"£140bn kiss of life for Britain: Chancellor and Bank in dramatic bid to hand small firms and house-buyers cheap loans. Banks will be loaned money on condition they pass it on in the form of cheaper loans and mortgages." To start with, the banks are going to pass this money at higher interest rates than they will pay to the Bank of England. It is yet another government exercise in subsidising the ailing and failing parasitical financial industry disguised as an economic stimulus that is suposed to help ordinary businesses and the public. (For clarity, banks are not taking any risk these days. They are "too big to fail", hence the government, i.e. we the taxpayers, underwrite their risk in any event.)
More importantly it is yet another clearly pathetic example of centrally planned economy akin to East European communist countries of 1970's and 1980's when they were on their last legs: governments looking for solutions of economic and financial problems by printing more and more money. This is communism at its "best" where apparatchiks (i.e. the financiers and their cronies) benefit: communism for the rich that is.
As soon as I saw the news headlines... "£140bn kiss of life for Britain", I thought Greg Pytel will have something to say about this farce, sadly it’s a reflection on the incompetence of our Keynsian politicos of all flavours. Worse still of course is the fact that the banks have still not been forced to reveal the true extent of the liabilities, so much of this new funny money will no doubt be used to prop up the "crack" habit of our banking system.
ReplyDeleteGreg, I don't pretend to be an economic genius, and yet I can see that bail outs, transferring the debts from the bankers to the tax payers, and continued government interference to prevent the inevitable deleveraging is not going to end well. In fact it cannot succeed, more debt can only delay and magnify the eventual collapse.
ReplyDeleteOsborne, or at least his economic advisers, are far more clued up than I am in these matters so I am forced to conclude that they must appreciate the folly of these actions too. We can therefore eliminate ignorance and stupidity as explanations for the polices of the UK, together with the actions of the EU, and the US along with all of the central banks. So what does this leave to explain their actions?
Following this train of thought leads to some conclusions that I'm reluctant to draw. Are they corrupt and accumulating wealth before the shtf, or are they cynically kicking the can down the road hoping to pass the problem onto their successors? Can world leaders be this cynical, or do we have to plumb the depths of tinfoil and look for wilder explanations which involve engineered collapse to bring in "the new world order"?
It would be better for my sanity if the powers that be where just stupid, but as I say above, I don't think that they are.
Hi John
DeleteWhat can I say? If you watched some of the proceedings of the Levenson Inquiry I am sure you can make up your mind up.
Best, Greg
@John: Whether the politicians are criminally stupid or simply just criminals they should not be governing us. I hope that we can vote for a party which has not had a hand in the creation of this financial disaster, just as the Greeks are on Sunday. My greatest fear is that they will miss the opportunity and allow the same thieves back in that had their hands in the till. We can only hope. The rest of Europe is worried mainly because they don't want their populations to get the same idea.
ReplyDeleteSorry schweik, but from the depths of my growing cynicism I don't think that any honest, untainted party can be elected today.
DeleteFor example, it struck me as peculiar the other day when I read that Greece bans opinion polls for two weeks prior to voting day, and heard from the BBC yesterday, and the Wall St. Journal today, that an "unofficial" poll has recorded that Syriza have now lost their lead to a pro-bail out party.
The fix appears to be in. Blatant in this case, but we see more and more evidence of similar fixes in all modern elections.
I suffer from the same amount of cynicism. Even if Syriza get elected, will they try to sell the people out that elected them as every political party has always done for as long as I can remember? We need to hope however, otherwise...
ReplyDeleteCronyism not only exists within companies & business but between nations too.
ReplyDeleteIt is a brotherhood that has enlarged since the fall of Communism. Protecting wealth is generic to capitalism and in these times there are no agents of change. Everyone hangs on to whatever wealth they have and are extremely risk averse.
They are very afraid of the future so they cling on to the present and the status quo is far more comfortable.
"Feed the beast!!!."
Pray the walls will not collapse, and hope springs eternal.