Piketty's data describe the way that the pressure of investors for return on capital in low growth situations causes decline in real wages. The state can intervene to recoup some capital for the general good. In Britain the private housing market is taking up land from cash-strapped councils either to gain value while left empty or as buy-to-let. An alternative public housing model is outlined. Public debt accumulated mainly through spending on education and through loans to banks. Austerity policies are not reducing public borrowing. Ways of getting returns from education and getting the best value from the state's share of RBS and Lloyds are discussed. National debt now exceeds nation GDP by three times – a puzzling statistic. Some tentative thoughts on reducing this debt are offered, with special reference to Greece. Ed Conduit worked as a clinical psychologist for 43 years and has further degrees in lecturing, computer science and linguistics. He has no formal training in economics, but thinks that social democrats at the present time are obliged to try to understand money. His professional habit of trying to empathise with diverse peoples helps him achieve the national outlook of people in many nations.Ed's other e-book on politics and ecology is "Unsustainable Population". He has also writtene-books on linguistics: "The Black Country Dialect", "Lakeland Language" and "The Iceland Bus". His work on health psychology was printed in 1995 as "The Body Under Stress".
