As for th yacht thing, no one I know seems to care whether there was any money involved, it’s more a case of making leud defamatory jokes about what they were all getting up.

I think some well known people (names supplied)have managed between them to make sure they are the butt of a lot of crude humour of late.

*If public spending had only grown in line with inflation since 1997, we could have abolished income tax, corporation tax, capital gains tax and inheritance tax, leaving the taxpayer £200 billion better off. Source ASI http://www.adamsmith.org/tax-freedom-day/

The reason? Never mind the securitised debt, it’s all the home and commercial loans waiting in the wings and maturing to a stonking rancid state as we head into negative growth which the banks are going to find overwhelming.

Yes thay are prepared to interview true mavericks like Ron Paul and Peter D Schiff, but the reception they get is terrible at times: Schiff is often shouted down (although he holds his own). Admittedly they are more respectful of Paul these days.

The closest to Fox News that we have in this country is Paxman. He has increasingly become a charicature of his old self. Quite why Heseletine didn’t get up and thump him one last night when they were talking about the Osborne issue I dont know. Apparrently – accoridng to Paxman – George’s error of judgement now is that he went on a rich man’s yacht when others in the ocuntry are losing their jobs. Pardon me but wasn’t Mandelson there? And I think Iain Dale said on his blog that Mr Brown has been on the same yacht at some point. And Rothy is a friend of Blair’s. Pardon me (again) but have I just teleported into the middle of the Twilight Zone????? What is going on here????

Bankers played their role in this by developing dodgy financial packages – e.g. asset backed securities as a means of minimising risk. But that was a product of the excessively low interest rates which inturn fuelled the demand and supply for such products. What banks will put together loan products that emphasise prudence and caution when their competitors are providing cheaper souces of funds? Likewise adverse incentives for borrowers.

The market can work to our benefit if the right institutional arrangements are in place. And that doesn’t mean excessive regualtion and state ownership. Rather a sound monetary policy that does not treat interest rates as the principle means of electoral bribery and which isn’t narrowly focused on inappropriate targets (e.g., CPI) to the exclusion of more pertinent ones (e.g., asset prices).

I now see a Labour govt that is in its element. The “big excuse” they have yearned for has finally come: justification for the reversal of the pro-market reforms of the Thatcher era and advance beyond that aswell. The unrestrained glee on the faces of Labour MP’s as they cheer Brown’s nationalalisation plans to the rafters is evidence of that. The bullying of the banks is yet another step in that direction. Hayek’s road to serfdom is quickly becoming a quick walk down a country lane. No thanks.

We have been a nation of spenders as opposed to a nation of creators. The service industry has employed millions of UK citizens in the art of distribution and spending who in turn spend themselves. Was anything ever created?

Our manufacturing base has become smaller and smaller. Once logistic lorries in the UK carried raw materials but now they carry imported clothes and fast food.

Our two main earners for the nation, oil and global banking, are both in major retreat.

Has anyone noticed during any criticism of Banking Bonuses and High Earnings for taking large risks, how no one ever mentions the huge tax take that went into the government coffers at the time- 40% higher rate tax plus NI plus Corp Tax.

Soon FTSE shares will be dumped by many over geared hedge funds. For a moment you will say good bye to your pensions.

Soon Repossessions will be higher than the early 90’s despite government rhetoric.

Soon middle class credit card spending will join the mass of unpaid secondary lending to the D’s and E’s.

My solution:

Degear rapidly and painfully.
Government spending towards sponsoring manufacturing start ups and exisiting businesses in Housing, Energy, Food and Water
Export, export, export with a cheap pound.

What business is it of the Government what banks do?

We individually agree to permit the existance of State, so that it can perform tasks we individually cannot – defence, social security, etc.

Banks are privately owned entities. They belong to individuals. What they do is entirely and purely up to *them* and *no one else*. That’s what freedom means. That is what liberty *is*. What on earth is the State, which we as a group of individuals created for specific functions, doing applying pressure to particular individuals to behave in particular ways? what about their freedom? what about their liberty?

If the State alleges this is being done for the “greater good”, then we have created a monster, for we have now something which ignores individuals freedom by taking that which belongs to them and either spending it or handing it over to other individuals.

The “greater good” fundamentally and unavoidably involves the violation of private property rights.

In matters such as social security, we *agree* to contribute, because we see the need. But in matters such as how a bank lends money? at what point does what we clearly agree upon become that which we clearly do *not* agree upon? and then at what point is the State acting in its *own* interests or those of a minority – which is the point where the State is no longer something we have agreed to have exist; it has become a monster no longer in our control, oblivious to *our individual freedom*.

At this point I note the upcoming existance of identity cards, recent articles that the State wishes us to provide our passport when we buy a mobile phone, the monitoring of when and who we send emails and make telephone calls to, and the fact that we pay extremely large amounts of tax; 20% or 40% of income, 17.5% VAT, national insurance (employers being several times that of employees – something I discovered when contracting), and of course corporation tax, which raises the prices of all the goods and service we buy.

Economic freedom is just as important as personal freedom. It’s no use being free if the State has most of your money.