Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuart
I suppose technically it's the government's job to manage the state which is supposedly there to look after those who need it.
This is something a lot of people forget. While the Government routinely deals in amounts of money far higher than the average person will ever encounter in their lifetime, they still do have a finite supply of money.
You are right, the Government's primary income is from us. As such, when they waste money, it's our money.
This is the classic rock/hard place situation for me. If the cuts go too deep, I could very well lose my job. Which I cannot afford to do. If they raise taxes too much, I cannot afford that either.
Clearly Arthur favours Gorden Brown's method of economic management which seemed to involve getting the country heavily in debt, so he could attempt to finance a "boom" in the economy, then selling off the country's gold reserves for a fraction of what they were worth. The Governmental equivalent of maxing out your credit cards, taking out loans (from one of these easy credit companies that advertise on TV in the middle of the night and charge almost triple digit interest rates), then taking the wife's jewellery down to CashConverters just so you can afford to take the family on Holiday..
|
You see Arthur can't/won't grasp that fact. He thinks money comes from thin air and even though the BofE has been printing plenty of it, it's still not enough for him because cuts are being made. He's so scathing about the current government's policy because he's bought into all that New Labour spin and thinks it's purely political - big city Tory fat cats against good old Arthur and his working class chums. The fact that the party he so stridently supports and still can't bring himself to call to account for what happened had more than it's fair share of Oxbridge types, millionaires and sleazy, self serving hyprocrites seems to escape his notice for some odd reason.
Likewise, the major roles the current leader and Shadow Chancellor played in New Labour's financial debacle is conveniently overlooked. No, I'm afraid Arthur can't see beyond the end of his rose tinted nose and still can't accept what a mess we're in, let alone how we're actually going to pay for Brown's decade of excess.
Perhaps he thinks that what's actually happening in Greece, Portugal, Iceland and Ireland is all fiction or can't happen to us. Perhaps Arthur thinks we can just dictate what we borrow and the terms which apply to that borrowing. Perhaps he thinks that UK PLC can just continue borrowing more and more money and printing notes to repay the interest due. Perhaps he thinks foreign investors will continue lending us money no matter what and out of the goodness of their hearts. Perhaps he thinks we can just walk away from our debts like so many of our less than prudent countrymen/women have done. Perhaps he thinks taxing the rich and the banks will wipe the slate clean overnight and then the spending can start all over again and that his children and grandchildren won't have to work harder for longer and get even less in return for the tax they pay than he does. Then again perhaps Arthur just doesn't think at all.....