"Rule 1: Never allow a crisis to go do waste". Ram Emmanuel, Chief of Staff to the deity formerly known as Barrack Obama, like any public official, knows the value of a scared populace. Gordon Brown's spokesman asked to comment on his so called darkest days last week replied that the Prime Minister was too busy concentrating on sorting out problems like the recession and the pig flu o worry about it. The old swine. The recession that his party has helped to bring about and that he now is doing his best to prolong (see last post "How Mad Cow Disease is Threatening Our Economic Recovery"). And the mild dose of the flu now doing the rounds of planet earth...
But despite the obviously low risk that pig flu poses to public health, politicians and public officials are besides themselves with excitement. Carpe diem for the World Health Organisation as its Director General declares "All of humanity is under threat" from this virus. Oh for God's sake. Reminds me of Tony Blair's declaration that the Millenium Bug (one of the most ridiculous mass hysterias in recent memory) was an emergency akin to a state of war. Or in 2005, the WHO again - the bird flu was the "greatest single health challenge" to mankind, greater than HIV and malaria. Can anyone take this ridiculous organisation seriously? Its name implies worldly weight and seriousness, but dig only a little and the truth is painfull and pathetic.
Note that I don't invoke the BSE scare into this brief litany. Why? Because, as my (imaginary, so far, after one post) readers will know that this blog is based largely on the premise that mad cow disease is alive and well in Britain and has infected a large portion of our political class.
But wait - what's this from Alan Johnson? Some sobering facts? He's pointed in the Times that the pig flu is not killing people, except a few in Mexico, that it really is just a dose of flu that has affected only a few hundred people worldwide, and that very scary word "pandemic" merely describes its geographical spread rather than its severity. Although I note that he doesn't want to spoil everyone's fun just yet - "but I can't say it is never going to get any worse", he concludes, keeping the spectre of the apocalypse just alive enough to allow the spectacle to play out a little longer. But, on the whole, the man deserves some credit. Hard to believe that this is the same Alan Johnson that passed the silliest anti smoking measure in history. Consider the simplicity...Some toff in the Department of Health asked, "just how are we going to stop these young people from smoking". To which his intellectually anaemic colleague replied "I know, we'll hide the cigarettes". And then they sold this hilarious idea of banning tobacco displays in shops to the Secretary of State who was obviously off his BSE meds at the time.
Most of the time though, politicians and their officials love anything that gives them the opportunity to save the world from imminent disaster, however imaginary . It used to be religious crises. We had things like the Crusades and the witch hunts that allowed politicians of old to ride the crests of public imagination and save humanity. The problem is that these delusions have to be debunked on a case by case basis - the phenomenon of mass hysteria has never been seriously challenged. Consequently, there's always something new around the corner.
And just you wait, that sacred cow of modern extraordinary popular delusions, climate change is about to be popped. Its greatest supporter in print media, the Independent, started the ball rolling this month. Check it out here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-missing-sunspots-is-this-the-big-chill-1674630.html
Sunday, 3 May 2009
Friday, 17 April 2009
How Mad Cow Disease is Threatening our Economic Recovery
David Cameron just wrote to me (as he does every Friday evening - lovely chap) to tell me that this has week has been a defining week in the history of this government. He was referring of course to both the smeargate scandal - where a top Gordon Brown advisor was busy cooking up nasty rumours to spread about Tory MPs - and also, the close of that other very dodgy case where the police arrested a Tory MP because he pissed off Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary.
Was this hyperbole? Maybe not. There's alot more to this government than those two stories but for me anyway, this is the week that I finally realised just what has gone wrong with this New Labour: It has gotten mad cow disease. They are completely bonkers. We often compare our civilised societies, our noble sentiments and good manners to the barbarism, brutality and bloodiness of other parts of the world. Does this mean that the individuals that make up Britain are better than the individuals that make up Palestine, or the Congo? Not at all. If we grew up in abject poverty watching our sisters raped and brutalised by our enemies and our brothers butchered while we stood powerless to do anything about it, our view of life, our sentiments, our manners would be markedly different. We are nicer people because we live in a nicer place. "You think I am a devil; it is only because I have lived in hell" said the bad black man to his nobler would be victim in that movie, Blood Diamond, from a few years back.
All this is simply bringing me to the point that if Britain was an African country, it would be Zimbabwe and Gordon Brown would be Robert Mugabe. Again, Gordon's is a government gone utterly mad. Everything they do is motivated by their desperate obsession about clinging onto power or by their control freakery. And nowhere is their election obsession more evident than in their utterly bovine response to the recession.
How many times has Gordon Brown lectured on how, to solve the problem of the recession, we must first understand it? Lets understand it then. We all know the problem is excessive debt built up on the balance sheets of both individuals and businesses over a long period. This fuelled a boom in consumer spending, consumer demand that was backed by borrowings, not by earned income. Simply put, the boom, based on borrowed money, was itself borrowed. And, like everything borrowed, it needs to be paid back. The recession is the payback.
But lets not get accused of oversimplifying...A booms built on made up money drives the economy out of joint. In economist speak, it results in "structural maladjustments", a misalignment of resources to real demand (that is demand that is backed up by one's earnings, not just their anticipated future earnings). Then, businesses that are reliant on consumers spending borrowed cash, as well as those businesses that have become overreliant on cheap credit are the ones that get hit hardest. But everyone is effected to some degree by the downward adjustment.
There always comes a day of reckoning for economies built on (and addicted to) debt. If governments could leave well alone, the recession could do its work quickly i.e. correct these structural imbalances, bring the supply of goods back into line with real demand and the whole affair could be over relatively quickly. A recession is about renewal; its about replacing old businesses that are no longer profitable with new ones that can make money; replacing the bad old ways and habits with new sensible ones. The adjustment from the old broken system to the new one is necessarily painful for those who work in the supply of goods that people can no longer pay for. A quick return to growth is the best way to take care of those displaced by the recession. The trick is to let it happen - and get it over with quickly.
But no government can waste a good crisis, an opportunity to stand out. So, they meddle, they take over. Economic activity in the private sector is no longer keeping us in the lifestyles to which we've become accustomed in our debt induced stupour. Well then the public sector has to fill the gap. And everything the government does is about holding onto the old ways, keeping people in their current, redundant, jobs; keeping moribund businesses on life support; keeping up consumer spending and so on. The futile process of alleviating the effects of recession simply holds up the recovery.
The only thing that has ever worked - mercilessly cutting government spending, cutting taxes and making damn sure that government is doing nothing that would impede the process of correction and recovery in the sphere of private enterprise - is unpaleatable. Its a waste of a crisis and its politically unacceptable because when voters are pissed off, government has to be seen to be doing stuff, lots of stuff.
David Cameron just wrote to me (as he does every Friday evening - lovely chap) to tell me that this has week has been a defining week in the history of this government. He was referring of course to both the smeargate scandal - where a top Gordon Brown advisor was busy cooking up nasty rumours to spread about Tory MPs - and also, the close of that other very dodgy case where the police arrested a Tory MP because he pissed off Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary.
Was this hyperbole? Maybe not. There's alot more to this government than those two stories but for me anyway, this is the week that I finally realised just what has gone wrong with this New Labour: It has gotten mad cow disease. They are completely bonkers. We often compare our civilised societies, our noble sentiments and good manners to the barbarism, brutality and bloodiness of other parts of the world. Does this mean that the individuals that make up Britain are better than the individuals that make up Palestine, or the Congo? Not at all. If we grew up in abject poverty watching our sisters raped and brutalised by our enemies and our brothers butchered while we stood powerless to do anything about it, our view of life, our sentiments, our manners would be markedly different. We are nicer people because we live in a nicer place. "You think I am a devil; it is only because I have lived in hell" said the bad black man to his nobler would be victim in that movie, Blood Diamond, from a few years back.
All this is simply bringing me to the point that if Britain was an African country, it would be Zimbabwe and Gordon Brown would be Robert Mugabe. Again, Gordon's is a government gone utterly mad. Everything they do is motivated by their desperate obsession about clinging onto power or by their control freakery. And nowhere is their election obsession more evident than in their utterly bovine response to the recession.
How many times has Gordon Brown lectured on how, to solve the problem of the recession, we must first understand it? Lets understand it then. We all know the problem is excessive debt built up on the balance sheets of both individuals and businesses over a long period. This fuelled a boom in consumer spending, consumer demand that was backed by borrowings, not by earned income. Simply put, the boom, based on borrowed money, was itself borrowed. And, like everything borrowed, it needs to be paid back. The recession is the payback.
But lets not get accused of oversimplifying...A booms built on made up money drives the economy out of joint. In economist speak, it results in "structural maladjustments", a misalignment of resources to real demand (that is demand that is backed up by one's earnings, not just their anticipated future earnings). Then, businesses that are reliant on consumers spending borrowed cash, as well as those businesses that have become overreliant on cheap credit are the ones that get hit hardest. But everyone is effected to some degree by the downward adjustment.
There always comes a day of reckoning for economies built on (and addicted to) debt. If governments could leave well alone, the recession could do its work quickly i.e. correct these structural imbalances, bring the supply of goods back into line with real demand and the whole affair could be over relatively quickly. A recession is about renewal; its about replacing old businesses that are no longer profitable with new ones that can make money; replacing the bad old ways and habits with new sensible ones. The adjustment from the old broken system to the new one is necessarily painful for those who work in the supply of goods that people can no longer pay for. A quick return to growth is the best way to take care of those displaced by the recession. The trick is to let it happen - and get it over with quickly.
But no government can waste a good crisis, an opportunity to stand out. So, they meddle, they take over. Economic activity in the private sector is no longer keeping us in the lifestyles to which we've become accustomed in our debt induced stupour. Well then the public sector has to fill the gap. And everything the government does is about holding onto the old ways, keeping people in their current, redundant, jobs; keeping moribund businesses on life support; keeping up consumer spending and so on. The futile process of alleviating the effects of recession simply holds up the recovery.
The only thing that has ever worked - mercilessly cutting government spending, cutting taxes and making damn sure that government is doing nothing that would impede the process of correction and recovery in the sphere of private enterprise - is unpaleatable. Its a waste of a crisis and its politically unacceptable because when voters are pissed off, government has to be seen to be doing stuff, lots of stuff.
And what does the government do to be seen to be proactive men of action, sorting things out? As the most powerful institution in the country, there is, quite unfortunately, lots of things it can do. For one thing, it controls the public finances. It has the power to tax, but perhaps even more dangerously, it has the power to borrow. Management of public finances is necessarily a political matter. That is important - decisions on spending, borrowing and taxing are political. It is nothing like the management of private monies. Individuals and businesses are motivated by the need to avoid losses and to ensure the financial stability of the household or firm. Governments are motivated only by the need to win elections to stay in power. Ditto, the management of public finances in only ever about prudent financial decisions if they happen to co-incide with politically astute choices. So it is to be expected that democratic governments will not manage our monies well. An element of vote buying with public money is inevitable.
But that does not excuse the decisions being made by this government. They are madness institutionalised even by the standards of this mad world of politics. Alasdair Darling is widely expected to confirm a "blowout in public borrowing this week" (The Times, 19/4), confirming that the government's answer to the problem of too much debt in the private sphere is to massively ramp up debt levels in the public sector - to the tune of £175 billion annually.
David C. (now that he is writing me personal emails, I can call him that), wrote me a couple of weeks ago to tell me about what he saw as a defining moment (he likes defining moments) in the economic crisis. He was talking about how Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England said that Gordon Brown was wrong to pursue a second fiscal stimulus (more borrowing and spending) because the government couldn't afford it. That is unprecedented. When the Governor of the Bank of England feels the need to take a shot in public at the government of the day, you should know there is something very amiss. There is no economic sense in Labour's decisions. It is all about trying to re-intoxicate the patient as quickly as possible to hold over the hangover until after the election. And my God will we suffer in the long run if they get their way.
The Mad Cows will make you Eat Well and do Other Sensible Stuff
The prospect of losing power terrifies New Labour. Why, you might ask? Have not many commentators called this coming election, the one you'd want to lose? But how could the control freaks that New Labour have relinquish control over us simple folk even for a moment? Just look at the Department formerly known as the Department of Health, now the Department of Social Engineering and Lifestyle Policing ("the DSELP"). I'm not sure that any government department better exemplifies just how lost in itself New Labour has become. They have become like the deity that has lost all its ability to relate to ordinary people and has arrogated unto itself the job of fixing those habits of humanity that it no longer understands. Their anti smoking stuff has become a mad crusade; their food and drink policies are not far behind; they are paying shops to display fruit and veg more prominently and they are employing, get this - no joke - lifestyle spies, or nannies, ordinary people that the Department will train up and then send back into society to spread the Good News of "healthier choices". Basically, these people will be trained by the Department to nag their friends and family to stop smoking and drinking, go to the gym and don't eat crisps, or cakes, or chocolate, or too much meat, or too little vegetables, and don't forget to not smoke, and... how much do you weigh?
This is the government using public money to indulge that other New Labour obsession - control freakery. How twisted is that - they take our tax money so they can "help us make healthier choices" - better choice of food, better choices in terms of food and alcohol, in sex, and, the biggie of the day, better choices when it comes to elections.....There is clearly lots of room to cut government spending and reduce, even eliminate public borrowings.
David and Michelle Up a Tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G
To finish on a totally seperate matter, I feel that I have been a bit too nice to David Cameron in this post so let me take a shot at him about another of his lovely weekend personal notes. Earlier this month, he told me that he met God and the Virgin Mary, now masquarading as Barrack and Michelle Obama. He was struck, he told me, by how down to earth they were. What a stupid comment. How did he expect them to Act - like divine apparitions, like cylons maybe or some other alien life form? It always pisses me off when people blather about how down to earth everyone is when they first meet them. You've met someone once, have not even scratched the surface of the person they are and you're gushing about how fucking wonderful and sincere and sensible and blah blah blah they are. Cop on David. You are the next leader of Britain - don't be talking about your new friends as if you were a wide eyed school girl.
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