Like any grumbling old hippie dissatisfied with the status quo (but not, of course, Status Quo) I’ve often been tempted to blog off our great spiritual leader, Broon of the Glens. However just as his recent self-serving eulogy to the egregious Z-list ‘celebrity’ Jade Goody tipped me over the edge of reason, I happened upon a YouTube video which would render impotent any excoriation of the PM I might scribble.
The failure of almost all news media to report MEP Daniel Hannan’s surgical demolition of GB’s fiscal management in the European Parliament prompted the inevitable conspiracy theories amongst many who saw the clip, which is why I urge you to watch it yourself and wonder just how much longer he’s going to get away with it (Broon, not Hannan). So point your mouse this way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs
However in the light of the even more recent’s G20 platitude-fest, I won’t entirely let slip an opportunity to proffer my six penn’orth for as yet I’ve heard little which suggests that we’ll rise out of this economic quagmire anytime soon. In particular and despite what was promised, the tax-payers’ bail-out of banks has failed to provide any significant benefit. Okay, mortgage rates have fallen big time. which is a Good Thing for many folks but au contraire for the millions of savers who are suffering accordingly, especially if they’re retired.
Perhaps Darling Brown – for in their arrogant self-denial they are one and the same – thought that lopping a bit off mortgages would have homebuyers dancing gleefully into World of Leather and thus buy the economy out of the toilet, which only reveals that they’ve ignored the power of fear. And to quote the title of my second favourite Barry Newman film (the B-list actor, not to be confused with the thinking man’s Jonathan Ross, Barry Norman), fear is the key to our malaise and if the bank’s won’t lend to business, and there’s no other fiscal stimulus to the average joe, then forget any recovery.
Although governments are traditionally adept at invoking fear to advance their interests – Saddam’s WMDs and MMR jabs, anyone? – Darling Brown & Co. seem unable to cope with its unintended consequences. So as well as admitting their culpability, they might do well to echo FDR’s inaugural address, i.e. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”, rather than spouting tired excuses about it all being a global problem started elsewhere.
For example, no-one is going to go out and buy a new car only to have it re-possessed six months later when they’ve lost their jobs. So the car manufacturers go out of business, as will their many suppliers, one of which is hanging on by its fingernails in my hometown right now – and then there’ll be even more citizens who won’t be able to afford, well, very much at all. But that’s alright, as three years hence our woefully underpaid MPs (who haven’t apparently grasped the import of this vicious circle) can be driven to their second homes in Chinese-built limos. Welcome to Third World Britain.
Having made this point to my American friend Mr. T, (who actually is a venture capitalist), he noted a growing disenchantment with his own leader’s performance: “The autoworker’s are ready to hang Obama since he’s giving them the shaft and letting the bankers go free and run wild.” Which is of course true. He added that in anticipation of escalating public unrest, “(the US government has) ear-marked 20,000 soldiers for ‘domestic duty’ ”. Ooh-ee-ooh.
That might seem a tad far-fetched here in stiff upper-lipped Blighty, but we have a reasonably effective if over-stretched welfare system and they have… soup kitchens.
And to affirm just how gloomy I am about our prospects, I’m stockpiling tinned kippers and buying a shotgun… no, but seriously I’m sure we’ll muddle through as we always do. But I hope in the process we’ll see the end of a prime minister who, having bleated his no-more-boom-and-bust mantra for so many years rather astonishingly expected us to believe he alone could then sort out the ruinous legacy of his chancellorship.
But that’s enough fear’n’loathing: soon I’ll be scribbling something much more upbeat, especially if you cherish magazines, hate motorcyclists and enjoy North London pub culture. Unless of course, I don’t. Meantime, thanks for your e-mails, do please add any comments by clicking on the deceptively named ‘No comment’ link below, and even better, subscribe using the box on the right.
(c) Mark Williams 2009
2 Responses to Brown Nosing
Once again, Mark, I salute you.
I have long since lost any grasp on what passes for comprehension of how money works, but you seem to be keeping track to some extent.
Perhaps you can solve a couple of the mysteries of economics that have baffled me for many months now.
1. Why can I buy a three pack of light bulbs in my local Focus DIY warehouse for less than the cost of one identical bulb in the same shop. (To be precise, six inches away on the same shelf?) I asked the information desk and they professed not to know.
2. How come it’s cheaper to buy a single from Bath to Swindon and then another from Swindon to London, than to buy a through ticket from Bath to London? (We’re talking about travelling at the same time on the same day, and buying both single tickets in Bath, so you don’t even have to get off the train in Swindon.) I asked the guy on the ticket desk but I didn’t understand a word of his reply.
3. How come large ‘economy’ packs of some items in supermarkets actually work out dearer than buying two smaller packs which add up to the same weight? I can’t be bbothered to ask the staff. They won’t know.
The way I see it, if I can’t grasp whatever kind of economic sense these and many other low-level economic transactions make, then what hope do I have of grasping the kind of shenanigans Gordon Brown and his cronies get up to?
There was a time when I kind of understood (or at least thought I understood) how the pricing of goods and services worked. Now I’m lost.
I saw two headlines in a broadsheet last week. One of them said that China is looking to anime to help solve its economic meltdown, and the other was reporting Simon Cowell’s conviction that the latest series of Britain’s Got Talent might prove to be a cure for our economic crisis.
Can’t imagine why I didn’t bother to read either of them.
I agree with much of what has been said. I also can’t see Britain climbing its way out of this crisis soon. Many of Gordon Brown’s measures have been almost insulting in their assumption of the public’s naivety – for a start, did he really think, a few years ago, that we would swallow the abolition of the 10% tax rate as a decrease in taxes for the majority of people? Did he really believe, more recently, that a 2.5% drop in VAT would have us all joyfully spending more? Why does he not realize that many of us are nervous about pouring more and more billions into the black hole of the banks, and that his empty words won’t calm our anger about much of the money financing extortionate pensions? That loads of us would rather have decent savings rates than tiny mortgage ones? And how can he justify handing Northern Rock a massive bailout and then allowing it to offer – yet again – more than 100% mortgages to people with no hope of paying them?
However, I think the alternative is equally bleak. David Cameron seems like a decent enough bloke,a loving dad and all that, but he has fewer policies than Diet Pepsi has calories, and his political views lack any suggestion of coherent policy. He just seems like a slightly less devious, less chameleon-like Blair-lite. Which is not what we need.
Any politicians I’ve admired in the past few years haven’t had a hope of getting in. Menzies Campbell struck me as being dignified, articulate, intelligent and consistent, but he was booted out for being ‘too old’. If we’re choosing politicians on such superficial criteria as age and looks, give me strength.
Vince Cable is also impressively eloquent and sensible, but again, there’s no hope of him being PM.
As for Johnny’s puzzlement over pricing policies in supermarkets, I too have raised an eyebrow at bumper packets marked ‘Economy’ which work out more expensive then the equivalent number of single packets. Supermarkets sometimes add ‘price per 100g’ to help out, but, bizarrely, they switch to ‘price per kg’ or ‘price per unit’ every so often, just to keep us on our toes.
On the subject of supermarkets, it was brought home to me on a recent holiday how different the French’s attitude to capitalism is. Not only do they benefit disproportionately from the largesse of the European Common Agricultural Policy, but they lack the timidity of Brit shoppers. In the local Carrefour supermarket, shoppers regularly taste the fruit and sample cheeses and cold meats before deciding whether to deign to buy. My astonishment turned to disgust when I saw a man nonchalantly unscrewing sealed jar lids to stick his quivering beak to inhale the aromas and plunge a tasting finger into the contents. Give me the stiff upper lip and cowed obedience of Blighty any day.