feel free to pass this newsletter onto anyone you feel may be interested in it

GDP Resources
Disclaimer: S.Hudson or SNH Publications will not be held liable for any actions taken based on the information provided in this newsletters. This information is for entertainment only.

What matters most is how you walk through the fire

2010-12-18T08:42:00.000-08:00

Before we start our little adventure into the human condition, I would like you to do something for me. I want you to find some music, something that makes you feel alive, makes your heart sing and your eyes well up. I want you to put on those headphones, I want you to sit back and completely immerse yourself in it. Visualise a time when you felt alive, when you felt a passion for life that almost felt like it would make you break. Just one song, that’s all I ask. Go on, I’ll wait for you, no rush now.
Ok, you’re back. Of course some of you never left.

“Oh, I’ll do it later”
“well I’m sorry, I just don’t see the point”

Why didn’t you do it? You had the time. Oh well, your loss.

Life is an interesting experience, I’m sure you will agree. The disappointing thing, in my eyes, is that most people don’t live their lives. Their lives live them. They get up, grumble that it’s so early, try and wake themselves up, go to a job they hate, and then grumble on the way home about the traffic that’s stopping them from retreating to their box filled with its trinkets and electronic distractions.

This is not life. It is barely even existence.

They leave school, get a job, get married have kids, grow a bit wider in the middle, take up a hobby, potter about, watch a lot of TV and wake up one morning feeling strange. Then they look at themselves in the mirror and, with shocked silence realise they don’t recognise the person gazing back at them. They did what they were supposed to do, what they were told to do, and life just passed them by and visited some other more deserving fellows.

So much time lost. So much time wasted.

Life tries to give you a little nudge of course. It is only fair that life gives you a chance, an opportunity to WAKE UP. There you are plodding along, a few pounds in your pocket, got your stuff going together and then, wham, something completely unexpected hits you right where it hurts, knocking you flat on your face.
It happens to everyone, and when it happens it is very easy to believe that you have experienced a GAME OVER situation. Some people check out. Some people become broken. Some people stand up dust themselves off and shout

NEXT. COME ON, YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT.

If you are alive, it’s never game over. If you are breathing, and you mind still works, you always have choices. As Napoleon Hill once said, “Opportunity comes wrapped in impossible situations”

Pick yourself up, slap yourself a few times and walk headlong into the fire.
There is a very important lesson you need to realise here. Life does not just happen to you. You have control. You have control by how you react to Life’s little games. The decisions you make, and the way you make them will determine the quality of your life. It’s all up to you, no matter what your circumstances. Because as long as you are here there is always another way.

You live in the greatest society the world has ever known. You have information, opportunity and experiences available to you that your ancestors couldn’t even imagine. The guy in a minimum wage job, living in a one bedroom apartment in the crappy part of town has a life infinitely more superior than Pharaohs and Kings from the past. Don’t believe me?

Electricity
Safe, running water
Wireless internet, giving him access to a library not even the gods had imagined
Public transportation
The simple telephone
Food from every continent packaged and available for his convenience
Free health care
A life free of Cholera, Diphtheria, the Plague, Smallpox, and Tetanus
Movies available that would be unimaginable even 50 years ago
The ability to travel to every part of the globe

You don’t have problems. You have challenges. The challenges are put there to see what you are made of, to see if you have what it takes to walk through the fire. They are there to teach you, to humble you, and to enlighten you.

They are there for you.

You think the contents of your bank account, or the baubles in your home are important? You think you are successful because you drive a nice car and can travel business class........ you think this because you have forgotten that success is an illusion. It is an irrelevance, a phantom. If you were given 6 months to live tomorrow, all your material goods would mean NOTHING.

The most important thing in life is HOW YOU LIVE, every minute of every day. It is your experience, you soul and your character that matters. That is what sets you apart from another human being. It is WHO YOU ARE deep inside that matters, and what matter even more is who you will BECOME. Not that suit you wear, or the gold shiny things hanging from your anatomy.

So who are you? And who do you want to be?

And now the most important question of all.

Are you Happy?

It’s a simple question. Are you happy? Is your heart almost stopped by the beauty and the majesty of life. Is your breath taken by the very passion that life can allow you? I’m talking about the passion of being alive that you can feel any time you damn well please. Or are you too worried about the credit card bill?

Yes our society is troubled. Yes we are being assaulted on all sides by regulation, laws and pointless political ideas. Our police are becoming corporate revenue collectors and our entertainment is 2 generations away from the Running Man.

But have you ever asked yourself why? Why is the greatest society the world has ever seen starting to feed off itself?

BECAUSE WE SIT THERE AND DO NOTHING.

We have forgotten that life has to be grabbed by the throat and shaken until it gives us what we want. Instead most of us just bend over and grab our ankles. We have to fight for our wants, or we will simply be left with our needs. Get off your backside. Decide what you want. Decide, or the decision will be made for you. This is after all why I created the Mastermind Alliance. What most of you don’t know is that it was created by myself and a friend......... for us. It was our guide, our beacon on a path with one final ending. Without a guide, you just wander aimlessly in the wilderness. And I wasn’t willing to accept that.

Now some of you will already know all this, because you are doing it. You are living it, breathing it, tasting it. Life is your passion.

Others amongst you are almost dead inside. You world is a collection of reactions and opinions to the thoughts and actions of others. Let that spark grow, that dream, that light that shines within you. Please, be all that you can be.

And some of you are in a dark place. A realm of heartache, illness, financial stress and depression. I’ve been there, we all have. Remember there are always choices. Even if you have just 6 months to live, you get the choice of how to experience those six months. There is always another way and there is always hope.

Remember that what matters most is how you walk through the fire.

And also remember that there are people infinitely worse off than yourselves. Which is where I now make a plea. Every year I choose 2 charities to donate either my time and/or money to. I believe that what you give out is returned a thousand fold.
One of the causes I chose to donate money to this year is Bridge2Aid, which as it happens is being supported by our old comrade Chris barrow. Just so you know, Chris hasn’t asked me to mention this, I just feel it a worthy cause, and why not donate through someone most of us either know or know of? If you want to know more, then here is his donation page http://www.justgiving.com/coachbarrow/
No pressure.

And to answer the question I was asked the other day as to why I write these newsletters............. it’s because of the passion I feel when writing them. The day they become a chore is the day I stop.
Yours in commerce

Stephen: Hudson the authorised representative for the legal fiction Dr Stephen Hudson BDS, MFGDP, DRDP

Please help support the Sick Dentist Scheme and the BDA Benevolent fund by buying my book at Choose Your Reality. A proportion of the profits from its sale are split equally between these two charities

PS: Please feel free to pass this newsletter onto anyone you feel may be interested in it

GDP Resources

Disclaimer: S.Hudson or SNH Publications will not be held liable for any actions taken based on the information provided in this newsletters. This information is for entertainment only.

SNOW

2010-12-17T01:41:00.000-08:00

Hello again

Did you see it? It snowed the other week. Small white things fell from the sky and coalesced into a blanket of cold wet skiddy stuff.

Driving was, let us say, a bit of a challenge.

If only someone had told the Met Office, because they didn’t seem to know this weather was coming. So a BBQ summer and a mild winter turned into a “we had a summer?” and a winter that harks back to the Victorian era. Funny how exactly the same thing happened last year. In fact that's three year in a row the Met Office have got it completely wrong. Good to see their £33 million computer is doing its job
It’s safe to say we don’t seem to handle snow very well. But I’m sure the “lessons will be learnt” and that those responsible for the failings will be suitably rewarded. You don’t get the sack for incompetence these days.......... you get promoted! The closure of Heathrow is a national scandal.

Now 2 years ago I was in New York when it snowed big style, something like 6 inches in two hours. This occurred the night before a public holiday. And yet, the next day when I left my hotel, all the roads were clear of snow and most of the sidewalks too.
People actually came in on a public holiday to clean the snow off the pavements outside their property. Dumper trucks were fitted with ploughs, and gritters were absolutely everywhere. But then of course, they are used to it so we are told.

It was like a military operation (where the military were actually kitted out with the equipment they needed to do the job). That was why it was so effectively dealt with. Admittedly they had a bit more of a challenge this year, but then, did you see how much snow they had to deal with???

Unfortunately WE live in a country where you can get sued for doing the public act of clearing the front of your house or business. Grit the path to your practice, and if someone slips, they can sue you. Leave the snow where it is to turn into ice, and they can’t, because it’s classed as an act of god.

The preceding paragraph is all you need to know about this country and the state it’s presently in. That and the perception that nothing works anymore. Well actually, there is one thing that works and works very well. The strange phenomenon where money just disappears from your bank account.

Many of you will have noticed that you often have more month at the end of your money. It’s like it evaporates into the ether. Where does it all go? You earn a lot more than the average person, and yet still you don’t seem to be able to accumulate enough to actually have anything that you could call savings.
And then your tax bill comes.

There is a law called Parkinson’s Law that states “Expenses rise to meet earnings”. If you do not break Parkinson’s Law, you end up in debt. You end up working to provide food and shelter for other people. Which brings me to a question:
Why do you work?

Do you work because you enjoy what you do, or do you work to pay for your THINGS? You work to pay for your house and your nice car and your oversees holiday and your trips to Waitrose. You work so that you have a level of lifestyle that you feel comfortable with.

Most people work 5 days to enjoy 2..... and they don’t really enjoy the 2.
To me this is utter madness. If you’re not enjoying what you are doing......... why do it? If your job is a chore, your life is basically slavery. You become a slave to your lifestyle. You think your IPods and your fifty inch flat screen TV’s make up for it, but they don’t.

They don’t even come close.

As Tyler Durden once wisely said, “The things you own end up owning you. Our Great War is a spiritual war. Our Great Depression is our lives”. Your life is not about your trinkets, it is about experience. It is about joy and love and fulfilment. You cannot get lasting meaningful happiness by using your credit card. That can only come from within. You don’t need a new food [processor and a microwave to be happy. You can just be happy. Now, this instant. There’s only one person who can decide if you are happy or not..... YOU. So make your own rules up.

And to be honest I kind of forgot that this last year. I forgot who I was and wandered onto a path of inaction and sloth. It’s a tempting path, it feels comfortable..... at first. But then you stop growing, and the mind starts to claw at itself. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do and a lot of changes to make. Fortunately I have the perfect tool at my disposal for this, my Mastermind Alliance goal setting product.
But back to the white stuff. Watching how people reacted to the snow made me think. The kids loved it. The adults hated it. The kids (and the big kids....... you know who you are) built snowmen. The grumpy grownups worried about slipping.

So when it snowed and you found yourself unable to get to work, what was YOUR reaction?

“Ah good, I can have a day off from those annoying patients” – time to change jobs perhaps?
“I can spend some quality time with the kids for a change” – were you not spending quality time already?
“Damn, how am I going to make my UDA’s in this kind of weather? I’ll get claw back” - fear is no place to live your life.
“Bloody council haven’t gritted the road” – well, do you really expect every council to be able to grit every road to perfection? Be realistic here.
“Let’s have some FUN” – now that’s more like it.

Your response to the snow will tell you a lot about who you are. Who you are determines the results you will have in life. The question is, do you know who you are? Perhaps you should take a moment to answer that question.

Money

2010-12-09T06:46:00.000-08:00

This is how I understand the situation we are now in...... and just so you know, I'm probably completely wrong.

A long time ago, you would have been paid for your labour in either gold or silver coin.

As populations grew, coins became impractical. They were then replaced by bills of exchange that represented, and were redeemable against a fixed amount of gold or silver. You would be paid for your labour in notes, and could then swap these at the central bank for the actual gold. For safety you could store your gold in a bank, but they would charge you a small storage fee.

Unfortunately most western countries were made bankrupt many years ago, and all the collateral (including you) were seized by the creditors (the banks). You became the property of the banks. All the worlds central banks are private corporations.

Look at the £20 note - "For the Governor and COMPANY of the Bank of England".

Because all the land, gold and silver had been seized (leaving only your labour as the sole source of collateral) , the central banks produced FIAT currency. This was a means to engage in commerce whilst in bankruptcy. However, you were not told this. you were told it was just like money. Fiat currency can be created out of thin air. If the central bank produces £1000, and releases this into the population, how then can a bank land you that £1000 and charge you £10 interest. Where did that £10 come from? That's right, the ether. This means the debts can never be repaid, and countries must wait 70 years (based on Roman canon law) until their bankruptcy expires. Unfortunately this bankruptcy lark works very well for governments, so they invariably go back into bankruptcy due to some "event", allowing the perpetuation of the FIAT system.

Look at the symbol for the British Pound - £. It used to have two strikes going horizontally across it, now it only has one. The same with the US dollar - $. That used to have two vertical strikes, now it has only one. So? What about it? This means your currency is a phantom, a fiction, meaning that the currency no longer has substance.

The pound in its physical note form is an IOU. The central bank gives this to you to purchase things with. Unfortunately you don't own it, it remains the property of the central bank. So let's give an example. You "buy" a car. You hand over 10,000 IOU's and the dealer gives you the car, which you then register with the government (who acts as agent for the central bank). You are allowed to keep possession of the car, so long as you follow the rules of your registration. As soon as you break the rules (for example by not paying your road tax) the car is seized, because it never was yours. It belongs to the central bank. It would only become yours if you returned the IOU's to the Central bank. As I understand this, the only way to do this is to put your thumbprint on each and every bill, record the serial numbers and present this list to the central bank. The car dealership then presents your thumb printed IOU's to the central bank, discharging your debt, and allowing the central bank to issue new IOU's to the dealer.

Your debt is clear, and the dealer still has his 10,000 IOU's. This is why it says on the Bank of England note "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of......"

Of course try and buy a car with £20 and see what happens. Ok, I'll buy it with gold I hear you say........ ok, but how did you buy that gold? With British pounds? Anything you buy with IOU's becomes the property of the central bank until you return those IOU's, or pay them off with assets that were not purchased with FIAT currency.

Interesting what you uncover isn't it.

This from Infowars.com

2010-12-05T11:14:00.000-08:00

#1 The official U.S. unemployment rate has not been beneath 9 percent since April 2009.

#2 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are currently 6.3 million vacant homes in the United States that are either for sale or for rent.

#3 It is being projected that the U.S. trade deficit with China could hit 270 billion dollars for the entire year of 2010.

#4 Back in 2000, 7.2 percent of blue collar workers were either unemployed or underemployed. Today that figure is up to 19.5 percent.

#5 The Chinese government has accumulated approximately $2.65 trillion in total foreign exchange reserves. They have drained this wealth from the economies of other nations (such as the United States) and instead of reinvesting all of it they are just sitting on much of it. This is creating tremendous imbalances in the global economy.

#6 Since the year 2000, we have lost 10% of our middle class jobs. In the year 2000 there were approximately 72 million middle class jobs in the United States but today there are only about 65 million middle class jobs.

#7 The United States now employs about the same number of people in manufacturing as it did back in 1940. Considering the fact that we had 132 million people living in this country in 1940 and that we have well over 300 million people living in this country today, that is a very sobering statistic.

#8 According to CoreLogic, U.S. housing prices have now declined for three months in a row.

#9 The average rate on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage soared 11 basis points just this past week. As mortgage rates continue to push higher it is going to make it even more difficult for American families to afford homes.

#10 22.5 percent of all residential mortgages in the United States were in negative equity as of the end of the third quarter of 2010.

#11 The U.S. monetary base has more than doubled since the beginning of the most recent recession.

#12 U.S. Treasury yields have been rising steadily during the 4th quarter of 2010 and recently hit a six-month high.

#13 Incoming governor Jerry Brown is scrambling to find $29 billion more to cut from the California state budget. The following quote from Brown about the desperate condition of California state finances is not going to do much to inspire confidence in California’s financial situation around the globe….

“We’ve been living in fantasy land. It is much worse than I thought. I’m shocked.”

#14 24.3 percent of the residents of El Centro, California are currently unemployed.

#15 The average home in Merced, California has declined in value by 63 percent over the past four years.

#16 Detroit Mayor Dave Bing has come up with a new way to save money. He wants to cut 20 percent of Detroit off from essential social services such as road repairs, police patrols, functioning street lights and garbage collection.

#17 The second most dangerous city in the United States – Camden, New Jersey – is about to lay off about half its police in a desperate attempt to save money.

#18 In 2010, 55 percent of Americans between the ages of 60 and 64 were in the labor market. Ten years ago, that number was just 47 percent. More older Americans than ever find that they have to keep working just to survive.

#19 Back in 1998, the United States had 25 percent of the world’s high-tech export market and China had just 10 percent. Ten years later, the United States had less than 15 percent and China’s share had soared to 20 percent.

#20 The U.S. government budget deficit increased to a whopping $150.4 billion last month, which represented the biggest November budget deficit on record.

#21 The U.S. government is somehow going to have to roll over existing debt and finance new debt that is equivalent to 27.8 percent of GDP in 2011.

#22 The United States had been the leading consumer of energy on the globe for about 100 years, but this past summer China took over the number one spot.

#23 According to an absolutely stunning new poll, 40 percent of all U.S. doctors plan to bail out of the profession over the next three years.

#24 As 2007 began, there were just over 1 million Americans that had been unemployed for half a year or longer. Today, there are over 6 million Americans that have been unemployed for half a year or longer.

#25 All over the United States, local governments have begun instituting “police response fees”. For example, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has come up with a plan under which a fee of $365 would be charged if police are called to respond to an automobile accident where no injuries are involved. If there are injuries as a result of the crash that is going to cost extra

An absolute MUST read

2010-12-03T11:05:00.001-08:00

http://johnpilger.com/articles/have-a-nice-world-war-folks

Communism

2010-12-01T14:34:00.000-08:00

In 1848, Marx threatened to organize a worker's revolution unless European governments:

1. Abolished property rights and applied all rents towards public purposes. [Modern equivalent: Don't pay your mortgage, lose your house. So who really owns your house?]
2. Levied a heavy, progressive income tax to equalize wages. [Modern equivalent: income and payroll taxes approach (or surpass) 50% in many western countires.]
3. Abolished all rights of inheritance. [Modern equivalent: The estate tax.]
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants. [Modern equivalent: The 2008 "Hero's Act" which forces people leaving the U.S.A to pay the equivalent of their estate taxes on the global assets before they turn in their passports.]
5. Centralize access to credit in the hands of the State by means of a national bank and an exclusive monopoly. [Modern equivalent: UK state owned banks]
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. [Modern equivalent: Most of the US media is owned by 6 corporations, and the UK BBC is controlled by the state]
7. Free education for all children in public schools. [Note the emphasis on public schools. Paying for education isn't enough. What counts is indoctrinating the kids in how to be good little worker drones.]
8. A common agricultural policy to maximize the productivity of the land. [Modern equivalent: EUROPE.]

Imagine trying to explain to your neighbors that public education is a communist idea that's meant to indoctrinate children. Imagine trying to convince them that the estate tax is a bad idea, or that progressive income taxes are the key to communism. Imagine trying to explain that the problem with the "greedy banks" isn't down to capitalism, but is in fact due to the corruption of socialism.

My advice...... don't bother.

A certain well known furniture shop

2010-11-29T13:40:00.000-08:00

There is a well known furniture shop that came to this land several years ago. We recently purchased some leather chairs for the waiting room of our practice. I went in, showed the nice gentleman which chairs I wanted, and placed my order.

The chairs were delivered without legs.

Apparently you have to buy them separately

Chairs, without legs.

They're not really chairs then are they.

We had to pay extra for the legs. Can you believe that. Can you comprehend the idiocy of it. I don't know what was worse, the fact that the chairs came without legs, or the fact that nobody told me.

The mind boggles

150

2010-11-23T13:40:00.000-08:00

Hello again
According to my records, this is newsletter 150.

Crikey, to think I’ve put people through that many “rants”.

Now I was hoping to be able to say that my request for co-signers for a letter about the CQC had been a great success.

It wasn’t. To have had any chance of success, I would have needed at least 200 names. I got less than 40.

I won’t lie when I say I am disappointed, but I am not overly surprised. And don’t worry, I’m not going to go off on one and tell you off for not signing up. Not a bit of it. It was simply an idea, an idea that the majority either didn’t agree, were too scared to follow through with...... or just weren’t that bothered about (I suspect mainly the latter). An idea is not truth, it is not the way........... it is just an idea. People have ideas all the time.

To my mind I find it hard to understand how people can accept things like the CQC without any semblance of resistance. We see worse examples in our society where people lie down and let others tread all over them, to allow fear and apathy to rule their lives. But that’s just me. My notions on how to live life are no more valid than anyone else’s notions. So I have no problem with the lack of response. The majority of the people in this country have accepted that over regulation, a depletion of civil liberties and a withdrawal of cash from our bank accounts is an acceptable way forward. I have no evidence before me that says my way of thinking is better than the majority. To think that would just be blatant arrogance. I'm just one mind, and I'm usually wrong.

Whatever your belief system, that’s fine, because it's your belief system. You’ll get no more arguments from me. I will refrain from reminding you of my beliefs about the potentially challenging world our children and grandchildren may soon be living in because that aspect means little to me, and my vision of the future will probably never happen. We as a a people are immensely unhappy, so who is to say the way we are heading doesn't in fact lead to some ultimate Utopia. And to be fair, how the world will be 100 years from now means little to me anyway. I have no children you see, and I am unlikely to still be around. I am, of course, inherently selfish, and whilst I care what happens to other people, I care MORE about what happens to me. I feel no shame in saying that, because it’s the truth as I see it at this moment in time.

But in all fairness this wasn’t what i wanted to talk to you today about, and I will admit that I have just been a bit side tracked. Today I’m going to be talking about another aspect of human nature, specifically those individuals that are commonly known as emotional (psychic) vampires. I am sure you know the type of people I am talking about. They will find any flaw in your grand idea, any gap in your knowledge, and any nick in your armour to cause you pain, discomfort and embarrassment. They will see the cloud in the sunny sky, the toadstool in the forest, the slime mould on the rock at the base of the waterfall. They require your misery to feel fulfilled.

Many of them hide their true nature, often using others to do their dirty work. Some of you will employ them, some of you will have their ilk in your family. They are not healthy individuals. Many of them will be borderline sociopaths.

One of the reasons I write these newsletters is to challenge you. And it constantly surprises me how nobody ever seems to unsubscribe, although that might change after today hahaha.

Psychic vampires keep themselves well hidden, and rely on your good nature and your own doubts and fears to wrok their art.

It may well just be me, and there seem to be a lot more of these people about than there used to be, as I recently discovered when I restarted my blog. Let’s just say I have severely restricted the comment section. Life is too short. As the old saying goes, “don’t feed the trolls”. And as Chris barrow says on multiple occasions “Don’t wrestle with pigs in shit”. It’s almost as if the way our society is run seems to be breeding these personality traits.

What was probably more disturbing was not the actual comments themselves, but the fact that these comments were undoubtedly dentists. Yes the comments were anonymous, but it is no coincidence that attacks started a few days after GDPUK publicised the existence of the blog (the writing style suggests one or two emotionally damaged individuals were somewhat displeased with me.....poor dears). I’m actually surprised it took this long for such comments to arrive in my inbox. I haven’t as yet received a disparaging comment from a newsletter reader.

Perhaps that is because you are all emotionally grounded. I actually found the blog comments immensely amusing, and I think if I ever published them , you would to. Best to let them be deleted though. Words after all have power.

But these people are all around us. They are the ones who sue you because they can’t accept responsibility for their own lives. They are the ones who were bullies at school, and who rise to positions of power so they can lord it over their minions. They laugh at the misfortunes of others and think that the world owes them a living. It does not. Life owes them, or anyone for that, nothing.

They are to be pitied, because most of them are dead inside. But more importantly, they are to be ignored and avoided wherever possible, because a large number of them are likely to be sociopaths (and no I am not saying the people who commented on my blog were sociopaths, I am making a generalisation).

I am sure you know how important it is to choose your peer group very carefully. Your peers will directly reflect your success in life. If you hang out with no hopers, you will be dragged down to their level. Hang out with ethical millionaires and your bank balance will likely grow.

It’s as if you become a sponge sucking up the energy around you. Good or bad, you suck it right up.

Best to hang around with decent people don’t you think. After all, there are plenty of us (did you like the implied compliment there by the way?)

Apathy

2010-11-20T13:33:00.000-08:00

I recently asked my newsletter readers (of which there are around 600) to join with me in cosigning a letter to the nations press about the CQC. I will let you know how many respond. I know it isa long shot, but I have to try. Even Tony Jacobs of GDPUK only got just over a hundred, and there are around 4000 dentists registered on his forum.

This is why the country is in the state it is in. We, as a people, do not stand up for ourselves and let those we deem to be more powerful walk all over us.

If you don't stand up for yourself, nobody else will.

Nuff said

Interesting

2010-11-18T14:43:00.001-08:00

My research has uncovered this, which I think relates significantly to the proposed CQC fees

The EU report on Competition in Professional Services 2004

"State regulation which imposes or favours anti-competitive conduct or reinforces its effects, infringes Articles 3(1)(g), 10(2) and 81 EC. Where a State delegates its policy-making power to a professional association without sufficient safeguards, that is without clearly indicating the public interest objectives to respect, without retaining the last word and without control of the implementation, the Member State can also be held liable for any resulting infringement.

Ultimately, in the Commission's view, in all scrutiny of professional regulation a proportionality test should be applied. Rules must be objectively necessary to attain a clearly articulated and legitimate public interest objective and they must be the mechanism least restrictive of competition to achieve that objective. Such rules serve the interests of users and of the professionals alike."

The EU is definetly the way to go here.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:52004DC0083:EN:NOT
PS: information only, not legal advice

And Rome Burns

2010-11-12T11:55:00.000-08:00

Hello again
Many people know about the Romans. They know that they were a great economic and military power that controlled most of Europe and the land around the Mediterranean for hundreds of years. They were successful because their disciplined approach to warfare, government and commerce. At least initially. It is when this discipline failed that the decline began. We don’t know for sure why the Roman empire fell, all we know is that it did (like all empires). There are however competing theories

It didn’t help that there was a gradual erosion of the currency to create inflation and thus help fuel the great machine of commerce and war that fed the empires expansion. The inflation became hyperinflation
The Army was corrupted by the massive influx of Germanic mercenaries who changed the core values of the most highly trained military on the planet. Ironic really considering it was the Germanic tribes who went onto ransack most of Italy
The moral corruption of the leaders and the populace, exemplified by the destruction of the Roman Republic and the creation of a virtual dictatorship through much of the latter Emperors.

What the bloody hells this then, a History lesson?

No. It’s an example of how we haven’t learnt from history.

We are at a point in this country, where we are close to a point of no return in the evolution of our society. If you look at agencies such as the CQC with its bizarre mutation of the English language, the place we are going looks like a Kafkaesque hybrid of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. This prospect is not something I am overly pleased about. There is still time to change the path we are on, and it is up to us to make that change, for the sake of future generations.

Or we can let our offspring grow up in a world where our Grand children will never really understand the concept of privacy and freedom, potential victims to an autocratic state machine that is soulless and without wisdom or empathy. They will be nothing but numbers, units to be milked to grease the wheels of corrupt commerce by governments and dishonorable corporations. This isn’t some great conspiracy, it’s just the way the compass needle is pointing. We need to point it another way.

My recent CRB application at the Post Office was a classic example of the madness which will soon become the norm. In I walked to join a single queue in a room the size of half a football pitch. The downtrodden, the dejected and the derelict all waited in the central queuing area with me (I’ll let you decide which of those 3 categories I was in). People mumbled to themselves incoherently, as the line made its progress through the barriers, all the time watched by a minimum wage slob who masqueraded as a security guard. How the criminals must have quacked with fear.

“Window number 8 please”

I got the application in, but only with the help of 3 Post Office staff members who were less than complimentary to the CQC. I also declined to engage in the Irony of taking my Shotgun Licence as a form of ID for a CRB check. This was a procedure dumped on the post office staff from a great height, with most of them having little or no training. And they say CQC implementation isn’t being rushed.

And all this to be able to do a job I have been doing for 15 years, even though dentistry is not even a regulated activity under the CRB regulations. Interesting times.
And then there was the recent Sheffield lecture, headed by those unfortunates at the BDA and a representative of the CQC. The CQC rep talked about fairness, and how “End Users” were entitled to learn about their treatment in a language they understood.

“How Ironic that you say that whilst holding something so incomprehensible” I shouted, pointing at the Guidance tome she held in her hand. I don’t think I’ll be getting any Christmas cards off her this year.

And even more recently, a colleague received a response letter from our CDO (to his questions about HTM 0105), the syntax and tone of which very clearly told him to shut the hell up and stop bothering those more important than him.

Do you see what I see, or am I just like the loopy old man you won’t sit next to on the bus? Our protests and complaints are cast aside because they are few and far between. We do not shout with a single loud voice, nor are we relentless in our agenda. Those who choose to implement their mindless agenda on us are dogged and ruthless. But they are also fearful. Fearful of exposure and the uncompromising voice of truth. Fearful for their jobs, fearful of the relentless finger of shame that can be pointed by the public.

“It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong” - Voltaire
I would rephrase that

“It is dangerous for the government to be wrong when the people are right”

Now let’s get something perfectly clear here. I’m not telling you to rise up and hang them all from lamp posts. I’m not in fact telling you to do anything. I’m just rambling inanely. Thoughts enter my head and they get transferred to this keyboard. Illegal actions are to be avoided at all costs. There are no Pitchforks and torches required here; after all it’s not Victor Frankenstein we’re dealing with here. No it’s something far worse.

It is ourselves.

It’s our own fear, our own doubt, our own inertia, and our own apathy. The problem here is our meek and feeble acceptance to things we know are wrong, that we know are damaging and that we know are criminal. We turn on our TV and hope we can forget...... but the elephant is still there with you. It’s there when you are in your surgery, when you buy your newspaper, when you pay your taxes. The elephant in the room is staring you in the face and you may well have to eventually acknowledge its presence. But that if course is up to you.

Am I just talking about CQC and HTM 0105? Of course not. And there is still great beauty, compassion and honesty in the world, like the roses in a garden. But if all you do is concentrate on the Roses, the garden will soon get overrun by weeds.

Your liberty carries a price. It requires dedication, commitment and fearlessness. Are you willing to pay that price? There is no right or wrong answer here, because the choice you make will be the right one for you.

It’s up to you. You either stand up for what you believe in, or you shut your mouth and watch what you have acquiesced to. Make your choice. Either is fine, it’s your reality you are living after all.

By the way, I am available for children’s parties......... I’ll soon have a CRB check to prove it

Yours in commerce

Stephen: Hudson the authorised representative for the legal fiction Dr Stephen Hudson BDS, MFGDP, DRDP

Please help support the Sick Dentist Scheme and the BDA Benevolent fund by buying my book at Choose Your Reality. A proportion of the profits from its sale are split equally between these two charities

PS: Please feel free to pass this newsletter onto anyone you feel may be interested in it

GDP Resources

Disclaimer: S.Hudson or SNH Publications will not be held liable for any actions taken based on the information provided in this newsletters. This information is for entertainment only.

The Reality tunnel

2010-11-11T15:51:00.000-08:00

Let us venture briefly into the realm of Quantum Physics and the notion of the infinite consciousness.

Your brain has a filter.

Every second, your brain filters out what it deems to be irrelevant. This is why you were not aware of the shoes on your feet until I mentioned them. or the pressure of the glasses on your nose. You were not aware of the the fact you were breathing or that your heart was beating.

Now add this to the fact that everybody has deep ingrained belief systems.

An example of your belief system can be created by finishing the following sentence

"Life is............."

Your belief systems filter what you see around you. If you believe that all Muslims are terrorists (they aren't by the way), that will cloud your judgement the next time you meet a Muslim. If you had a tyrannical Catholic upbringing that you rebelled against, that might cloud your opinion of "The Church" in general.

Your filter will also affect what you hear see and feel.

After all you do not see with your eyes, you see wit your brain. Electrical signals are sent via the optic nerve to the brain to be deciphered.

Many people see what they want to see.
Many people hear what they want to hear.
Many people feel what they want to feel.

Have you ever displayed anger or resentment to someone because you misunderstood what they said? You chose that reaction based on your false perception.

This is where your reality tunnel comes in.

If you go through life expecting the worst, your mind will filter the incoming data to match your belief system.

So finish the following saying:

"People are................"
"Money is...................."
"Life is.........................."
"The CQC is..................."

Now ask yourself how those belief systems have guided your life so far.

have they empowered you, or held you back?

I merely ask the question

I recently had an email

2010-11-10T13:21:00.000-08:00

I recently had an email off one of my newsletter subscribers in regards to the CQC and my last newsletter (will be posted here shortly). She wanted to know what she could do.

Here was my response.

The first thing we have to remember is that in the great scheme of things, the CQC doesn’t matter. They are an annoyance more than anything. There will be plenty more annoyances along the way. Those who see their health and mental wellbeing affected need to change their perspective. I have always said that if a job is causing you health problems, then you either change the way you do things, or go and do something else. Dentists killed themselves treadmilling 6 days a week, and now dentists are pulling their hair out because of a bunch of incompetent bureaucrats.

THEY ARE NOT WORTH IT, and the staff of the CQC are just as much victims as we are. They didn't ask for this, they had it dumped on them from a great height. They are unprepared through no real fault of their own. Perhaps the CQC have been created to produce this very reaction in the profession. The corporates are laughing their socks off.

Learning to laugh at your troubles is the first part of dealing with them. The idea behind the CQC is so patheticas to be a fine display of what it now means to be British. Be thankful we are not in America....... recent reports show that 46% of GP’s will be leaving medicine due to Obama care.

The second thing we need to remember is that organisations such as this do not like bright lights shone on them. The more dentists who plague them with questions, demands and ideas, the more dentists write to MP’s and newspapers, the more the CQC will drift into the focus of the public. The more the public see what an irrelevant waste of resources the CQC are, the more their position becomes untenable......... especially with their head up before the select committee.

Talk to the dentist you know. Form an action committee. Decide on a plan of action on what you intend to do. Write to the head of the CQC by recorded post. Ask questions, demand answers. Do not let them fob you off. The more who write, the more they have to listen. Write to the BDA and the GDC, demand they take action. Write your MP, let him/her know that it is his/her family that will be affected by this farce, just as said family will be damaged by HTM 0105. Pool your resources.

And remember the words of Winston Churchill

Never, ever, ever, ever give up

Perspective

2010-11-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

Everything seems pretty dark at the moment what with the CQC, HRM 0105 and austerity cuts.

But you have to look at the big picture.

Most of us have a roof over our heads
Most of us can afford to eat and heat our homes
Most of us have access to clean water
Most of us have friends and family we can turn to
Most of us aren't at deaths door
Most of us have a mind that allows us to think
Most of us have access to technology the likes of which people even 15 years ago couldn't have imagined
Most of us can walk down the street safely
Most of us aren't stuck in Iraq breathing in Depleted uranium
Most of us aren't three pay slips away from homelessness

See the good in your life, see the strength, to help you deal with the mosquitos that are presently bothering you.

From Hansard

2010-11-04T15:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldhansrd/text/101101-0003.htm#10110215000101

(NB: The venue is the House of Lords, at 10:42pm on November 1st, 2010.)

Lord James of Blackheath: At this point, I am going to have to make a very big apology to my noble friend Lord Sassoon [Treasury Minister], because I am about to raise a subject that I should not raise and which is going to be one which I think is now time to put on a higher awareness, and to explain to the House as a whole, as I do not think your Lordships have any knowledge of it. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Strathclyde [Leader of the House] is not with us at the moment, because this deeply concerns him also.

For the past 20 weeks I have been engaged in a very strange dialogue with the two noble Lords, in the course of which I have been trying to bring to their attention the willing availability of a strange organisation which wishes to make a great deal of money available to assist the recovery of the economy in this country. For want of a better name, I shall call it foundation X. That is not its real name, but it will do for the moment. Foundation X was introduced to me 20 weeks ago last week by an eminent City firm, which is FSA controlled. Its chairman came to me and said, "We have this extraordinary request to assist in a major financial reconstruction. It is megabucks, but we need your help to assist us in understanding whether this business is legitimate". I had the biggest put-down of my life from my noble friend Lord Strathclyde when I told him this story. He said, "Why you? You're not important enough to have the answer to a question like that". He is quite right, I am not important enough, but the answer to the next question was, "You haven't got the experience for it". Yes I do. I have had one of the biggest experiences in the laundering of terrorist money and funny money that anyone has had in the City. I have handled billions of pounds of terrorist money.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham [Labour]: Where did it go to?

Lord James of Blackheath: Not into my pocket. My biggest terrorist client was the IRA and I am pleased to say that I managed to write off more than £1 billion of its money. I have also had extensive connections with north African terrorists, but that was of a far nastier nature, and I do not want to talk about that because it is still a security issue. I hasten to add that it is no good getting the police in, because I shall immediately call the Bank of England as my defence witness, given that it put me in to deal with these problems.

The point is that when I was in the course of doing this strange activity, I had an interesting set of phone numbers and references that I could go to for help when I needed it. So people in the City have known that if they want to check out anything that looks at all odd, they can come to me and I can press a few phone numbers to obtain a reference. The City firm came to me and asked whether I could get a reference and a clearance on foundation X. For 20 weeks, I have been endeavouring to do that. I have come to the absolute conclusion that foundation X is completely genuine and sincere and that it directly wishes to make the United Kingdom one of the principal points that it will use to disseminate its extraordinarily great wealth into the world at this present moment, as part of an attempt to seek the recovery of the global economy.

I made the phone call to my noble friend Lord Strathclyde on a Sunday afternoon—I think he was sitting on his lawn, poor man—and he did the quickest ball pass that I have ever witnessed. If England can do anything like it at Twickenham on Saturday, we will have a chance against the All Blacks. The next think I knew, I had my noble friend Lord Sassoon on the phone. From the outset, he took the proper defensive attitude of total scepticism, and said, "This cannot possibly be right". During the following weeks, my noble friend said, "Go and talk to the Bank of England". So I phoned the governor and asked whether he could check this out for me. After about three days, he came back and said, "You can get lost. I'm not touching this with a bargepole; it is far too difficult. Take it back to the Treasury". So I did. Within another day, my noble friend Lord Sassoon had come back and said, "This is rubbish. It can't possibly be right". I said, "I am going to work more on it". Then I brought one of the senior executives from foundation X to meet my noble friend Lord Strathclyde. I have to say that, as first dates go, it was not a great success. Neither of them ended up by inviting the other out for a coffee or drink at the end of the evening, and they did not exchange telephone numbers in order to follow up the meeting.

I found myself between a rock and a hard place that were totally paranoid about each other, because the foundation X people have an amazing obsession with their own security. They expect to be contacted only by someone equal to head of state status or someone with an international security rating equal to the top six people in the world. This is a strange situation. My noble friends Lord Sassoon and Lord Strathclyde both came up with what should have been an absolute killer argument as to why this could not be true and that we should forget it. My noble friend Lord Sassoon's argument was that these people claimed to have evidence that last year they had lodged £5 billion with British banks. They gave transfer dates and the details of these transfers. As my noble friend Lord Sassoon, said, if that were true it would stick out like a sore thumb. You could not have £5 billion popping out of a bank account without it disrupting the balance sheet completely. But I remember that at about the same time as those transfers were being made the noble Lord, Lord Myners [former Labour Treasury Minister], was indulging in his game of rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic of the British banking community. If he had three banks at that time, which had had, say, a deficiency of £1.5 million each, then you would pretty well have absorbed the entire £5 billion, and you would not have had the sore thumb stick out at that time; you would have taken £1.5 billion into each of three banks and you would have absorbed the lot. That would be a logical explanation—I do not know.

My noble friend Lord Strathclyde came up with a very different argument. He said that this cannot be right because these people said at the meeting with him that they were still effectively on the gold standard from back in the 1920s and that their entire currency holdings throughout the world, which were very large, were backed by bullion. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde came back and said to me that he had an analyst working on it and that this had to be stuff and nonsense. He said that they had come up with a figure for the amount of bullion that would be needed to cover their currency reserves, as claimed, which would be more than the entire value of bullion that had ever been mined in the history of the world. I am sorry but my noble friend Lord Strathclyde is wrong; his analysts are wrong. He had tapped into the sources that are available and there is only one definitive source for the amount of bullion that has ever been taken from the earth's crust. That was a National Geographic magazine article 12 years ago. Whatever figure it was that was quoted was then quoted again on six other sites on the internet—on Google. Everyone is quoting one original source; there is no other confirming authority. But if you tap into the Vatican accounts—of the Vatican bank--— come up with a claim of total bullion—

Lord De Mauley [Government Whip]: The noble Lord is into his fifteenth minute. I wonder whether he can draw his remarks to a conclusion.

Lord James of Blackheath: The total value of the Vatican bank reserves would claim to be more than the entire value of gold ever mined in the history of the world. My point on all of this is that we have not proven any of this. Foundation X is saying at this moment that it is prepared to put up the entire £5 billion for the funding of the three Is recreation; the British Government can have the entire independent management and control of it—foundation X does not want anything to do with it; there will be no interest charged; and, by the way, if the British Government would like it as well, if it will help, the foundation will be prepared to put up money for funding hospitals, schools, the building of Crossrail immediately with £17 billion transfer by Christmas, if requested, and all these other things. These things can be done, if wished, but a senior member of the Government has to accept the invitation to a phone call to the chairman of foundation X—and then we can get into business. This is too big an issue. I am just an ageing, obsessive old Peer and I am easily dispensable, but getting to the truth is not. We need to know what really is happening here. We must find out the truth of this situation

Sounds to me like someone is looking to buy the UK.
I am lost for words

The CQC....... AGAIN!

2010-10-31T13:09:00.000-07:00

Hello again
As you may be aware, the CQC will soon descend upon us. Unfortunately for you lot, I have a small problem with the CQC. Whilst I admire the idea logic behind protecting the public, the CQC in my eyes is not about protection, Quangos never are. It is about increasing the power of government and those connected to government, whilst tightening the regulatory noose around the neck of the profession even further. I say government, I doubt those we elected actually know what is going on. The wheels of the civil service are just rolling on from the last administration regardless. I would like to think that the present administration would stop this juggernaut in its tracks if it new the truth.

You have to remember, this isn’t just us this is happening to. Virtually every industry is having regulation after regulation dumped on it from a great height. And I don’t even blame the CQC. From where I’m standing, they are as much a victim as anyone here. They have been tasked with something they are ill prepared for, and have little in the way of understanding about what dentistry actually entails, non of which is their fault. Much of the problems that will arise will do so because they don’t understand what it is exactly that we do, but the registration rolls out regardless. They, in their eyes, have a job to do and the growing aggression and resentment from the profession will only harden their stance. And they haven’t even gotten to the doctors yet.

However, with that being said, there is something you have to remember. The government doesn’t care about you, it only cares about itself. It only cares about feathering it’s own nest and about justifying itself by exerting more and more control to counter perceived threats. This is the way of all governments, it is to be expected.

And despite my mention of growing aggression from the profession, really most of us do nothing. We bend over and take it. Some of even ask for more.

But let us for a moment look at the big picture. There are 600 people who are signed up to my newsletter, most of them being dentists. And I am talking to you all when I ask the following question, as well as the growing following of my blog.

What kind of a country do you want your children to grow up in?

Do you want a country where they are free to speak their minds, to express their ideas, to go about their business with the minimum hassle from government pen pushers and their lackeys? Or do you want them tagged, monitored, cowed and conformative, where they dread the day agents of the state knock on their door and say “Citizen, your papers please”?

Which do you want?

Because now it’s time to choose. Yes that’s right, you have a choice in the matter. You can bow down to the CQC and let them descend upon you twice a year like locusts, or you can tell them NOW that their regulation is not needed. You can let them know what you think, they are after all inviting you to do this. So have you? Have you been to their website and told them what you think, given them your ideas?

So here is a proposed action plan:

Write to your MP and tell him/her that the CQC is unwanted, dangerous to the public and an unnecessary burden
Contact Tony Jacobs at http://www.gdpuk.com/ who wants a list of names to go along with a letter to the editor of one of the big newspapers.
Read the Health and Social Care Act 2008
Take their issued guidance and ask for them to send you a copy in a form of English you can understand. It is incomprehensible.
Research what they are proposing. Does it breach anti competition rules? Does it breach the EU human rights legislation?
Write to the head of the CQC and tell them that much of their proposed regulations are already covered by our existing regulator the GDC. Ask for clarification on whatever points you do not like.
Write the GDC and tell them the same.
Go onto the CQC website and engage them in their consultations.
Go to the upcoming meetings and ask the CQC representatives questions.
Write to the newspapers, to Private Eye, and let them know that the CQC are a risk to the public and will reduce access to dentistry.
Write to the BDA and insist they do more to counter the CQC or you will cancel your membership

Or you can sit on your hands, and moan into your beer in a years time

And now here is your warning. The proposed actions, if done as an individual will put a big spotlight on you, and you do them at your own risk (see the disclaimer below). You will be noticed. Files may well be opened on you, and you may come under scrutiny. You may even go to the first in the line when it comes to inspections and investigation. Men in overcoats and hats may follow you down the street when you pop for a chip butty (ok, ok, that won’t happen). Who can say? What I can say is that sitting on your hands doing nothing is the safer, and easier option..... at least for you, at least initially.

But what about your children? What about ten years from now when there are two more regulatory bodies just as damaging, just as unwarranted and just as expensive? When the regulation affects other aspects of your life and the life of those around you.

“Oh come off it Steve, the CQC are hardly the Stasi”.

No they aren’t. Many of the people working there are decent, honest individuals who are just trying to make their way through life (as evidenced by the low satisfaction ratings people have with working for the CQC). They are not the Stasi, the KGB or the CIA. They are, to some, a symbol.

A symbol?

A symbol of what this country has become. A symbol of where this country is going. It is a symbol of where you as an individual can make a stand, now, in this instant. A stand for yourself, a stand for those around you, a stand for your children. As an individual your stand will feel meaningless, an ant against a Lion.

But together, your voices will be heard, and the Lion will run. You will be able to shout from the rooftops and hear the quivering of those in power. They do not care if you stand alone. They do mind if you stand on masse, if you shine a spotlight on the darkness of their proposals.

Together we can bring some sanity to this and send a message that this tightening of the noose stops NOW. You send a message that you have had ENOUGH. Yes the CQC might get through, but at the very least your legal, non-violent rebellion will instigate concessions, and give them pause. It will make them think “if this is the rejection we get from the dentists............”

Now some of you won’t see what all the fuss is about. Some of you won’t have a problem with the CQC or what they represent. Some of you may even see it as a good thing. Perhaps it is, who am I to say otherwise?

And you know what, I have no challenge with that. If that is your belief then I respect it.

If however you feel in your heart what i feel, if you see with your eyes what I see, then how can you roll onto your back and expose your belly? How can you look yourself in the mirror knowing what you know?

Fear is no longer an excuse. Fear is their weapon, their power, but only if you let fear control you. The choice is yours. You have a moral right, no a moral duty to act with your beliefs. What does you heart say? Find out and act accordingly.

Just keep it polite, civil and legal. That's not too hard to ask now is it.

Yours in commerce

Stephen: Hudson the authorised representative for the legal fiction Dr Stephen Hudson BDS, MFGDP, DRDP

Please help support the Sick Dentist Scheme and the BDA Benevolent fund by buying my book at Choose Your Reality. A proportion of the profits from its sale are split equally between these two charities

/
GDP Resources

Disclaimer: S.Hudson or SNH Publications will not be held liable for any actions taken based on the information provided in this newsletters. This information is for entertainment only.

Nuff said

2010-10-29T11:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Voh3I2h6PBo

Perception

2010-10-27T04:21:00.000-07:00

Hello again
There is a perception that the UK is a first world country. We have running water, indoor plumbing, street lighting and a welfare system. We have a system of laws and a deep cultural history that is the envy of most other countries. The country is an infinitely complex network of businesses, services and infrastructure.
It works, but underneath the polished facade we see that the system appears to be straining. This is because it has become too complex. As our population and technology grows, we find more and more ways to remove the simplicity from our lives. This does not make our lives any easier, despite the perception that it does.
Take the I-phone. It couldn’t be easier to use, and yet I challenge any of you to tell me how it actually works. I know how a normal bog standard telephone works, and if one broke I might even be able to fix it. But an I-phone, hell I haven’t got a clue.
Take my car. A few months ago a little orange light lit up on the dashboard. I phoned up the garage to ask what it meant...........

“Oh, that means that a little orange light has come on. Bring it in and we’ll let the computer diagnose it.”

They needed a computer to tell us what was wrong with my car...... what happens when something goes wrong with the computer? How do they diagnose that, another computer? Now I remember my dad fixing his own car years ago............ no chance of doing that these days, not unless you like driving around in classic cars.
I bought a pair of shoes the other day. Remember those tags that were placed on clothing so that it couldn’t be nicked from the shop without the alarm going off.......... well in this case the tag was (and still is) inside the shoes. RFID technology. Marvellous............ and also unsettling.

Now there is a danger to all this. As technology advances it makes old technology obsolete. The old technology is replaced and becomes a curiosity residing in museums and the garages of eccentrics and collectors. It becomes more and more difficult to go back to that old technology. And have you noticed that as technology progresses it becomes more and more fragile. It also tends to make us more reliant on said technology. (If a major Coronal Mass Ejection from the sun hits us in the future, the books in the library will still be there. Probably won’t be able to say the same for much of the digital recording media we like to use.)

“The things you own end up owning you” – Tyler Durden

As an example, take the I-phone again. My first mobile phone allowed me to ring people and send these amazing things called text messages. My I-phone allows me to take pictures, view my bank accounts, read my emails, watch TV, plan my whole life and there is probably even an App that allows me to control satellites. And if you lose it you better hope you have it all backed up.

There is also the view that this technological advance actually holds back our advancement as a species. In 1969 some chaps went to the moon using the computing power of today’s pocket calculators. Unfortunately we no longer go to the moon because it is too expensive and too complicated. We now have a situation where we are surrounded by electromagnetic radiation, where unhappiness is rampant and where cancer strikes one in two. Cancer used to be a rare curiosity. I would argue that technology is not benefiting us as much as we think it is.

And speaking of NASA, there is a story that explains my point quite nicely. NASA spent about a billion dollars inventing a pen that could write in zero gravity. It could write upside down, under water and in a vacuum. It was a very impressive achievement.............. but you know what, the Russians didn’t have that problem.

They used pencils.

We are now creating technology for the sake of creating technology. And all this technology requires more technology to make it work. And in a time when the earths resources are beginning to disappear like draught beer at a student party.......... that’s not wise.

In fact, it’s complete insanity.

And look at dentistry as another example. Care to tell me how many different types of composite there are on the market. How many different bonding systems are there? Oh is that one stage, two stage or three stage? Do we remove or keep the smear layer? And let’s just go through all the different porcelains shall we.

It’s enough to make you head spin. And yet you the technology that was available when I qualified in the 90’s is more than adequate to restore the majority of the population’s dentition. And it’s not just technology that is becoming more complicated, it’s also a mindset. Let me explain the mindset as I see it. I’m not saying this is the truth, it’s the truth “as I see it”. Many of you will disagree with me, and I would be upset if you didn’t. I bring you ideas but I don’t expect you to accept them blindly. After all, I’m not some Guru in an Ashram.

Speaking of Gurus, there are a collection of so called “Dental Gurus” who preach a message of excellence. Excellence in clinical dentistry, in customer service and in service delivery. Much of what they preach is valid, valuable and useful, and unfortunately they have started preaching a message that is also damaging, at least in my mind. There is now a growing perception that unless you have super high tech, professionally designed dental practices with flashing lights and interactive websites, that you are somehow not a “successful” dentist. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with this kind of practice. I just don’t think it is the model for most of us. Let me explain.

All this costs money. The marble floors and 50 inch plasma screens in every room requires a significant investment. This means the person sitting in your chair needs to pay more... a lot more. My question is really, is it necessary? Is this what the patients want.......... or is it what our EGO’s want? And it also means that you, as the dentist, are snared by that practice, you become locked in. Your investment actually limits your options and brings considerable, and I would say unnecessary risk. I think there is an easier way. The key is not what the premises look like, not the fancy gadgets you buy to complicate your life even more. I have to question the concept of getting oneself into massive debt to deliver what are effectively the same services.

Dentists seem to have an amazing ability to spend money. In Texas, they have a saying for it

“Big hat, but no cattle”.

They also seem to have an amazing ability to work more hours than they should....... “because they have to”. Unless you are one of the rare breed that absolutely live for your job (you know, the type of person that eats lives and breathes dentistry) I think it is important to remember that there is a life to be had outside the dental surgery. I know of a private dentist working a 6 day week because he’s so busy with new patients. To me, that’s no different than the old NHS treadmill that killed so many of us. He and the many like him are too busy making a living to actually take the time out to design a life.
I’ll put it this way. If on your death bed you complain that you didn’t do enough crown preps in your career, then please work as long and as hard as you like. If you are an entrepreneur who wants to be the next James Hull, then please burn that midnight oil, create your legacy. You are to be commended. For the rest of us, just concentrate on the basics. Keep it simple, keep it safe and keep them smiling.

You can do good dentistry from basic premises. They just need to be:

Clean
Comfortable
Welcoming

You put good staff and ethical, caring and skilled dentists in there, and you will have a successful business. “You should go and see my dentist, he’s really nice”. THAT is the key in my view. And there is nothing to stop you making the place look nice aesthetically, but do you really need to take out a loan the equivalent to the national debt to do it? When I bought my practice I put in wooden floors. It cost about £3k, and I paid for it from the profits of the business. A very basic thing to replace the manky tiled carpets that were there previously, but even to this day the patients comment.

In my opinion, ONE of the reasons to be in primary care is to make a living sufficient enough so that you can earn your financial independence. This way you can reach a point where you are working because you want to, not because you have to. And that point should come well before retirement age. That way, when life comes along and drops a bombshell at your feet (and it will) you can deal with it without the added pressure of worrying about your finances.

You shouldn’t be working in your 50’s because you have to. You should be working because you WANT to.

The old model of treadmilling didn’t allow this. And the way I see the economy heading over the next 5-10 years, putting a huge financial monkey on my back is perhaps not the way i want to go.
Regards

Stephen Hudson BDS, MFGDP, DRDP

Please help support the Sick Dentist Scheme and the BDA Benevolent fund by buying my book Choose Your Reality. A proportion of the profits from its sale are split equally between these two charities

Disclaimer: S.Hudson or SNH Publications will not be held liable for any actions taken based on the information provided in this newsletters. This information is for entertainment only.

The Prussian School

2010-10-25T04:17:00.000-07:00

Hello again

In the days of the Prussian Empire, schooling was mandatory. Every child went through the system which attempted to instil obedience through indoctrination. The schools of the country were separated into 2 different categories, partially based on the principles of Plato’s “The Republic”.

The schools of the elite
The schools of the middle class and the under classes
The Elite schools taught the children attending to be leaders. They would all generally go on to be high ranking military officers, politicians or Captains of industry.

The other schools taught the children that would go on to be civil servants, doctors, lower ranking military and the working population. Passing the high-school graduation examinations was a pre-requisite to entering the learned professions and the civil service, and generally the schools for the middle classes were separate and more exclusive than those for the lower classes.

The result was a highly trained and highly demarcated population resulting in a strong and effective military. It also resulted in a system that trained the majority of the young to be worker drones.

We used to have a similar system.

Boarding schools and private schools for the rich
Grammar schools for the brightest of the middle and lower classes
Comprehensives for everyone else

If you looked at the differences in teaching methods, one of the primary things that stands out is the elite schools taught their students the art of debate and public speaking. The ability to coherently and effectively put forward a point of view, even against opposition, is a powerful tool that generally only the children of the elite were and are taught. (By the way, when I say elite it is merely a word. I don’t think there is anything elite about these people...... quite the opposite actually)

There was of course a reason for this. Only those people with such skills really had any chance of making it into governmental leadership rolls, thus ensuring that the “elite” maintained control of the making of policy.

Nowadays it’s a little different. Anyone can learn these skills, but few do. Despite the lack of such activities in most schools, groups like Toastmasters allow anyone to become competent at public speaking. And many people take it upon themselves to learn these skills resulting in the ability of people from working class backgrounds to make it to the top of society. Where once there were gentleman’s clubs filled with rich and powerful Caucasian males, now the ranks of the rich and powerful are filled with every sex, race, creed and background.

It would seem that the idea of the Prussian schooling system is no longer prevalent in our society. I would disagree. And I would argue that, whilst success has become more attainable to the majority, the actual education being received by the majority of our children has been gutted. The present schooling system is a diseased shadow of its former self.

The old system prepared people for a lifetime of work, depending on their “status” in society. The present system doesn’t prepare anyone for anything. We now have a core of young and disenfranchised who just do not want to work, do not want to take responsibility, and whose self worth is non existence. There are hundreds of thousands of them who would rather sit at home drawing benefits than go out and make a living. This is partly because the schools for the majority have failed. And of course it ignores the fact that there are plenty young men and women out there who are industrious honest and morally grounded......... you just don’t hear about them in our misery driven media. But the core is growing, and it is spreading into other generations too as the Social Contract disintegrates.

50 years ago the major complaints by teachers regarding their pupils were “Chewing gum”, “running in the corridors” and “talking in class”. Now its “Assault”, “Rape” and “drugs” due to our schools being unable to sanction bad behaviour. I personally don’t think its because the young are any worse, they just don’t have the strict boundaries that were imposed on us. So they are seen to run amok, and are now seen to rebel against the figures of authority that at one time were a target off limits to them.

So what’s caused this? Well if you look at society on the whole, the morality of our culture has improved in some areas, whilst declining in others. Racism is now not acceptable, which is a good thing resulting in a more equal society. But conversely our society is all about material wealth, greed and instant gratification, and is slowly being ground under the oppressive boot of conformity and suppression. If it continues, the next generation will be living in a police state............ and they will be so dumbed down they won’t even notice or care. That’s if our present path continues...... and I don’t think it will. I think change is around the corner.

The youth of today are considered to be the most drunk, immoral, violent and apathetic the world has ever seen. But go back through history, and you will hear similar things said about previous generations. I think you will find they surprise you over the next 10 years.

So, I get to the cause at last. Is it a secret cabal of evil men, in dark rooms? Is it the Bilderbergers or the stifling regulations of the growing EU Super State? Nope. They are not the cause, merely a symptom.

It’s because of cycles. And I’m not talking about those things that let you travel from A-B, I’m talking generational cycles. Time and again, we see a four generation cycle happening, usually with the same generations making the same mistakes. I would encourage you to visit the following website http://www.fourthturning.com/ which explains the theory better than I can. Basically, every cycle has 4 stages, each stage dominated by 1 of 4 generational archetypes. The cycle goes from growth to destruction, as an example the fourth part of the last cycle was the 2nd world war and the Great Depression.

According to this theory (and really that’s all it is until proven) we are now in the fourth stage (the fourth turning) of our cycle. Whilst this means we have some very challenging times ahead, the next cycle to follow promises untold opportunity. Look at how the world grew in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Over the next few years when the economy is in the toilet and the world seems to be collapsing around our ears, remember that winter always turns into spring eventually. Summer is coming, you just have to wrap up warm and make it through the winter first. Hell, we’ll even get chance to have some fun on the way.

”Whatever happens, happens....... and cannot happen any other way” - Morpheus

Regards

Stephen Hudson BDS, MFGDP, DRDP

Please help support the Sick Dentist Scheme and the BDA Benevolent fund by buying my book Choose Your Reality. A proportion of the profits from its sale are split equally between these two charities

PS: Please feel free to pass this newsletter onto anyone you feel may be interested in it

GDP Resources

Disclaimer: S.Hudson or SNH Publications will not be held liable for any actions taken based on the information provided in this newsletters. This information is for entertainment only.

CQC costs

2010-10-23T07:10:00.000-07:00

Costs of Setting Up and Running The Dental Section of CQC
Summary

The figures quoted relate to work that is specific to setting up and preparing registration for Primary Dental Providers. The system used to register and monitor Dentists has been built to regulate all providers who have to be regulated. None of this is included in these costs.

Year 2009-10
No specific costs were incurred on Dental Registration.

Year 2010-11
Expected Capital costs to be incurred in building the system to support Dentists in registering will come to £1.3million of Capital costs and £1.7million revenue costs.

Year 2011-12Estimated Costs of running the system for the year are £15.8million. This will be reviewed during the year as this will be the first time that this is operated and so we currently have no actual costs to measure against

Science

2010-10-21T04:09:00.000-07:00

Hello again

History is the story of science and invention. Take the rise of the British navy in the late 1700’s for example. This was all down to the discovery that lining the hulls of ships with copper made them faster, so fast in fact that the French navy of the time were completely outclassed, even though they had superior numbers. Britain was the only country of the day (due to its infrastructure and resources) able to do this on a mass scale. That one invention pretty much helped put the Great into Britain and made us a world power. We took control of the seas, and kept control resulting in a quarter of the globe being conquered. By the way, if anyone knows where the Great has gone, please drop me a line.

Science moves ever forward. However, the rate of advance is slowing. If you look at the age of Nobel Prize winners, you will see that they are getting older. So much has been discovered, more needs to be learnt before new discoveries can be made. On a general scale, we are reaching the limits of human discovery.
However, discovery will continue due to the fact that every once in a while the human race throws out a genius who takes science in a completely different direction, down a path never before considered. There have been many in the past. Tesla, Einstein, Faraday, all changed the way we look at the world. And all challenged conventional wisdom. And this is where we discover the point of this newsletter.
The problem with science is that some people think they know everything. We often hear that “the evidence behind X is settled”. Really? Anytime you hear a scientist say that something is proven and that no more research needs to be done, he has ceased to be a scientist. He has instead turned into an evangelist, a cult member who has closed off his thinking to other possibilities.

A classic example is Global Warming. Man Made Global Warming advocates like to tell us the science is settled. Now I’m not arrogant enough to say whether MMGW is fact or fiction. They might be right, they might be wrong, I don’t know. What I do know is that the science is never settled, and their refusal to accept the possibility that another viewpoint might be valid is damaging their own cause. Just look at ClimateGate. That was a problem created by their own arrogance.

But back to science. I know what you are saying. “But Steve, things are so much better now. Computers are getting faster. Cars are getting slicker. We’ll be flying around in jet cars before we know it”. I disagree. Are people happier now than they were 20 years ago? No. If anything, technological advances are sending us in the opposite direction. 30 years ago if my car broke down I would probably have been able to fix it myself. Can’t do that now. No, now if I’m driving along and a light comes onto the dashboard, I have to take it to the garage to get a COMPUTER to analyse it. Things are so complex now that we need other machines to determine what went wrong.

“If I gave you an axe and dumped you in the middle of a forest, how long before you could send me an e-mail?” – Joe Rogan
I’m typing this on a computer. I don’t have a clue how it works. If it breaks down I have to get someone in to fix it, who usually then has to ask other people who draw on knowledge held on huge databases. All that information stored on hard drives across the planet leaves us with a slight problem......... hard drives were not designed for long term storage. A book can last a thousand years, but digital information is a very fragile thing. What if the lights went out?
There is something that we have forgotten, and it is crippling our society. That thing is SIMPLICITY. You remember the way cars used to be? The other day I saw a 1967 Chevy Impala. Absolutely gorgeous car, and over 40 years old. Do you think anyone will be driving around in one of today’s cars in 40 years? No, neither do I. And why? Because they are too complex, too hard to maintain and no way near as durable. I know a guy who still has a working Atari games console. Do you think 30 years from now someone will still be playing on a PSP2? I don’t. Things just aren’t built to last anymore....... which in a planet of dwindling resources is absolute madness. We should go back to simplicity........ and I can see it happening in my lifetime.
We have created a complex throw away society with a “just in time” stock delivery system that keeps the supermarket shelves full............ unless it snows. Then you see how people react. They panic buy, creating a shortage where none actually existed. Do you think a Mormon would panic buy? Of course not, because it’s part of their religion that they plan ahead and have food stored away.
We could learn something from that.

When Katrina happened, there were three types of people. Those who could look after themselves, those who had nothing and who relied on the federal government and FEMA, and then there was the rest of us who watched on in disbelief as everything fell apart. It displayed just how fragile our society actually is. And yet people ignore this “elephant in the room” completely. They pretend it’s not there, which is like looking at your garden shouting “there’s no weeds, there’s no weeds, there’s no weeds”. Yeah, that’s positive thinking, but you’ll have a garden full of weeds.

So what weeds are you ignoring?

In a crisis situation, you can only rely on yourself and those you have gathered around you. Don’t look to the government, because they won’t be there. It’s the same with everything in life. You are responsible for your health, your relationships, your finances and your own safety. Nobody else can do that for you.
If you want to give all your money to a Fund manager, then fine. But if he loses it all, it’s your fault, not his.......... because you gave him the money in the first place. If you want to smoke, eat too much and drink to excess, then that’s fine. But don’t expect the doctors to be able to fix things when it all goes to pot.

At the end of the day, it’s all down to you. Take responsibility, stop blaming other people, and remember........... let’s be careful out there.
Regards
Stephen Hudson BDS, MFGDP, DRDP
Please help support the Sick Dentist Scheme and the BDA Benevolent fund by buying my book atChoose Your Reality. A proportion of the profits from its sale are split equally between these two charities

Disclaimer: S.Hudson or SNH Publications will not be held liable for any actions taken based on the information provided in this newsletters. This information is for entertainment only.

The problem with the CQC

2010-10-20T13:33:00.000-07:00

I am in favour of the idea behind the CQC. I am not in favour of the way the CQC operates, nor the way it chooses to regulate us.

I object because it is another layer of unwaranted box ticking whch will do little to help the public.

I object because their publications are written in "NVQ" English which I find incomprehensible.

I object because the agency that is supposed to look after the public cannot look after its own staff.

I object because I have a relative who worked for a care home, and the interactions people there had with CQC staff were unfavourable......"they were right little Nazis", one senior staff member was heard to comment about the inspectors.

I object because the people who inspect YOU are unlikely to know anything about dentistry

I object because it will cost me significant sums of money with no real benefit to anyone except the CQC

And most of all I object because IT WILL NOT STOP HERE. There will be more regulation, more red tape, more forms, more winding of your sanity around some bureaucrats middle finger..... which he will then use to wipe his arse whilst honouring you with a bill for doing so.

At some point we have to make a choice. Do we stand up for ourselves, for our principles, for what we know is right, fair and just......... or do we lie down, and kiss and polish the boots that ever increasingly stamp on our faces. To choose the former may not be easy, but it will be right. To choose the latter may be easy (at least to begin with) but it will be the act of shameful cowards who deserve the Orwellian/Huxley world some maniac seems to have in store for us.

The CQC will stay in existence so long as it serves the purpose for which it was created. As soon as it consistently causes more pain, and embarrassment than the government can stand, it will disappear. The machine must be made to stop by whatever legal, non violent means are available to us.

What say you?

Fear is the mind killer

2010-10-17T03:06:00.000-07:00

My opinion:

If you look throughout history, most revolutions and political unrest have been fermented by the middle classes.

The middle classes are angry, seeing their country bombed by a constant FEAR, FEAR, FEAR, CONFORM, CONFORM, CONFORM mantra that comes from government through its placid minions in the media.

Any respite, any relaxation of the pressure (red tape, box ticking, regulation, bin overfilling punishments, PCN's, fear mongering, Community wardens etc) will allow the middle classes to THINK, to QUESTION and to practice the fine art of non compliance.

They have to keep us in fear.

Fear of terrorists
Fear of losing our jobs
Fear of losing our money
Fear of the opinions of others
Fear of arrest and prosecution.

Without the fear, they have no control. Without control, the system they have developed unravels. They are ramping up the fear and the pressure because of what is coming. They are trying to get a situation where the middle classes feel so overwhelmed they will by psychologically broken, bend over and just take it willingly. What is coming is the very real risk of an economic and financial tsunami of epic proportions.

Unfortunately for TPTB, the more they squeeze, the more people stand up and shout F*CK IT. You get to a point where the ethical individual, the conscious soul can take no more. You sit down and refuse to take any further part in the system, and by your peaceful non cooperation you clog up the system, you throw yourself upon the wheels and the gears and the levers, until the system no longer works.

I believe they have misjudged their psychological tactics. They have pushed too hard, too fast and the cognitive dissonance is now overwhelming. We are now asking how this great fecking elephant got into the living room.

This is one of the reasons I keep going on about attaining financial Independence. Imagine the power you would have, under the threat of all these regulations, box ticking exercises and barbed wire masquerading as red table to be able to look calmly at your financial statement and laugh because you knew you no longer NEEDED to work.

You could wave at TPTB with one finger and walk away if you wanted to.

Gold

2010-10-14T14:34:00.000-07:00

Gold is at an all time high

it is telling you one of two things:

1) It is the next bubble and will pop monumentally
2) We are about to see the start of a currency war

And what, I hear you ask, is a currency war?

Western countries have significant amounts of debt. By devaluing their currencies (making them weaker) countries can effectively reduce the amount of debt they have to repay. The next major candidate for this is the USA who is a gnats wing from engaging in a trade war (probably then followed by a conventional war) with China.

China has vast holdings of US debt.
The US devalues its currency in revenge for China's own currency manipulation.
China's holdings of US debt reduce in value, and their exports to the US increase in price making them less competitive.

But back to Gold.

Whilst not giving financial advice, I see Gold continue its monumental rise.

You might therefor want to raise your prices for any metal work you do in your practice.

Just a thought

Life is...

2010-10-11T15:14:00.000-07:00

Hello again
We like to think that we are conscious individuals. We have hopes, dreams and fears, and most of us have a moral compass that we do our best to follow.
We also live our life guided by a set of beliefs, beliefs that we formed and honed as we travelled on the path of life.

Unfortunately most of our beliefs are confused, even conflicting.

The devout catholic who has an affair
The hard working business owner who neglects his family
The “law abiding” individual who goes at 35mph in a 30 zone
The doctor who smokes
The dentist with a mouth full of fillings
The self help guru on Prozac

If you look at the way science has developed over the centuries, you can see examples of beliefs that were once sacrosanct.

The world used to be flat
Witches used to float
Leaches cured all ills
If it didn’t rain it was because the Gods were angry
Man would never fly
Man would never break the speed of sound

All beliefs that we laugh at now. But what global beliefs that people hold will be mocked 200 years from now?

And what about your beliefs. What did you believe 10 years ago that you no longer believe? Well, let’s look at some of mine.

I USED to believe that justice was easily attainable in this country
I USED to believe that America was the land of the free
I USED to believe that the capitalist system could work without regulation
I USED to believe everything happened for a reason
I USED to believe we live in a democracy
I USED to believe the news media told us the truth

Beliefs change. Beliefs are fluid, and constantly in flux........ and yet people have been known to die for their beliefs. Worse, people have been known to kill for them.

And most people’s beliefs aren’t even their own............ they were given them by their peers, parents, teachers and the MSM. The beliefs form a filter through which our everyday experiences are sieved. Your beliefs create your reality tunnel, through which you travel through life. People actually ignore and filter out the stuff that contradicts their beliefs.

“It is the nature of the human species to reject that which is true but unpleasant and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting” – H.L.Mencken

There are many people now who are struggling with their belief systems. They have seen the banks unleash a financial nightmare on the world, and then they have seen those same banks bailed out and rewarded with tax payers money. They have seen “irresponsible” lending paraded as the cause of the financial crisis, whilst the fact that oil hit $150 a barrel is seemingly ignored. We see our politicians promising to cut waste and reduce Quangos, only to see them unleash a great beast called the CQC upon us.

What if I told you this year’s election wasn’t about democracy, but about voting for the corporate and banking lackey’s who will be out for themselves, and keep the country in national bankruptcy. I’m not saying it’s true, I just want to see what your belief system has to say.

And besides, we aren’t even a democracy, we are a Constitutional Monarchy. A vast difference understood by so few.

Do you think the fact that this country is home to one quarter of the worlds surveillance cameras is a good thing? What about biometrics, and the growing use of fingerprints and electronic ID’s in schools? Do you value freedom over security, or are you willing to accept that your children will grow up without the childhood innocence that most of us had. Surveillance and suspicion will be the norm for them. Will our concepts of freedom and rights be a belief system akin to a flat earth in 100 years?

Citizen, your papers please – Is that the world you want for your children? How does that fit in with your belief systems?

Do you believe that if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear? It’s a perfectly reasonable belief system........... but why should we even have to go there. I grew up with the notion that the politicians and the police were our servants, that they were there to protect us and serve our needs. Maybe it’s just me, but it doesn’t feel like that now.

You know, over the past months and years, many of you will have had an itch, like a splinter in your mind. Psychologists call it cognitive dissonance, the uncomfortable feeling of holding two conflicting viewpoints. You live in a free country, and yet you are monitored, herded and recorded more than any other population on the planet. You invested in the stock market for the “long haul”, and yet it’s still below where it was in the year 2000.

So finish these statements.

Life is........?
Money is.......?
Men are.......?
Women are.......?
The rich are.......?
The poor are.......?

Now look at your life.

Time for a change?

Regards

SH

Please help support the Sick Dentist Scheme and the BDA Benevolent fund by buying my book atChoose Your Reality. A proportion of the profits from its sale are split equally between these two charities

PS: Please feel free to pass this blog onto anyone you feel may be interested in it

GDP Resources

Disclaimer: S.Hudson or SNH Publications will not be held liable for any actions taken based on the information provided in this blog. This information is for entertainment only.

A letter to the CQC

2010-10-10T10:31:00.000-07:00

Understanding that everything is all due to contracts, this is the kind of letter one might send to that fine institution, the CQC

11.10.10

Dear Jo Williams

It would appear that in April of next year I will be given the opportunity to enter into contract with you. I would like to thank you for this opportunity, and so that our contract together can run smoothly under admiralty, I would like to draw your attention to a number of factors that will be a threat to the legal fiction (body corporate) that is your organisation. These factors may put you in default under admiralty jurisdiction, which may compel vessels such as myself to seek remedy under contract law. As I am sure you will agree, this should be avoided.

You may be unaware of the following, as large organisations often fail to report the minutia of daily events to those at the top of the hierarchical pyramid. It has however been made plainly clear to dentists, through meetings across the country that there are unlikely to be dentally qualified individuals involved in the inspection process or the appeals process. This I feel is a monumental error. What you may also not be aware of is that, in my time working in the profession, nothing has caused more outrage or indignation than the proposed CQC registration. If nothing else, the CQC has united the profession like never before, and I have never seen so many so upset.

Please take notice of the following affidavit (if any of the points outlined are false, you should reply to me within 10 days of the date of this letter, outlining the reasons why). Remember that under contract law, s/he who does not rebut accepts.

Affidavit of truth

1) There is some question mark as to the appeals process open to dental practices that fall foul of CQC regulations, and according to my reading of the Health and Social Care Act 2008, the CQC appeals process is to the CQC itself and not an independent third party.

2) The CQC give 28 days to appeal

3) The Health and Social care act is not written in language the average layman can understand

4) The CQC on these 3 points alone contravenes article 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998

To clarify (see underlined)

Right to a fair trial

1) In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law. Judgment shall be pronounced publicly but the press and public may be excluded from all or part of the trial in the interest of morals, public order or national security in a democratic society, where the interests of juveniles or the protection of the private life of the parties so require, or to the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the court in special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice..

2) Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.

3) Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights:.

(a)to be informed promptly, in a language which he understands and in detail, of the nature and cause of the accusation against him;.

(b) To have adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence;.

(c) To defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing or, if he has not sufficient means to pay for legal assistance, to be given it free when the interests of justice so require;.

(d) To examine or have examined witnesses against him and to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his behalf under the same conditions as witnesses against him;.

(e)To have the free assistance of an interpreter if he cannot understand or speak the language used in court.

The above needs to be addressed as I feel it threatens to make the lawyers a significant sum of money.

I am also giving you notice that a different approach than the one you are presently adopting is needed. This is of course just my opinion, one that is probably biased. You do know however that you face the prospect of dozens, if not hundreds if practice owners utilising their practice legal expense cover in a variety of ways against your organisation.

My proposal

1) There is no need for CRB checks for dentists. Dentists are registered with the GDC, who are instantly informed by the police should a registrant break the law. By removing this requirement, you will deflate much of the rebellion that is brewing.

2) The CQC should work with the profession, and not impose itself upon the profession. If you work with dentists, and employ dentists in the inspection and regulatory checks you will obtain balance. Not to do so will see bad publicity and obstacles put in your path. I remind you that Statutes only apply when they have the consent of the governed.

3) The CQC guidance is wishy washy, and written in a manner that the majority cannot understand and decipher. It thus endangers the public. The guidance should be concise, preferably in bullet form and give definitive pointers on how to reach compliance.

4) The staff of the CQC are unfortunately not singing off the same song sheet. They frequently give conflicting advice/answers. This again endangers the public.

5) You MUST work with the GDC, BDA and DPA to remove duplication of reporting requirements. They should be your partners, not your understudy.

Get it right and you will be praised. Get it wrong and you will likely find your photo on the front page of the Daily Mail, thus is the nature of our society today. I hope this helps you in your future endeavours, and if I can be of any assistance.

And I hope you choose wisely

Yours in commerce

Over 90% of people can access NHS dentistry

2010-10-05T12:43:00.000-07:00

Feel free to revel in the following meaningless statisitcs........ the most striking aspect of which is that over a 1000 people didn't even know why they made an appointment with a dentist !!!!!!!

The results of latest the quarterly GP Patient Survey (March-Jun 2010) have been published. Headline results include: 93% of respondents who tried to obtain an appointment within the past 2 years were successful, but 42% of respondents did not try to get an appointment with an NHS dentist in the last 2 years. 82% of the most recent appointments sought were with the dental practice previously attended. In these cases, the successful percentage over the past 2 years was 95%.

Main results

140,700 responses, 35% of the 400,000 people contacted.
58% of adults in the survey tried to obtain an appointment with an NHS dentist in the 2 year period before April to June 2010 quarter;
93% of respondents who tried to obtain an appointment within the past 2 years were successful. 7% were unsuccessful (Success percentages exclude those who didn't remember the outcome, unless stated otherwise).
Respondents who have tried more recently are more successful. 95% of respondents trying within the past three or six months were stated they were successful.
For 79% of adults the last appointment sought was for routine dentistry; 17% were seeking an urgent appointment, 3% other type of appointment and 1% could not remember.
82% of the most recent appointments sought were with the dental practice previously attended. In these cases, the successful percentage over the past 2 years was 95%*.
For the 15% of patients who sought appointments with a new dental practice in the last two years, 77% were successful, 21% they were unsuccessful and 2% couldn't remember the outcome.
North East SHA area had the largest percentage of the adult population seeking an NHS dental appointment in the last 2 years, at 65%, whilst London SHA had the smallest, where 52% sought an NHS appointment.
Success in getting an appointment. North East and West Midlands SHAs had the largest percentage, with 95% successful over the last 2 years, compared to South Central SHA with the smallest (91%).
For patients seeking an appointment in the last 2 years at a practice they had not been to before, South East Central and West Midlands had the largest percentage successful, with 82%* and South Central the smallest (68%*);

Adults who have not tried to get an NHS appointment in the last 2 years:

42% of respondents did not try to get an appointment with an NHS dentist in the last 2 years,
The most frequent reason for not trying for an NHS dental appointment in the previous 2 years was 'l stayed with my dentist when they moved from NHS to private' which was mentioned by 22% of adults. The next reason 'l have not needed to visit a dentist' was 18% of responses.
17% had not tried because they thought they would not be able to find an NHS dentist

The problem with money and why I never give financial advice

2010-09-30T10:58:00.000-07:00

Hello again
Just to recap, none of this is financial advice. What I say is merely for entertainment purposes only. Shame that I have to keep writing that, but that’s the world we live in folks.

Over the last few newsletters I have been discussing the way we as human beings live our lives based around the concept of money. As a recap it is my philosophy that you should earn more and spend less. That way you get to a point where your investments are sufficient to keep you in the lifestyle you want........ so that you can then step back and work only because you want to not because you have to.

Now for those who want to take up this philosophy (and let me tell you from the start it is not for everyone) the spending less money every month is the place to start. The reason being is a little law called “Parkinson’s Law”

“Expenses rise to meet earnings”

It doesn’t matter how much you earn if you spend it all. You have to break Parkinson’s Law if you want to be financially independent because you aren’t going to win it and you aren’t going to inherit it. Admittedly, you might be able to build up a practice and sell it for a large capital gain, but if you have large debts and large overheads, that’s really not going to be such a windfall. Just run the maths.

Some people take to this like a duck to water, others struggle with it immensely.

“But I like driving flash cars”

And that’s fine, there is nothing wrong with that. If you want to spend the equivalent of six months income on a box that gets you from A to B go for it. I’m not telling you what to do, I’m just exploring possibilities.

You see I have a big problem with the “buy me and be happy” culture that is rammed down our throats by marketers. One because much of the marketing techniques used today are based on dubious psychological and NLP technologies, and secondly at the end of the day most people find that the happiness found in that latest purchase is fleeting. A new kitchen quickly becomes an old kitchen.

But that wasn’t what I wanted to talk about today. If you remember, the second part of the philosophy is to make more money. And there will be many of you who will be tapping me on the shoulder saying “well I tried that, but I just got a whacking great tax bill that sucked it all off to HMRC”. And that will happen initially, and many people keep hitting this wall time and again. But, let me tell you a little secret.

That wall is there for a reason.

And there are 2 points of view on this. The first is that there is an international conspiracy of bankers and puppet politicians that have manipulated the whole system to stop people getting ahead and stop them breaking out of the “matrix” for want of a better word. Keep them trapped, keep them producing and tax them to the hilt.
I think the second point of view is more empowering, and somewhat more realistic. The wall is a test. If you pass the test you get to a place that very few people see. Having spoken to several people who have passed the test, let me describe that place for you.

You no longer worry about your tax bill. You no longer have any debt, other than business debt. Your credit cards (if you even use them) are paid off in full every month. You never travel economy, but you also don’t flaunt your wealth. If you found you were suddenly unable to work tomorrow, you could last several years on the reserves you had set aside.

And the little voices of protest are rising up. It’s OK, you situation is different, I know. You’ve got kids, business is slow, you lost money in a dodgy investment. Of course, the people I spoke to pretty much all have or had those same things in their lives too, but we’ll not talk about that.

Did you know that most American millionaires went bankrupt at least once?
There is a threshold with making money. Once you have reduced your outgoings and broken Parkinson’s law, you find it easier to put aside your tax money. The more you earn, the more your earning power starts to outrun the tax taken (harder now with the 50% tax bracket I know, but still very possible). And what also happens is you stop relying on earnings that are hit by income tax. You start to gather investments that come under capital gains tax. You start to think “well maybe a bank account with its taxed interest isn’t the best place for my money” and you start to look elsewhere.
Once you pass the test, you start to get smart. And then something amazing happens.
Money just starts to appear. You just seem to attract it. Because you are no longer worrying about money, you brain shifts......... and you start seeing opportunities all around you. It’s scary. There is of course something else that can happen, some people get complacent and lazy...... and get sucked right back below the threshold.

But you don’t even reach the threshold until you get out of the spending habit.

And as for making it, well I’m shortly going to announce something that will be extremely exciting to some of you. But only some of you.

The rest of you (the rest being the large majority) will have no interest in it whatsoever.... which is a good. Because firstly it involves an investment technique that is more risky than keeping your money in the bank. Secondly it’s very expensive. Thirdly, it’s not guaranteed to make you any money whatsoever, in fact you could easily lose money. And fourthly it involves travelling to another country.
I know that’s not saying much. What I can tell you is for those of you who are interested, I will be able to get you a significant discount through my contacts with the organisers.

I’ll keep you posted.

Right I’m off to buy myself a new car :)

Regards

SH

Please help support the Sick Dentist Scheme and the BDA Benevolent fund by buying my book atChoose Your Reality. A proportion of the profits from its sale are split equally between these two charities

PS: Please feel free to pass this newsletter onto anyone you feel may be interested in it

GDP Resources

Disclaimer: S.Hudson or SNH Publications will not be held liable for any actions taken based on the information provided in this newsletters. This information is for entertainment only.

The howling of idiots

2010-09-27T11:09:00.000-07:00

It seems that there are multiple people following this blog, to my immense surprise.

What does not surprise me (understanding human nature as I do) is the numerous people leaving comments as to how the blog has not been updated. One individual was even taunting, but didn't have the balls to leave a name or a way to contact. Probably a good thing considering the events of the past week.

At the moment I have other, more important things to attend to.

Those who matter don't mind.
Those who mind don't matter.

Slavery

2010-09-20T09:35:00.000-07:00

Hello again
I know it’s totally unlike me, but I am going to discuss a controversial topic.
Slavery........... specifically financial slavery.

You see, we in the western world have been conned. We were brought up with an idea, a blueprint if you will of what is expected of us (I am basing this on the career path of a professional person):

Go to school
Leave school with good grades
Either take a year out or go to University
Qualify
Start career
Start a pension
Buy a car
Meet someone
Buy a house
Get married
Have children
Buy a new car
Buy a bigger house
Build up a business
Send children to university
Sell business
Retire
Play with grandchildren
Potter about
Die leaving a vast portion of your wealth to the state

A perfectly acceptable life. The thing is, there is no law that says you should live your life like that. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just very conventional. Here is another Blueprint

Get born to an impoverished household
Go to school
Fail miserably in your exams
Leave with no qualifications
Be told you will amount to nothing
Get arrested
Be told it’s either the army or prison
Enlist
Go to Vietnam
Get enlisted in Navy intelligence
Volunteer for covert ops
Leave with $900 in your pocket
Start your own energy supply business using your kitchen room table, a phone book and a third hand fax machine
Win a $400 million contract to supply diesel to the federal government
Supply that diesel
Marry the one woman you ever loved
Have children
Move to UK
Buy a castle in Scotland
Build the business up till it can be traded on UK stock exchange
Sell your stake in said business for several billion pounds
Hunt crocodiles in Africa
Become a consultant to the rich
Live the high life

Now that’s a blueprint. The second person defied all convention and defied accepted practice. He made his life his own, starting from nothing.

As professionals, the majority of us will make a large amount of money in our working career. But we will also spend most of that money and find ourselves having to work into our late 50’s and early 60’s so that we can retire. Parkinson’s law states “all expenses rise to meet available income”. You spend most of your working life working because you HAVE to, not because you WANT to. And if you truly love what you do, then this is no bad thing. To do a job you love, and do it well is one of life’s rare gifts.

Unfortunately most people don’t discover this gift under their Christmas tree. Most people get trapped in a job they hate that they know they can’t leave because they have bills to pay. Think about that for a second. They get a job they don’t like to pay for the house they want to live in close to the job they don’t like. They then spend money filling that house with stuff to take their mind off the job they don’t like........ that they just spent time at so as to get the money to pay for all their stuff.

Absolute madness.

But it goes further. They even borrow money they don’t have, to buy more stuff that they don’t need, and pay back vastly more than the money they borrowed...... which means they have to keep working at a job they hate. That my friends is slavery........... VOLUNTARY slavery. Have a look at the people around you in the cars, the buses, the trains and on the pavements the next time you travel to work. Play spot the happy face.

You won’t see any.

And what about you? How are you when you roll into work on a Monday morning? What image are you giving off to your staff? Are you a:

“Oh, fecking hell, it’s Monday.”

Or are you

“It’s SHOWTIME!!!”

Just a thought. So what can you do? Well, here’s the strangest of things. Your financial freedom plan should be the same, whether you love your job or hate it. In my Mastermind Alliance product, you get a piece of software that lets you calculate your freedom figure. This is the amount of money you need in the bank, so that the interest from this money pays all your expenses.
That figure is what you should be working towards. Because once you reach it, you no longer HAVE to work. But there’s nothing stopping you carrying on working if you want to.

And here’s a radical concept for you. Your will reach your financial freedom figure quicker........... if you don’t spend all your money on crap that you think will make you happy. And there’s nothing wrong with fancy holidays in the Maldives.......... but if you don’t like your job, is it worth sacrificing 50 weeks of the year just to pay for 2? Is that flash new BMW worth working an extra year at your job?
And come on guys, do you really want to be relying on your pension for your old age? Have you seen how volatile the stock market has become recently......... it’s still lower than it was 10 years ago. Invest for the long haul?........HA! (That wasn’t financial advice by the way, just so you know).
Here’s my blueprint

Go to school
Question everything they tell you
Get good grades anyway
Decide early what you want to do in life
Do it, and if you don’t love it do something else
If it floats your boat, find someone special to spend your life with.
Become financially secure
Become financially free
Have enough money to live your dreams
Die with a big cheesy grin on your face
Do it all again in the next life

You are both the slave and the slave master. Time to choose which one you want to be for the rest of your life.

Regards

Stephen Hudson BDS, MFGDP, DRDP

Please help support the Sick Dentist Scheme and the BDA Benevolent fund by buying my book atChoose Your Reality. A proportion of the profits from its sale are split equally between these two charities

PS: Please feel free to pass this newsletter onto anyone you feel may be interested in it

Disclaimer: S.Hudson or SNH Publications will not be held liable for any actions taken based on the information provided in this newsletters. This information is for entertainment only.

Your children will look at you 10 years from now with nothing but contempt

2010-09-16T16:27:00.000-07:00

The following was sent to me by an anonymous source, and has asked me to print it. So here it is.

"You see that the country is collapsing into a fetid pit of paper pushing, over regulation and newspeak, and yet you do nothing. After all what on earth can you do? You are but one man/woman. Someone forgot to tell that to Rosa Parks.

You sit at home, watching your TV and mumble softly into your Shiraz because there is nothing you can do. Someone forgot to tell that to Ghandi.

Another regulation is dumped on you from a great height and you grumble, but carry on regardless because there is nothing you can do. Someone forgot to tell Martin Luther King that there was nothing he could do.

You voted for the Lib/Con coalition, but you forgot that their best intentions would be destroyed by the beast that is parliament, so you carry on regardless because there is nothing you can do. If only someone had told Lech Wałęsa this.

You read the Daily Mail and chunter about the madness you see there. But again you do nothing because there is nothing you can do. If only Neslon Mandella had listened to the naysayers

Your children will come to you 10 years from now and ask you WHY you let this all happen.

And you will answer that you were afraid. You were afraid of being judged. you were afraid you will be ridiculed. You were afraid that the agents would come knocking on your door and ask you for your "papers". You were afraid that you were wrong. you were afraid that you were right.

Can you look your child in the eye and say you are handing over a world fit for them to live in?

I merely ask the question"

Worth thinking about

The law of contracts

2010-09-15T10:58:00.000-07:00

All commercial activity in this country comes under what is known as "Admiralty Jurisdiction". We have all heard of Common Law, or "the law of the land", but how many of us have heard of Statute law, "the law of the SEA".

Admiralty or commerce law was set up hundreds of years ago to protect and allow trade between different countries. As time progressed, the law moved from the shipping lanes onto the dry land as there were many benefits to both the controllers and the controlled. It existed along side common law (which the British/Dutch Empires spread to all corners of the globe) but has slowly begun to replace it.

Everything is now about contracts. Two examples:

You are born, your parents Register you to the state. This gives the state the power to take you into care should your parents not look after you. It is a contract.

You buy a car and you register it.... effectively signing it over to the state. You then set up a contract to pay the state £X every year for the use of their roads and their car. If you don't pay your road tax, this allows the state to take your car and crush it.

The thing is, when you start to understand this, you see the power this information gives YOU.

The next time you buy a service off a company....... say a Clinical Waste contractor, and they feck you about with made up regulations....... well perhaps you should explore their breach of your mutual contract. The civil courts take a very DIM view of contract breach.

Just a random thought for the day

Madness

2010-09-13T12:27:00.000-07:00

So let me get this straight. The unions object to the proposed spending cuts because their members will be penalised. So let me get this straight, all those people who work in the private sector, you know the businesses that actually bring in the revenue that the country depends on, they are to bear the brunt of the austerity measures, is that what the unions are saying?

For the Unions to call mass strikes would result in a reduction in the countries GDP, which would reduce tax revenue, which would reduce the amount of money available to cut the deficit, which would then require even worse spending cuts. It would also affect the countries credit rating, putting the currency at risk. The country is already bankrupt........ please don't give the IMF an excuse to impose some REAL PAIN.

If Union leaders start calling for a "coalition" of strikes, they risk being charged with sedition. If there is pain to spread around, we all have to share it. And to be honest, I would argue that the pain should START with the public services who are a net drain on finances. Start with the Quangos, close them all and save AT LEAST £60 billion a year.

October the 20th

2010-09-12T06:06:00.000-07:00

What everyone seems to be forgetting (or perhaps just trying to ignore like an extremely large credit card bill shoved into the back of a sock drawer) is that the Government Spending Review is published on October the 20th. This is when the Austerity starts in ernest. This is when the real pain of Labours spending madness will become evident.

And time and again I hear people saying that we shouldn't be cutting spending and paying down debt, because we risk a double dip recession. What they fail to understand is that if we DON'T reduce the deficit we risk something far worse...... a sovereign debt crisis.

You see, the only thing keeping this country going at the moment is foreign governments, banks etc buying our government debt. The more debt this country has, the more risky our debt seems and thus the more expensive it is to service.

Labour were like a teenager with a credit card. They maxed it out, and took out another credit card to continue the good times. They maxed that one out too. Now the Lib/Con coalition (and no I didn't vote for them) are like the concerned mother who uncovers the teenagers foolishness. She has to take control of all this manic spending to get the debt down, or young Johnny is going to be made bankrupt.

If you want to know what happens when a country goes bankrupt and its currency collapses, look at Argentina, look at Greece.

So it's quite simple.

Do you want austerity measures and cuts in public services and a possible double dip recession?
Or do you want a currency collapse, hyperinflation and a depression which wipes out the middle class.

I support none of the political parties. I will remember however who spent all the money in the coffers and more besides.

The CQC

2010-09-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

Got a very threatening and unhelpful book from the CQC today, outlining all the hoops of fire we will have to jump through.

One of the notable ones is the need for CRB checks. Wouldn't it just be easier for them to coordinate with our OTHER registration body, the GDC. If a dentist is ever arrested by the police, they inform the GDC....... so really CRB checks are a bit like a broken pencil (pointless).

I suspect the CQC will completely ignore the GDC, and will probably make them obsolete. They are also merely the initial wave of bureaucracy that is going to envelope us over the coming years. Ho hum

The most important film you will see this year

2010-09-08T12:13:00.000-07:00

One of the tings you will start to notice about this blog is that it's not all about dentistry.

There is a reason for this. The blog expresses a reflection of my interests. I have interests other than dentistry. One such interest is history. Several years ago I uncovered a little known book called

"The collapse of complex societies"

Every single empire has collapsed. Every civilisation (with the exclusion of our own) has collapsed.

The Babylonians
The Persians
The Eygyptians
The Greeks
The Romans
The Myans
The Incas
The Mongols
The Spanish
The Dutch
The French
The Prussians
The English (our wmpire is still contracting to this day)

All collapsed and either dissapeared or became a much smaller shadow of their former selves. And they collapse either due to internal strife....... or they run out of resources. We now have a global civilisation....... that is running out of virtually everything.

This is why everyone should watch this film

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAyHIOg5aHk

By the way, i am available for childrens parties ;)

3 kinds of people

2010-09-07T12:07:00.000-07:00

Whenever you try and do something, you are usually faced with 3 kinds of people:

Those that support you
Those that oppose you
Those that don't give a damn what you do

When it comes to those that oppose you, it can sometimes be quite difficult spotting this. Some will seem to support you, but will actually try and undermine your efforts through indirect means. And then there are others who will stand right in your face and tell you what you think. There's no point getting upset about it though. People will disagree with your ideas, it's just the way things are. And you know what, sometimes that is because your idea is absolutely rubbish.

But enough of that gibberish. We have some dental health news in the......... errrr news.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11182666 - Key reason 'found' for gum and heart disease link

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8700836.stm - Many 'too busy for a proper brush' of their teeth. Too busy my giddy Aunt. One wonders how long these individuals spend watching the one eyed hypnotist!!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10176410 - Brush teeth to 'prevent' heart disease. One does have to ask why these BBC articles always have pictures of toothbrushes with WAY too much toothpaste on them, but that's a differant matter.

Slavery

2010-09-05T04:22:00.000-07:00

(Here is the latest newsletter that went to my subscribers at GDP Resources)

Hello again

I know it’s totally unlike me, but I am going to discuss a controversial topic.

Slavery........... specifically financial slavery.

You see, we in the western world have been conned. We were brought up with an idea, a blueprint if you will of what is expected of us (I am basing this on the career path of a professional person):

• Go to school
• Leave school with good grades
• Either take a year out or go to University
• Qualify
• Start career
• Start a pension
• Buy a car
• Meet someone
• Buy a house
• Get married
• Have children
• Buy a new car
• Buy a bigger house
• Build up a business
• Send children to university
• Sell business
• Retire
• Play with grandchildren
• Potter about
• Die leaving a vast portion of your wealth to the state

A perfectly acceptable life. The thing is, there is no law that says you should live your life like that. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just very conventional. Here is another Blueprint

• Get born to an impoverished household
• Go to school
• Fail miserably in your exams
• Leave with no qualifications
• Be told you will amount to nothing
• Get arrested
• Be told it’s either the army or prison
• Enlist
• Go to Vietnam
• Get enlisted in Navy intelligence
• Volunteer for covert ops
• Leave with $900 in your pocket
• Start your own energy supply business using your kitchen room table, a phone book and a third hand fax machine
• Win a $400 million contract to supply diesel to the federal government
• Supply that diesel
• Marry the one woman you ever loved
• Have children
• Move to UK
• Buy a castle in Scotland
• Build the business up till it can be traded on UK stock exchange
• Sell your stake in said business for several billion pounds
• Hunt crocodiles in Africa
• Become a consultant to the rich
• Live the high life

Now that’s a blueprint. The second person defied all convention and defied accepted practice. He made his life his own, starting from nothing.

As professionals, the majority of us will make a large amount of money in our working career. But we will also spend most of that money and find ourselves having to work into our late 50’s and early 60’s so that we can retire. Parkinson’s law states “all expenses rise to meet available income”. You spend most of your working life working because you HAVE to, not because you WANT to. And if you truly love what you do, then this is no bad thing. To do a job you love, and do it well is one of life’s rare gifts.

Unfortunately most people don’t discover this gift under their Christmas tree. Most people get trapped in a job they hate that they know they can’t leave because they have bills to pay. Think about that for a second. They get a job they don’t like to pay for the house they want to live in close to the job they don’t like. They then spend money filling that house with stuff to take their mind off the job they don’t like........ that they just spent time at so as to get the money to pay for all their stuff.

Absolute madness.

But it goes further. They even borrow money they don’t have, to buy more stuff that they don’t need, and pay back vastly more than the money they borrowed...... which means they have to keep working at a job they hate. That my friends is slavery........... VOLUNTARY slavery. Have a look at the people around you in the cars, the buses, the trains and on the pavements the next time you travel to work. Play spot the happy face.

You won’t see any.

And what about you? How are you when you roll into work on a Monday morning? What image are you giving off to your staff? Are you a:

“Oh, fecking hell, it’s Monday.”

Or are you

“It’s SHOWTIME!!!”

Just a thought. So what can you do? Well, here’s the strangest of things. Your financial freedom plan should be the same, whether you love your job or hate it. In my Mastermind Alliance product, you get a piece of software that lets you calculate your freedom figure. This is the amount of money you need in the bank, so that the interest from this money pays all your expenses.

That figure is what you should be working towards. Because once you reach it, you no longer HAVE to work. But there’s nothing stopping you carrying on working if you want to.

And here’s a radical concept for you. Your will reach your financial freedom figure quicker........... if you don’t spend all your money on crap that you think will make you happy. And there’s nothing wrong with fancy holidays in the Maldives.......... but if you don’t like your job, is it worth sacrificing 50 weeks of the year just to pay for 2? Is that flash new BMW worth working an extra year at your job?

And come on guys, do you really want to be relying on your pension for your old age? Have you seen how volatile the stock market has become recently......... it’s still lower than it was 10 years ago. Invest for the long haul?........HA! (That wasn’t financial advice by the way, just so you know).

Here’s my blueprint

• Go to school
• Question everything they tell you
• Get good grades anyway
• Decide early what you want to do in life
• Do it, and if you don’t love it do something else
• If it floats your boat, find someone special to spend your life with.
• Become financially secure
• Become financially free
• Have enough money to live your dreams
• Die with a big cheesy grin on your face
• Do it all again in the next life

You are both the slave and the slave master. Time to choose which one you want to be for the rest of your life.

Regards

Stephen Hudson BDS, MFGDP, DRDP

Please help support the Sick Dentist Scheme and the BDA Benevolent fund by buying my book at Choose Your Reality. A proportion of the profits from its sale are split equally between these two charities

PS: Please feel free to pass this newsletter onto anyone you feel may be interested in it

GDP Resources

Disclaimer: S.Hudson or SNH Publications will not be held liable for any actions taken based on the information provided in this newsletters. This information is for entertainment only.

A very English Rebellion

2010-09-04T09:20:00.000-07:00

As much as i dislike Facebook, there are moments of sanity to be had. the following link is from Channel 4 news about a Facebook group encouraging people to move Mr Blairs new book to the Crime section of their local bookshop.

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/tony+blairaposs+book+takes+unexpected+journey/3759707

Well, it made me chuckle

Atlas Shrugged

2010-09-03T07:16:00.000-07:00

Of the hundreds of books I have read over my years on this planet, there are three that stands out more than any other. "Atlas Shrugged", "1984" and "The richest man in Babylon".

I briefly wish to talk about Atlas Shrugged, because it relates to a conversation I had over a nice curry lass night. In case you haven't read it, it is a fictional account of what happens to a country when innovation and the capitalist spirit is smothered by Socialist doctrine, red tape and Big Brother diktat.

Written decades ago, it now seems that we are venturing into this very arena, only in a slightly different form. The small business owner, the lifeblood of the country is being smothered by regulation upon regulation that does little if nothing to promote commerce in any form. We are being strangled whilst large corporations run rampant across the land doing pretty much as they please.

You only have to see how some Clinical Waste removal companies are acting dishonourably to see how fecked up the system has become. Their use of lies and bully boy tactics is not backed up by any semblance of customer service. When it comes to the law of contracts, they are unfortunately in dishonour. Many of them are in breach of contract.

Time for us all to send them a message I think. I will talk about this more in my next email newsletter. To sign up for FREE, go to www.gdpresources.com

You can't keep a good man down

2010-09-01T13:27:00.000-07:00

A blog is sometimes the last thing on ones mind when illness strikes. After suffering from a prolonged chronic illness that almost ended my dental career, the blog is back. The illness is there, but it is also a shadow of its former self.

Now, let's knuckle down and make some money

What do you WANT???

2010-08-08T06:34:00.000-07:00

Hello again..... you will need a pen and a piece of paper.

Many people think they know what they want, but is that actually the case? We live in a consumer society run by a FIAT monetary system. We are bombarded day and night by adverts for this product and that. We are told what to think, what to wear, what to say and what to buy. For some of us, our thoughts aren’t our own, they were given to us. Public norms and conventions tell us how to behave and tell us how to rebel. Original thought is tolerated at best, scorned by the masses at worst. (And with the internet, one now has to question whether anyone can actually have an original thought.)

We police ourselves. We police each other.

It’s OK to have an opinion, so long as it isn’t deemed to be “controversial”. And it has always been like this, ever since mankind developed consciousness. Order, convention, stability. Those that threaten to rock the boat are tossed overboard. Perhaps they are the lucky ones

But thankfully, an occasional mind will sneak through the gaps and then the whole world changes.

Galileo
Martin Luther
Leonardo Da vinci
Shakespeare
Fibonacci
Newton
Henry Ford
Ghandi
Einstein
Rosa Parks
Martin Luther King
Hawkins

Great minds create great change. Some spent their whole lives working towards a single goal. Others just decided one day to defy convention, to sit at the front of the bus, to say “Screw You”.

You don’t have to be a genius to change the world. You don’t have to be rich, you don’t have to be powerful. You just have to possess the force of will to know what you want.

So what do YOU want? You know most people haven’t actually sat down and seriously asked themselves that question. Why don’t you try it now. Over the next 5 minutes, write down everything you can think of that you want in life. I’ll wait.

So how did you do? Well, I know that at least half of you reading this didn’t even bother. I know, you’re too busy, you haven’t got a pen, it’s a Tuesday, Orion is in ascendance and you couldn’t POSSIBLY offend the great space goat by being so presumptuous. It’s ok, I understand.

All excuses are just that, excuses. I don’t mind if you didn’t do it. After all, it’s your life. Of course in my belief system, if you don’t know what you want......... how will you ever get it?

For those of you who did, there will be different results. You will have a vision of where you want to be in the future. Some of you will even be playing pictures and movies in your minds. But why did you choose those wants? You chose those wants based on you values and your beliefs.

As an example, what do you think someone who believes deep down that the rich are all scumbags and that money is the root of all evil will want? It’s probably fair to say that becoming wealthy won’t be on their list.

If you value security, stability and certainty, you’re probably not going to want to go sky diving in the foreseeable future.

If you want significance, if you want to feel important and special..... you’re probably going to want a big house, a big car, a big job and an attractive spouse to parade around with. Maybe a title.

So what do you want?

And why do you want it?

For those of you who took part, that’s your next task. Take each item and ask yourself:

“Why do i want this?”

Let’s go deep into the rabbit hole.

You want a 1967 Chevy Impala? Why?
You want to do an Iron Man Triathlon? Why?
You want to be a millionaire? Why?
You want to retire at 65 and spend your retirement in the garden? Why?
You want qualifications and letters after your name and be a big cheese on the lecture circuit? Why?
You want your Daughter to be a Doctor or a Lawyer? Why?
You want to sit in front of the TV and watch the Omnibus edition of Hollyoaks? Why?

Why do you want what you want? That’s the question you should be asking yourself. Did you know that most of the answers to those why questions will have the same answer. When you have your basic human needs met, when you have health, food, heat, shelter and water you are past NEEDS. Everything else becomes wants. And deep down wants pretty much all come down to one thing.

Happiness.

That’s it. People want to be happy; unfortunately most of them don’t know how to be happy on a consistent regular basis. They think that buying that car, that dress, that house, that kitchen, that holiday, that DVD, that pizza.............. will make them happy. And it might, but only briefly.

Compulsion, greed, addiction, anger, power, and opinion aren’t the answer.

Compassion, contribution and finding out who you are........... that’s my belief as to what brings happiness. You can’t find happiness in the eyes of another until that other is your own reflection. You are already happy, you just don’t know how to switch it on.

When was the last time you laughed, to the extent that tears were streaming down your face? When was the last time that you felt so content that you could just sit for hours watching the wind play with the trees? When was the last time that your heart actually ached with joy?

You think that can be bought with bloody paper IOU’s with an old woman’s face printed on them?

So what do you really want? And how do you fulfil those wants?

Do you have a plan to get where you want to be?

Do you want one?

If you do, then I would recommend my Mastermind Alliance product http://www.gdpresources.com/Mastermind.shtml

Remember one thing, this product is not for everyone. Only those motivated by personal growth should even consider its purchase. But for those of you who seek something better than where you are now, go on buy it, you know you want to ;)

Regards

Stephen Hudson BDS, MFGDP, DRDP

Please help support the Sick Dentist Scheme and the BDA Benevolent fund by buying my book atChoose Your Reality. A proportion of the profits from its sale are split equally between these two charities

PS: Please feel free to pass this onto anyone you feel may be interested in it

GDP Resources

Disclaimer: S.Hudson or SNH Publications will not be held liable for any actions taken based on the information provided in this newsletters. This information is for entertainment only.

Warning – Opinions enclosed

2010-07-06T07:01:00.000-07:00

Hello again

It’s another week in austerity land, and our glorious leader (who has replaced the previous glorious leader) is asking for your opinions. Yes that’s right, they want to know what you THINK. It’s like a huge country wide version of that pointless programme “Question time”.

Your government would like you, the public to nominate laws and regulations they would like to see abolished. It’s all Radio 4 seem to be talking about at the moment, and it’s absolutely masterful.

Masterful????

Yes, masterful. The British public (especially the middle class) loves to chunter. We might not be any good at football, but boy can we tell you our opinions. Well here’s my mindless opinion.............. nothing will come of this.

It’s a smoke screen. It’s a way of saying “See, we are listening.” Yes they might alter one or two things to try and prove this exercise had a point, but no great changes will amount from this. It is simply a tool to divert your attention and give the media another means to tell you how to think.

You didn’t think this was being done for your benefit did you? Hell, I even found myself getting wrapped up in the spin........ for about 5 minutes. But that’s the amazing thing about radios, they come with off buttons. If only we used them more often. Now how’s that for an opinion?

You see, we are about to enter a very difficult period in the history of this country. If you think the public spending cuts being proposed are harsh, well you aint seen nothing yet. These are just the appetisers, mere canapés. The main course arrives next year.

For a while there, I actually thought the government was going to try and hyperinflate away our debt. But with billions being pulled from public spending, and banks still refusing to lend, the numbers show we are heading in the opposite direction. That’s not my opinion by the way, just the opinion of someone else who claims to know how to read the numbers.

Deflation seems to be where we are heading. And that’s fine if you haven’t got any debt or don’t own any assets, because with deflation, cash is king.

Could I be wrong here? Hell yes. I’m wrong all the time. And it would be nice to imagine that the economy can tick over as it has been, but that isn’t going to happen, not in the short term. In the short term, millions will be made unemployed, the economy will shrink and your public services will suffer. I know this because it said so on Radio 4 yesterday .............. erm, hang on.

I know that opinion sounds bad, but it’s better than the alternative. Inflating and debasing the currency would have been a disaster.... in someone else’s opinion. It would have been like trying to cure an alcoholic by getting him drunk. Our debt must be repaid before it gets too big to service. If it gets too big to service, we go into default, and then the currency goes down the toilet..... along with any and all of your wealth. And think of the opinions the population would have about that.

As an example, just do a bit of research into what happened in Argentina. The middle class were destroyed. At least in deflation there will be a middle class left in this country.

Does this mean I agree with the Tory spending cuts? No! I don’t think they are cutting enough, and where they are cutting is in the wrong places. But then that statement is based on my opinions...... most of which aren’t actually mine. They were “borrowed” from the minds of others and lumped together into something I claim to be mine. My knowledge of economics is limited, so really, how the hell can I have an opinion that is actually valid?

I can’t. And that’s the point that most people don’t realise. Most of our opinions are meaningless. But then, that’s just my opinion.

Ok, ok, enough. I hope you see what I am trying to do here. I am merely trying to point out that most of our opinions aren’t actually ours. They were given to use by someone or something. Now ask me how to do a composite, that’s something I can have a valid opinion on. Why? Because it’s my field of expertise and I do them daily. But ask me about Climate Gate or whether I should be using plastic bags for my shopping and really have no idea. Whatever I say would merely be a guess based on the information I have collected over the years.

And my opinions change constantly. What about yours?

One of my opinions that has not changed is my belief in the importance of systems in business. I know I’m preaching to the converted (I know because my records show that most of the people reading this have bought my Practice Systems Templates, and in 5 years only 1 person has ever asked for their money back), but systemisation is key to the smooth running of your practice. Yes you can still make money without them, and yes you can still enjoy dentistry, but systems make things so much easier.

But why make things more difficult for yourself? Doesn’t make any sense to me.

Keep smiling

Regards

Stephen Hudson BDS, MFGDP, DRDP

Please help support the Sick Dentist Scheme and the BDA Benevolent fund by buying my book atChoose Your Reality. A proportion of the profits from its sale are split equally between these two charities

PS: Please feel free to pass this newsletter onto anyone you feel may be interested in it

GDP Resources

Disclaimer: S.Hudson or SNH Publications will not be held liable for any actions taken based on the information provided in this newsletters. This information is for entertainment only.

Doctors and Dentists Review Body

2008-04-07T08:05:00.000-07:00

The contract increase will be 3.4%. That makes a change from what we usually get!!

Am I beating a DEAD horse???

2008-03-30T09:46:00.000-07:00

I know, I know I sound all misery and gloom. My friends used to call me Perma bear because I refused to buy a house and wouldn't invest in stocks. But the last year or so, they have begun to understand my reasoning. Ok, this was mainly because I wanted to concentrate on my business and had limited capital, but there was always a deep nagging doubt in the back of my head.

The problem with a bubble, of any kind, is that it is almost impossible to tell the top. So I was quite happy to step aside for the last several years because I didn't want to be caught at the top. Was I right to do this, hell I don't know. But I spent the time concentrating on my business, and not dabbling in other things and that seems to have worked quite well. The one thing I was certain I would never do is to get overextended in debt.

Now the media is awash with doom and gloom stories. you cannot miss them, even if you tried. Even when bullish sentiment gets into the media it is castrated by howling voices of derision. Here's an example:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/03/23/ccliam123.xml

The responses to his post are not very favourable.

Does this mean we will enter into a recession? Again, I don't know. It certainly looks like we will. And I know what you're asking, what the frickin heck has this got to do with a blog on NHS dentistry? Well, like it or not, your practice is a business, and businesses have to survive recessions. For those of us in the NHS, it would seem there is a beacon of hope to ride through the choppy seas. it looks like ring fencing will be extended to 2011. if the recession hits hard (and we should know by the beginning of next year if this will be the case) then 15000 practices all going private in a sea of unemployment, bankruptcies and house repossession may not make the best business sense. How likely is a housing downturn......... well, here is another link.

http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/pdf/abn-amro-home-truths-04042007.pdf

I still feel that our future lies outside the NHS, but (to steal a famous Scotsman's saying) one has to be prudent about this. Whatever plans you make for the next five years MUST take into account economic realities of our present time.

Just a thought

Health Select Committee

2008-03-10T07:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's final evidence session for the Health Select Committee

http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/VideoPlayer.aspx?meetingId=1269

BDA press release

2008-02-28T07:59:00.000-08:00

*Half a million in England lose access to NHS dentistry*

Statistics published today by The Information Centre offer further evidence that the Government's 2006 reforms are failing to achieve their aim of improving access to NHS dentistry.

The figures show that more than half a million people across England have lost access to NHS dentistry since the implementation of reforms in April 2006.The statistics show that 27,602,000 patients were seen by an NHS dentist in England in the 24 months up to 30 September 2007, compared to 28,145,000 in the 24 months up to 31 March 2006, a reduction of 543,000 patients.

This figure is in addition to the approximately two million people that the Department of Health acknowledges wanted access but were unable to get it before March 2006.Susie Sanderson, Chair of the BDA's Executive Board, said:"Today's statistics offer fresh evidence that the Government's reforms to NHS dentistry have failed to achieve the stated aim of improving access to care for patients. The reforms have also failed to allow dentists to deliver the kind of modern, preventive care they believe their patients deserve."The loss of access to NHS dental care for half a million patients is a milestone in the failure of these reforms. It's time for the Government to start listening to patients and dentists and work with the profession to find constructive solutions to address the problems with these reforms."

Unfortunately the government won't listen because we don'y shout loud enough!!

Its that time of year again

2008-02-12T12:12:00.000-08:00

Dentists will fall into one of two camps at this moment in time. there will those who will have pretty much done their UDA's (pronounced UDERS) and will be putting their feet up a bit, maybe going on holiday or just taking it easy. The other camp won't even be close to doing their UDA's and will be cramming whatever treatment they can through the door to make up the numbers.

For many patients, their experience of being treated in March will fall into, again, one of two camps. They either won't be able to get an appointment because their dentist is either full up or at UDA maximum, or they will be able to get an appointment, but it will entail sitting in a packed waiting room whilst the dentist runs late on his New Contract Treadmill.

Remember what I have always said on my website:

If you are working more than 4 days a week chairside, you are doing something wrong
If you are having less than 6 weeks `holiday, you are doing something wrong
If you are routinely working into your lunch hour, you are doing something wrong
If you are more than 2 weeks booked up, you are going to compromise your cash flow.... and guess what, that probably means you are doing something wrong :)

Nuff said

The LDC delegation meets the CDO

2008-02-03T07:24:00.000-08:00

Some interesting little nuggets of information have surfaced from this meeting:

There is a problem with LDC's funding
Local Commissioning is here to stay with dentistry leading and the others in the NHS will follow.
With regards to additional 11% uplift, this money is recurring and no defined timescale would be imposed by the DoH on PCTs in planning its use.
Concern was raised that previous guidance on year end issues was largely ignored. Guidance is apparently a method where PCTs can act differently but have a coherent reason why, whereas direction is a "must do". In other words they have no set blueprint to follow. Interesting that RIngfencing is a Guidance and not a direction.
"Access" has been defined as a service within reasonable distance from home of reasonable "quality". What the frak does that mean??????
"Quality" was defined as appropriate treatment from an appropriate clinician in appropriate setting. Ok, that makes everything so much clearer. Phew, I was worried there. Damn it, they didn't define appropriate......... we could have gone on like that for hours!!!!!!!
There was further denial of miscalculation of contract targets - so John Renshaw must be wrong then, although somehow I don't think he is.
Apparently when in discussions with practitioners, PCT' s should take into account the practitioners experience and dedication to the NHS, and treat them as a valued resource. You know, I feel almost floaty having read that. I think I will find myself a field and dance among the flowers. PCT's may well treat GDP's as valued resources, but that isn't going to stop Clawback

Blah blah blah blah :)

As I said, you can stay in the NHS and deal with the regulations, the bloated buerocracy and the threat of Clawback and a PCT suddenlt strapped for cash........... or you can make your way to the Exit door. It's the one over there with the word PRIVATE written on it in large glowing Gold letters. Your choice..... BUT, also take account of the economic factors affecting this country. Going private at the hieghts of a recession, for example, may not be the wisest move.

2008-01-24T16:41:00.000-08:00

I thought I would reprint one of my old newsletters for your entertainment. The newsletters are free and are delivered by email every two weeks. You can sign up for them by going to www.gdpresources.com and entering your information.

Hello again, and welcome to those who have recently joined us

Traditionally, people come to the dentist for one of 3 reasons.

i) a check up
ii) Pain / problems
iii) An appointment for treatment

They worry about coming to the appointment, which takes a lot of courage for some people. They often come to an uninviting, cold building where they are met, often, by a surely receptionist, who may even ignore the patient for several minutes. They then sit, often in a cold waiting room, with the latest in last decades magazines. They often have no idea when they will be seen. When they are called through to see the “dentist” with no real idea of what is to be “done” to them. And this is before the treatment starts. Horrible isn’t it? This might not be how YOUR practice is, but it still represents the reality of a large number of practices out there.

Even when the practice is properly run, it takes a while for the old experiences to be cancelled out, because we are dealing with frightened people. From mild unease to severe phobic reaction, the vast majority of people associate the dental surgery with fear. The main reason being that for the last 100 years, people have gone to the dentist about their teeth, and the pain associated with them. People didn’t know what caused dental disease. They just saw the dentist as someone who fixed things, who repaired teeth, often painfully. And of course there is that god awful scale and polish every six months.
People are also apprehensive about the cost. A lot of people still don’t understand that NHS dentistry is no longer free (for most), and that quality dentistry is now expensive. They still think that all dentists drive flash cars, and live in big houses. The newspapers and consumer programs are regularly sprouting the message that dentists rip you off. The same media then talks about all the lovely treatments available to your teeth, and the large sums involved. Some people get confused. They don’t realise that, yes, dentists often do have a higher standard of living than most people, but they don’t see the other side. What isn’t seen is the large number of dentists who are in financial, medical and psychological trouble. Is there a better way? Of course there is.

The traditional NHS practice worked under the following model: Drill, Fill & Bill. There was no money for prevention, so prevention was not done. Telling someone to brush and floss is not effective OHI. It can take several years, over a number of sessions, to teach the skills needed to look after their mouths. So what happened was that both the dentist and the patient stepped onto a treadmill of decay and repair. The mouth of the patient slowly deteriorated, and so did the health of the dentist. As a profession, we no longer have the highest suicide rate, but we are still pretty close to the top. I think we are now beaten by doctors and psychiatrists. This is not good. Things have to change, but we as professionals have to be the ones to change it.

We cannot rely on the government, because at the end of the day the government will do whatever it needs to get re-elected. We can only rely on ourselves as practice owners. Your practice is a business, and you need to treat it as such. The average practitioner works 5-6 days a week, and treats whatever is booked onto his or her day list. However, they don’t take the time needed to spend time ON their business, something that cannot be done when they are working IN their business. If you are working more than 4 days a week, you are (in my opinion) doing something wrong. You are living for dentistry, not using dentistry to make a living.
And people have many excuses as to why they work more than 4 days a week (I know I used to). But you know what? At one time I worked 5 and a half days a week. Now I work 4 days, and I am making more money than I ever did. And no, I didn’t go private; I am still an NHS practitioner. I just choose to work smarter, not harder. So what did I do?

I got rid of my abusive, aggressive and unappreciative patients. And I am about to get rid of some more. 3 months notice, bye. This, to me is the big one. This alone can radically improve the profitability of ANY practice. Just think of the time freed up in your appointment book.
I have excellent staff and pay them as well as I can
I bought an intra-oral camera – it is a god send
I offer every patient every option for their treatment
I formulated an ethical effective sales system, which you can learn more about at http://www.gdpresources.com/products3.shtml
I take the time to learn what patients want, not what they need.
I ask my best patients to refer me their friends and family.
I systemised my practice so that I wasn’t being constantly hassled by my staff over “little things”. We are not talking practice management here, nor are we talking clinical governance. We are talking the basic stuff. You can learn more about these systems at http://www.gdpresources.com/products1.shtml
I took time out to work on my business so that I could plan for the future.
When I bought the practice, I made sure I had an exit strategy.
I joined a gym, and started eating right. You wouldn’t believe what a difference that has made.
I keep a strict control of my finances, and save up for every major purchase. The only thing I ever bought on finance was an OPG machine, but that is only because it pays for itself.
I wrote an Emergency management system which again is for sale on my website

I am not trying to impress you. I am trying to impress upon you that there are ways to change the focus of your practice, but it takes a lot of hard work and it takes time. It also takes a complete change in the thinking of the dentist. You are not the only dentist on the planet. If you don’t like a patient, maybe they can be better served by a dentist more in tune with their personality. That old (and soon to be extinct) strategy of registering everything that could breath always confused me. Why treat people you don’t like. No matter how professional you are, the fact that you don’t like them (and that they often don’t like you) WILL affect the way you interact with them. And when something goes wrong, who do you think is going to be the first to sue you?

The NHS defends itself

2008-01-19T06:16:00.000-08:00

NHS hits back at dentist claims

Published on 18/01/2008

(my comments in GREEN)

THE NHS has refuted claims there are serious problems accessing national health dentists.
The North West has been hit the hardest by a shortage of NHS dentists. The introduction of the new dental contract in April 2006 led to thousands of dentists opting out of the NHS.
Since then more than a third of people in England and Wales have not visited a dentist, according to a Citizens Advice Bureau survey (that's about 7 million people according to some reports).

Lack of access to the NHS was the most commonly cited reason, mentioned by 31 per cent of those who have not been to an NHS dentist since that time. Citizens Advice chief executive David Harker said: "These figures show the scale of the lack of access to NHS dentistry, reflecting the evidence which bureaus across England and Wales have been reporting ever since the early 90s. People on low incomes are particularly affected as private treatment is just not an option." (I won't get into the debate that, whilst there are many genuine poor, many more people on so called "low incomes" still have a considerable amount of discretionary spending)
The charity said it welcomed the 11 per cent increase in government funding for NHS dentistry from this year.

Mr Harker said: "This has the potential to deliver real improvements in access to dentistry but it needs to be carefully targeted on those areas where patients are experiencing the most acute problems. Primary Care Trusts have a duty to ensure that dentistry services meet local requirements and it is vital that they start planning how to allocate their additional funds now." (these are the same PCT's that got shafted by the governments miscalculations of Patients Fees received. It wouldn't surprise me if much of this money gets swallowed up dealing with shortfalls and bureaucracy)
The Department of Health said it measures access by the number of people who have seen a dentist (I saw a dentist the other day, he was in tescos!!!) in the previous two years and the latest figures show that 60 per cent of the North West's population have visited their dentist in that time compared to 55 per cent for England as a whole.
"There is often a gap between perception and what is actually happening on the ground," said chief executive of NHS North West,Mike Farrar.
"Access to dental services in the region has been remarkably constant in recent years which is why we are puzzled by the CAB's claims. (perhaps access has been consistently bad?)
"We know there is scope for improvement in some areas and in March 2007 we asked all PCTs to produce local oral health strategies to set out how they will improve dental health and access to dental services." So not only were most PCT's being reorganised, chopped up and moved, you were also asking them to produce reports on a topic they had never really had to deal with before April 2006. And besides, there is no way nGDS can improve dental health because there is no provision for prevention in the contract. Without prevention, you cannot have health improvements. It's not frickin rocket science, and despite what the CDO says, until the system actually pays for and encourages for prevention, it isn't going to happen in a way that is going to have any effect. That's just the way it is.

It's the economy stupid

2008-01-15T13:10:00.000-08:00

Because we are entering a recession, with the economy about as healthy as a asthmatic in a smoke house, I will be focusing my blog on the economic health of the country. I know you don't think that has anything to do with dentistry, but ask someone who was practising in the 70's and I am sure they will disagree. The economy has EVERYTHING to do with running a practice, especially with the safety net of the NHS collapsing around our ears.

Very shortly the bank of England will start cutting rates again, which will have the effect of driving up the price of everything imported into this country. As we are now a net importer of oil, and as oil is used for pretty much everything, I don't need to tell you what this means. Cutting rates damages the strength of Sterling, especially against the Euro. Yes, it might make credit cheaper, but we are entering a period of credit contraction. It will be a while before we see any easy credit, and the days when you could get a loan for your practice with no collateral are pretty much over...... at least for a while.

I remember when I tried to get my first practice purchase loan. The first tow banks wanted me to not only sign over my soul, but they also wanted written guarantees from the great maker that the soul was actually worth something. The of course came the Royal bank of Scotland, who gladly threw money my way, and off we went.

The thing that happens in credit contractions is that people stop spending money. With their credit cards maxed out, and the equity in their house disappearing as the housing market slumps, people close their wallets and stop buying luxuries. Luxuries like tooth whitening and cosmetic dentistry. Having your toothache sorted is a necessity, but having Invisalign on your wonky teeth isn't. When money is scarce, necessities come first. Food on the table, and heat in the radiator. Gym memberships, Pizzas and second cars suddenly become an unexpected strain. A million people in the USA are close to having their homes repossessed, a million people in the worlds largest economy. The stock market looks ready to give back all the gains from the last few years, and Christmas for shop owners was a complete nightmare. You can hide you head in the sands, or you can PLAN for what might be several years of severe economic pain.

Recessions are healthy. They are necessary. Unfortunately, do to manipulation by governments and central banks, this recession will be worse than is should have been. With our housing market now starting to decline, the British consumer has reached the end of his economic rope. We are all spent out. Anyone thinking of undertaking major practice alterations/relocation's/readjustments may want to think twice. 2009/2010 may well see several thousand dentists enter the private sector, just as people start to feel their Bank accounts heavy with debt and light of savings. People will become angry, and if we are not careful their anger will be aimed towards us. If the economy goes into a major recession (and Gordon, you will have a lot to be held accountable for if it does) then the profession will be seen to be abandoning the public in its hour of need. Imagine the newspaper headlines on that one.

"AS PEOPLE LOSE THEIR JOBS, DENTISTS THINK ONLY OF THE MONEY"

The BDA's feeble mumblings that "dentists have a bad deal from the new contract" will be meaningless. You have to take this into account. if you choose to leave the NHS for the private sector (and it is still my opinion that you should) you have to take this all into account. We have to do it the right way, even if it means treating some of the most deserving in our communities for nothing.

And I want to repeat something. It is my opinion that you should leave the NHS. The PCT's themselves will be facing pricing pressures as government revenues sink. Your income will not be guaranteed, so you might as well work with the local population in a way that is affordable and ethical than risk it all on a paycheck that might not be there in 3 months. Businesses can still thrive in a recession. they just have to be prepared, frugal and sensible.

Recession?

2008-01-08T13:58:00.000-08:00

It occurs to me that there are business cycles, created partially by the availability of credit. When credit is readily available, businesses are able to expand using borrowed money from banks and investment agencies that offer easy terms at low interest rates. As the economy heats up, more money is borrowed by more and more people. The banks, not wanting to miss out on good thing, start to be less vigilant in their lending policies. More and more people and businesses that cannot really afford the money they are borrowing are sucked into the credit frenzy, usually by short term preferential introductory rates.

This is what happened in America when the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to 1%. The so called Subprime market that developed sucked in people of low income and poor credit history, fooling them to fool themselves that they could afford a $500,000 home even though they were only earning $10 at Walmart.

Unfortunately, credit booms are always followed by credit contractions, where the easily available credit gets withdrawn from the market. It becomes harder to get credit, and the banks get more stringent on repayments. This period usually occurs when people start to default on their payments on mass, resulting in losses. In the old days the bank would take the loss, repossess the home or the asset, and after a period of months all the dead wood would be flushed from the system allowing the credit cycle to reset.

It's a little bit different this time. The American banks, in their wisdom, sold on the mortgages so that they were no longer liable. Wall street firms wrapped this Subprime debt up with other debt in various instruments, and then insured these instruments int he event of default. Nobody seems to know where all this dodgy debt is, and as such none of the banks are willing to lend to each other. They also want to keep as much cash as possible for fear of their own investments being hit by this subprime timebomb. The credit gets withdrawn from the market, businesses no longer have access to easy money and start to fail, people get made unemployed........ and the favourable introductory interest rates on millions of American and Uk mortgages reset at much height levels. Repossessions and loan defaults skyrocket and the whole economy sinks into a recession as the consumer shuts his wallet and refuses to buy.

Americas top investment bank now says that the US is in a Recession. Roughly 15% of our exports go to the US, and the Christmas retail period was an absolute disaster. This will hit the UK hard, just at the time when PCT's are getting ready to deal with the new paradigm of 2009. Hundreds, if not thousands of dentists may leave the NHS to enter the private sector JUST AS the UK economy enters a recession. Massive increase in the overall cost of dentistry with a decrease in its availability and a decrease in the consumers ability to pay.

It's a possible scenario, so it's worth planning for. This isn't financial advice by the way, just thoughts that are probably wrong. After all Gordon's in charge!

Remember, the new contract is GOOD for patients!!!

2008-01-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

It must be true because the CDO said so. Not only is it good for patients, but its good for dentists as well apparently. Now excuse me Dr Cockcroft but I was under the impression that nGDS had cost the tax paying public an extra £60 million in NHS dental charges. And then of course you have the 500 or so dentists that have left in disgust over the last 18 months, joining the private sector because most of them felt they had no choice.

And what is the end result of all this. There are fewer NHS dentists, with 250000 fewer patients seeing an NHS dentist. So tell me, is it good for patients that it is costing them more? Is it good for patients that fewer of them can actually find an NHS dentist? I was under the impression that the new contract was supposed to resolve the access issue. Did anyone actually believe that.

And even now many people don't understand the new system. Now I would gladly give my patients the nifty little information leaflet that the government created to explain it all......... but we were only sent 200 originally, and these were then recalled about 2 weeks later because of the bit where it said you could have dentures made for about £50. Have we had any fresh information leaflets since?

No - we have a poster, which is very nice I suppose.

Have we had a written manual on where and when to claim what fee band?

No - you can phone up the BSA (the government agency that deals with the collection and collation of payment data) three times with the same question and sometimes get three different answers. Oh and there are those stange Q&A lists on the BSA website, but they don't really help.

We have a situation now where most NHS practice owners now have no confidence in the new contract. We now have a situation where less people can access an NHS dentist, and when they do it invariably costs more. We also now have a situation where dentists are having to put their entire focus on the generation of targets........ because it's financial suicide for their business if they don't (you cannot deliver healthcare to your patients if your business is bancrupt). So, as I ask Dr Cockcroft, how is this better for patients? I need it explaining to me because I'm really thick and I don't understand.

The True Treadmill

2008-01-03T07:22:00.000-08:00

I hear it said time and again that nGDS was introduced to removed dentists from the dreaded treadmill. Well, if you believe that, then I have some American Subprime debt I would really like to sell you.

Let's get this straight. Under the old contract, the treadmill was NOT a creation of the system, it was a result of how the dentist worked in the system. By cramming your appointment book with everything that decided to walk through your door you:

Ruined your cashflow (because nothing ever got finished)
Ruined your health (because you never got a break and were working too hard)
Ruined your ethical standing (because you missed things, rushed things and patched things)
Ruined your skills (because you never spent the time to go on those courses and do the job properly)

So you worked harder when the government cut the fees, proving that you could earn the same by doing more work. NEVER do that to a bureaucrat, because he will just carry on doing that until steam comes out of your arse. Instead, we should have slowed down, spent time with our patients to find out what they actually wanted. To do this, you had to purge your appointment book of those individuals that didn't appreciate your time.

The late arrivers
The late payers
The obnoxious
The lecherous
The non attenders

Why did we as a profession continue to treat these people? The vast majority of the people who sue you are those people that fall into these categories. And yet we, as a profession put up with them.

But I'm getting distracted. OGDS was a treadmill by choice, nGDS/PDS is a treadmill by design. To stay in this system, you have to work towards targets that were invariably calculated unfairly. Many dentists were asked to do too many UDA's, resulting in a shortfall and clawback. How can a dentist tell how many UDA's he can ethically do in a year when the system is untried and untested. Targets in Healthcare is a disgraceful concept. Whoever thought this up should be ashamed. You have a fixed monthly payment, based on a level of activity that was greater than most dentists actually did (whilst removing actual items of treatment that the dentists can do to meet the targets - e.g. Ortho), in a system where the costs of running the practice are rising year on year. The only way to offset the rising expenses is to do more private work. But this risks not leaving enough time to meet your targets, which risks clawback and a reduction in contract value. It's a vicious circle, with no way back if you should choose to step off the treadmill and risk going fully private.

And the fact that we have targets PROVES that the new contract is not about preventing disease. The whole point of prevention is to stop people having work done. Thus if you successfully run a preventive practice........ how the hell can you meet targets when targets are based on the surgical intervention of the disease process. So by being an ethical dentist, and by actually improving the health of your patient base........... you get penalised. It's absolute fricking insanity, and ANYONE who promoted this as being good for dentist and good for patients needs to be strongly informed that they are wrong.

Just a thought

A new Year is here

2007-12-31T06:27:00.000-08:00

Welcome to 2008

I have moved my blog here, because the old one was becoming increasingly difficult to administer....... which is why it was more of a monthly blog than a daily one :(

To be honest, the only real incident worth noting was the recent realisation by my PCT that they had given us too many UDA's to do. It would seem that the original UDA calculations were flawed, and this has been corrected. So instead of being 1000 UDA's short and facing clawback, we find ourselves 200 over. Now that was a nice Christmas present.

Now unlike many dentists out there, the reason we were short is because we didn't change the way we worked. We didn't have 5 minute check up appointments, and we didn't make single tooth partials for extracted lower 8's. We did dentistry the best way we knew how, and if the patient wanted their crown doing on the NHS, then we did it. Our NHS crown technician still seems to make a reasonable crown for a reasonable cost........ and he is one of the ones that isn't suffering under the new contract. He seems to make a concerted effort to raise his standards. And of course if they wanted it privately then we gladly did that for them also, and damn the UDA's.

Targets do one thing for health care, and that's ruin it. oGDS was the most productive, efficient and underfunded aspect of the NHS. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't broken to such a degree that we needed to focre 10% of the workforce into the private sector. The new contract will destroy NHS dentistry. It will eventually result in a core service manned by depressed, under skilled dentists, employed by corporate behemoths who care little for the well being of the employees or the patients.

More and more dentists will migrate to the private sector, taking those with the ability to pay with them. Everyone else will have to make do with whatever service remains. Even more so than at present, it will be a lottery. Ten years from now NHS dentists will be a collection of students, oversees graduates, corporate monsters and a few die hard NHS fanatics. Those practice owners with any serious business sense will have left. Those patients wanting any kind of meaningful patient journey will have left with them.

Who can say what the future will bring. One thing I do know, it will bring wealth to those who are ready to go forward into the brave new world.