The end is nigh
Here's some doom and gloom - I don't think anything can be done by this chancellor, any chancellor, any party. Fact is, this country has had its day.
As usual there has been miles of text written, things said, endless opinions spouted on the subject of the budget. As a blogger attempting to find a fresh angle on things - well it isn't always easy. Listened to the Jeremy Vine show on the radio afterwards and it was "same old, same old".
So how as a blogger do I write a completely original piece full of views never expressed by anyone else ever? Well the answer is, I probably can't. Only yesterday I stumbled across a reference on a forum advocating the exact same cunning scheme to extract cash from Tesco I proposed earlier in the week. Also today I read an article advocating drinking ourselves to death early to take the pressure off pensions - another topic I jokingly brought up last year. I suppose in a country of millions of people and a world of billions it's hard to have a completely unique take on everything, still I do my best.
The guys in the media (radio, paper, TV, whichever medium you care to name) spout on with all the same stuff. Well here is what I think.
All this stuff about different people being better off than others, e.g. it's good news for drivers because fuel tax hasn't been put up, or how much better off various people will be in various tax bands is all utter poppycock. It's all a drop in the ocean as far as the overall picture is concerned. Does petrol not going up by 3p really change people's lives or turn a struggling business around? I suspect not!
And we hear the deficit won't be brought down now until 2018 at the earliest! Just a bit of clarification here as I think some people don't get this. Deficit doesn't mean debt - deficit means the amount the debt is increasing by - so we are not talking about reducing our debt - we are talking about reducing the amount we are running it up by! It's a bit like having a credit card with a £10,000 balance, paying £100 quid off a month but getting £200 a month interest at the same time. And we aren't even talking about actually reducing the debt yet! That's some pie in the sky idea for 2018 or later assuming the latest plan works. Which it probably won't. After all none of the others did. And when Cameron and Osborne get booted out in 2015, and Labour get back in - they won't be able to fix it either. Not while we continue to live not within our means.
There is a famous old quote from a Dickens novel which goes as shown in the picture below:
The fact of the matter that is how we as the country live and a lot of the people in it too. A figure quoted today was that we are spending 107% of what we are earning .That's billions of pounds.
In historical terms I think here in Britain we're in the equivalent of the last days of Rome. The trouble is we have all had it too good for too long. Austerity worked after the war - people had been living through hell for the previous few years and we were starting from scratch. It won't work now. We've grown fat and lazy (that's metaphorical - not just referring to me personally, though I suppose it could do) on the many years of prosperity - all mod cons, huge tellies, holidays, mass consumerism, I could go on - fact is, we don't see those things as luxuries any more but as expected things. Not enough money to pay for them? Just get a credit card, or remortgage. Easy...well it was up until a few years ago.
Quite honestly I am amazed the whole house of cards hasn't come crashing down around us yet - maybe it will and a truly apocalyptic scenario is just around the corner for us. And I don't just mean the UK, other western economies are worse than us as we have seen in Greece and elsewhere.
But we can't change our ways - like I say we've grown old and fat and lazy and we can't go back now. What a contrast to other places in the world. Look at China and other emerging markets - everyone moans about all our jobs etc going over there - but they are lean and young and hungry - they may earn less than us relatively - but the key thing is - they are going in the right direction - it's all growing - so they are way better off than they were a decade or a generation ago, to them they feel rich. It's all relative. Someone falling on hard times having to sell a Ferrari and buy a Mercedes will be unhappy. Someone who's never had money, trading in a 20 year old banger for a 5 year old Ford Mondeo will be happy. The Merc is worth far more than the Mondeo but the Mondeo owner will feel he's going up in the world. Hence why I think China and the others will too so well - they've all got plenty to aspire to and work for, whereas for us the only way is down. Never mind, we've had a good innings.
That is they way I see the world. I think we have had it, and we are in permanent decline. I think the Government knows it too. I think we all know it deep down, but there's far too much squabbling amongst ourselves to notice - as long as we can fight for "our bit" we don't have to worry about the others. 3p off petrol while someone else has to downgrade their home because they can't afford the bedroom tax? Their problem, not ours. "I'm alright, Jack". Fact is, although we can't see it, we're all fiddling while Rome burns.
There you go, my unique take. Though someone will probably nick it for their weekend column in some newspaper or other.
In the meantime, while we wait for the end, let's all have a drink. Mine's a Strongbow! Cheers!
If you have enjoyed reading this blog, please take a look at my books on Amazon (Paperback & Kindle), where you can read lots more of the same! Click here.
Jason xx
As usual there has been miles of text written, things said, endless opinions spouted on the subject of the budget. As a blogger attempting to find a fresh angle on things - well it isn't always easy. Listened to the Jeremy Vine show on the radio afterwards and it was "same old, same old".
So how as a blogger do I write a completely original piece full of views never expressed by anyone else ever? Well the answer is, I probably can't. Only yesterday I stumbled across a reference on a forum advocating the exact same cunning scheme to extract cash from Tesco I proposed earlier in the week. Also today I read an article advocating drinking ourselves to death early to take the pressure off pensions - another topic I jokingly brought up last year. I suppose in a country of millions of people and a world of billions it's hard to have a completely unique take on everything, still I do my best.
The guys in the media (radio, paper, TV, whichever medium you care to name) spout on with all the same stuff. Well here is what I think.
All this stuff about different people being better off than others, e.g. it's good news for drivers because fuel tax hasn't been put up, or how much better off various people will be in various tax bands is all utter poppycock. It's all a drop in the ocean as far as the overall picture is concerned. Does petrol not going up by 3p really change people's lives or turn a struggling business around? I suspect not!
And we hear the deficit won't be brought down now until 2018 at the earliest! Just a bit of clarification here as I think some people don't get this. Deficit doesn't mean debt - deficit means the amount the debt is increasing by - so we are not talking about reducing our debt - we are talking about reducing the amount we are running it up by! It's a bit like having a credit card with a £10,000 balance, paying £100 quid off a month but getting £200 a month interest at the same time. And we aren't even talking about actually reducing the debt yet! That's some pie in the sky idea for 2018 or later assuming the latest plan works. Which it probably won't. After all none of the others did. And when Cameron and Osborne get booted out in 2015, and Labour get back in - they won't be able to fix it either. Not while we continue to live not within our means.
There is a famous old quote from a Dickens novel which goes as shown in the picture below:
The fact of the matter that is how we as the country live and a lot of the people in it too. A figure quoted today was that we are spending 107% of what we are earning .That's billions of pounds.
In historical terms I think here in Britain we're in the equivalent of the last days of Rome. The trouble is we have all had it too good for too long. Austerity worked after the war - people had been living through hell for the previous few years and we were starting from scratch. It won't work now. We've grown fat and lazy (that's metaphorical - not just referring to me personally, though I suppose it could do) on the many years of prosperity - all mod cons, huge tellies, holidays, mass consumerism, I could go on - fact is, we don't see those things as luxuries any more but as expected things. Not enough money to pay for them? Just get a credit card, or remortgage. Easy...well it was up until a few years ago.
Quite honestly I am amazed the whole house of cards hasn't come crashing down around us yet - maybe it will and a truly apocalyptic scenario is just around the corner for us. And I don't just mean the UK, other western economies are worse than us as we have seen in Greece and elsewhere.
But we can't change our ways - like I say we've grown old and fat and lazy and we can't go back now. What a contrast to other places in the world. Look at China and other emerging markets - everyone moans about all our jobs etc going over there - but they are lean and young and hungry - they may earn less than us relatively - but the key thing is - they are going in the right direction - it's all growing - so they are way better off than they were a decade or a generation ago, to them they feel rich. It's all relative. Someone falling on hard times having to sell a Ferrari and buy a Mercedes will be unhappy. Someone who's never had money, trading in a 20 year old banger for a 5 year old Ford Mondeo will be happy. The Merc is worth far more than the Mondeo but the Mondeo owner will feel he's going up in the world. Hence why I think China and the others will too so well - they've all got plenty to aspire to and work for, whereas for us the only way is down. Never mind, we've had a good innings.
That is they way I see the world. I think we have had it, and we are in permanent decline. I think the Government knows it too. I think we all know it deep down, but there's far too much squabbling amongst ourselves to notice - as long as we can fight for "our bit" we don't have to worry about the others. 3p off petrol while someone else has to downgrade their home because they can't afford the bedroom tax? Their problem, not ours. "I'm alright, Jack". Fact is, although we can't see it, we're all fiddling while Rome burns.
There you go, my unique take. Though someone will probably nick it for their weekend column in some newspaper or other.
In the meantime, while we wait for the end, let's all have a drink. Mine's a Strongbow! Cheers!
If you have enjoyed reading this blog, please take a look at my books on Amazon (Paperback & Kindle), where you can read lots more of the same! Click here.
Jason xx
The only reason the Chinese are going places is the majority of the population are working for peanuts. The chinese you see at, Bicester Village for egxample, are the cream of the country, the fat cats.The workers are flogging themselves to death making money for them on a pitance of an income and still living in shanty towns.I could write reams on this topic but the underlying fact is we are not a competative manufacturing country. To be so wages for the people manufacturing the goods has to be propotional to the final selling price of the product and quantity sold. Going back fifty years the ratio was correct and we had a viable manufacturing industry. Over the last fifty years wages have rocketed out of proportion to the products price and manufactured volume.Labour costs are far too high in this country hence the shift of what little we do manufacture to countries where labour is dirt cheap i.e. this is why china is prospering.
ReplyDelete