English: Human Capital Investment Model!! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If UK Chancellor, George Osborne was the Lone Ranger and I was loading his six-gun with silver bullets  for his Budget speech to Parliament on Thursday, I would recommend the following:

1. SMALL BUSINESSES

Small businesses are much more effective in creating jobs than large businesses, so there needs to be a big stimulus for small businesses. especially for creating jobs and investment

2. YOUTH UNEMPLOYED: TRAINING

There are billions of Euros being offered by the European Commission to retrain young people and reduce youth unemployment. George Osborne needs to harness these resources effectively, matching increased national skills, with potential demand. Practical skills and apprenticeships, along the German model, would be a good start point. Another enormous opportunity is language skills; this is required to increase sales penetration in BRICS countries; also learning languages like German would be beneficial for skilled people to tap in to German growth.

3. CONSOLIDATE PUBLIC SECTOR

Despite all the squealing, there are still enormous opportunities for further consolidation in the Public Sector, like for example removing “care” from Local Authority management; rationalizing number of Local Authorities, Police & Fire Services etc. There are still opportunities to rationalize the number of Central Government departments. Front and back-offices services should be streamlined, rationalized, outsourced and off-shored wherever possible, provided that it was in the national interest.

4. INVESTMENT

There are still opportunities for leveraging growth, with greater stimulation for capital investment. Companies should be given aggressive tax incentives for further capital investment. There are still excellent opportunities for Public Sector investment, like infrastructure, benefiting from the historically low levels of borrowing costs.

5. EXPORTS

Businesses should be given enormous fiscal incentives to increase exports

6. NATIONAL SERVICE

There is an opportunity to bring back compulsory National Service, along the lines of Israel’s example; two years for women and three years for men, at the age of eighteen. National Service could increase the skill-base, compensate for cuts in the tri-services, and potentially deploy military leadership to address social challenges.

Any thoughts?

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