How the rich and powerful extract wealth from the economy and control our democracy.
SHORT-CHANGED.COM is dedicated to explaining why our present economy is not being managed in the best interests of 90 per cent of the population of the UK. This is fully explained in my book SHORT-CHANGED!, which will be published in October 2021. More importantly, the book proposes what we could do about it, if only more of us understood how our economy actually works. It is not as difficult as the rich and powerful, who control our economy, would have us believe. This is hardly surprising since they have hijacked it to serve their own best interests rather than those of us all. This is irrespective of which political party is in power.
I hope that the website will, not only support the launch of my book, but also become a continuing resource for all those who believe that we need to find a better way of doing it. Quite simply, our current political and economic system is no longer fit for purpose and it is up to all of us to change it for the better. Neither those in power nor those that presently seek power have the capacity to do so. They are constrained by the system, which is what we need to change.
The book is based on my realisation that our economy fails us, because money has been misused since time immemorial. It was only ever intended as a measurement system to facilitate the fair exchange of goods and services. Its use should be restricted to spending, saving or giving away. However, we have all, me included, accepted that one’s personal wealth can be increased by using it to extract income from the work of other people. The truth is that it is work, not money, that drives our real economy. Those who do no work (rich or poor) should not receive undue rewards. SHORT-CHANGED! is not full of numbers but an explanation of economics based on what I hope you will agree is understandable common sense.
“Economics is too important to be left to economists.”
Abhijit V Banerjee & Esther Duflo - 2019 Nobel Prize winners in Economics
My name is Jim Wright, but I have used JK Wright as my pen name, since I am best known as the founding CEO of JK Lasers Limited, Britain’s leading developer of lasers for industrial applications. JK Lasers became part of a multi-national public company of which I was vice-chairman with executive responsibility for new product development. Lasers became an enabling technology that penetrated so many aspects of life, that I gained an extraordinary exposure to the way that our economy works in practice. It even led me to work in the NHS for three years after retiring from the laser industry.
