I think you are largely right, Justin, but the problem/cause, in my eyes, is not necessarily confined to banks and governments. As I see it, the trouble is that people have become accustomed to having everything 'now' and the art of saving has vanished from the psyche. If anything, I'd go back to the introduction of the hire-purchase idea as being the principal culprit - just that it's taken a while for its chicks to come home to mama and roost.
The flaw with it is this: spending what you hope to earn tomorrow depends on you still being employed at the same or greater pay tomorrow. And life isn't always so obliging, and when it becomes a cumulative event...
And what can governments do? Create even more meaningless jobs than they all do? And how do you finance that - by crippling the business that's still working? Frankly, the only way out I can see is for the UK to accept that charity begins at home, withdraw all its foreign financial 'gifts' to the less developed world; stop immigration of non-economically beneficial people from any country, European Union or otherwise; cut back very seriously on unemployment benefits where people are physically capable of work and make it a condition that to get benefits, good ones, they do whatever labour is demanded of them. Dirty streets? Plenty of layabouts hanging around the street corners or sitting in the pubs - get them out there with brooms. Here in Mallorca every little square is replete with its resident north Africans doing nothing. Why? Because they were allowed in to do the jobs that the locals would not, would rather collect benefit than do. The motorways have now been built, the bonanza gone, but the migrants remain. That's all wrong and unsustainable - we saw it in Britain after the war with the crowds from Jamaica, India, Pakistan, Africa etc. flooding in. Parts of Glasgow that were, once, beyond my financial dreams in which to live are now filled with Asians - nobody else will live there. But who dare speak the reality for fear of being branded this, that or the other sort of politically incorrect scoundrel? That's an emotional penalty that has suited the agenda of every left-wing government since I can remember. Why would it change a thing? It's now the bedrock of its vote. So no, without drastic and unpopular measures, taken soon, nothing will get fixed, only fudged. But who to do it? The as crazy extreme parties on the far right? God, I hope not; that would be just another season of madness as the one we have just lived through, with all those well-educated politicians feathering their nests whilst the opportunity lasted, only this time it would be the skinheads. At least with the current lot in power, many are already well off and, hopefully, not as easily tempted. But who knows? Not I.
Factory closures. Welcome to the Clyde. But you can't blame any government for that - only the market rates. When others do the same job cheaper, and better in some cases, who would buy at higher cost? And what good did it do the other countries? Each, in turn, lost out to yet another lower value economy that replaced it - ships - think France, Germany, Korea, Japan.. they have all been at the top and then lost the crown. Oil tankers lie in mothballs; navies are vanishing and today even the Air Force is laying off learner pilots. Four million pounds to train one!
No wonder some of us despair.
Rob C
