But let’s not wallow in Political and Economic Theory, Dogma or Mantra and take a look at reality. Assorted Finance Ministers, Secretaries of Treasury and Chancellors of Exchequer were not so much guilty of wilfully ignoring the Economic entrails, as read by Chicago School economists, but believing in them. That an infallible vein for laying-off risk and accumulating profit had been mined by the brilliance of the same folk that brought us Game Theory, infinite extra universes and a couple of dozen additional dimensions. Not surprisingly these "Mathturbations" led to the same belief as a soldier going into combat “It’ll be some other guy”. As a result cosmic quantities of leveraged debt were created based on financial instruments so exotic that not even those people that created them understood their ramifications. We call these people bankers.
Now, the argument goes, if the “invisible hand”, of Adam Smith fame, is perfectly manicured then regulation isn’t required. Chief manicurist Milton Friedman told us this. Unfortunately, and obviously, he didn’t have a plan if the hand were to display only one erect finger. The finger now brandished at the tax-payer. From the tax-payer’s point of view maybe it is time for them to make use of a good crisis themselves and default, instead of paying- off light years worth of somebody else’s debt. Either that or continue to fire 18,000 pound a year public sector apparatchiks - about 1,000 of whom equal one banker's bonus. Permitting the market to regulate itself while inflicting austerity on everything else has resulted in Retail sales in the UK plunging 3.5 percent in March, the sharpest monthly downturn in Britain in 15 years. The Centre for Economic and Business Research, an independent research group, forecasts that real household income will fall by 2 percent this year. That would make Britain’s income squeeze the worst over two consecutive years since the 1930s. The bank's incomes meanwhile.....
Since the day the US invaded a sovereign country to protect a corrupt fruit company we've been fed the fiction that democracy is the bride of capitalism. The Chileans, Argentineans and Brazilians might have a different view. A view that will likely be reflected in the result of the next UK General Election. While the great unwashed are reeling from the impact of exaggerated financial ruin they are distracted from challenging present policies tailored to advance the very system that ruined them. To effect these policies it is mandatory to defile the efficacy of all state owned or run enterprises, services, facilities and extol the benefits of corporatist free-market competition in their future provision. Which is why the unwashed are paying more for their electricity, water, transport and soon healthcare, education and the requisite increase in the cost of imposing law and order while implementing "liberalisation".
My advice would be to have Meteorologists and Cosmologists do all future economic planning and forecasting, they use the same mathematical models, and appear to be randomly more accurate at predictions than Economists. The Economists, meanwhile, can look around manifold universes and dimensions for the missing 75% of the Universe's matter - they also might find where all the money went.
Sadly, thanks to Globalisation, one cannot escape the vagaries of our present economic malaise by transferring continents. Especially while a diarrhea of money squirts into a failed global banking toilet. While I have absolutely no philosophical objection to capitalism I do have many concerning it's present practitioners.
At our time in life having invested decades of increasing deductions and payments towards the provision of a comfortable and cared-for retirement it appears that we now won't get it. I'm more than just a little irked by this. What I won't now stand for is for some politico-economic fundamentalist (public school or otherwise) to give what remains of it to a corporation that'll turn my contributions into their profit. The fallacy that Baby-boomers (11 years from 1946 to 1957) will bankrupt the system is used as an economic shibboleth to reduce entitlement. Even if we all live 10 more years than predicted the populations will dramatically decrease below threat levels before financial oblivion results. I was talking to a Tax theorist the other day who explained that the main problem is the asymmetric tax-burden between personal and corporate tax levels. The main burden for the provision of entitlements falling upon the personal rather than the corporate purse. While the average corporate tax is falling towards 20% the personal remains around twice that. A further reduction in corporate taxation, as not surprisingly is recommended by the corporatists themselves, would only exacerbate this imbalance.
The trickle down is going up.
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