The banks are a cartel supplier of a monopoly product. Once you make the production of money the monopoly of the State this is guaranteed to happen. Especially if you enter the area of moral hazard and guarantee that they won’t be allowed to fail. This inevitably leads to recklessness as was the case in the last 11 years. Mind you they could only lend what they could borrow or make plus what the State made. Brown made (aka counterfeited) Sterling at the rate of 10% per annum compound for 11 years, an increase in the money supply of about 235%. Each pound is now 35% of its value relative to GDP as it was in 1997. (Words left out)
Yes, I work in finance and my clients have been told to pay back debt and not to buy houses for the last 6 or 7 years. These ‘prudent’ people will now be taxed to pay for the stupidities of Brown and, I would guess, people like you.

If only he took notice of it.

If he applied common sense, then maybe our nations finances would not be in such a dire state.

I find it disgusting that Gordon Brown stands in parliament and “creates” false statements regarding other peoples policy and view points, as he did with respect the recent report you wrote.

You speak the truth. Those who try and spin or disingenuously “accidentally misread” you need to be systematically fisked. If I see it, i will do it.

Grief, even the Spectator is falling for it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1091490/Living-standards-brought-DOWN-recession-says-Tory-MP-John-Redwood.html

Government must let the teachers teach, the doctors doctor and the social workers work socially (or whatever the proper term is). Government must get off their backs and off the backs of everyone else who is just trying to do difficult work to the best of their ability.

Too much supervision and scrutiny of detail by box-ticking statistic-gatherers make people play safe. Even sturdy professional people whose expert judgment tells them to be bold are dissuaded from doing so for fear that they will be labelled mavericks and held back in their careers.

Not only is it a huge burden on the public purse in itself but it results in the quality of service being eroded. For both those reasons it simply cannot be allowed to continue.

Do we have enough Gold.

Reply: Gold is a volatile commodity which would add another dangerous dimension to our currency if we sought to link ourselves to it.

The problem is – how to communicate this perspective to the public at large?

50%? Can anyone work this out?

The next government will have to make these changes. They will have no chance to do so, unless the BBC is neutered.

Its amazing how confusing people seem to think all this is. Journalists do a great job of perpetuating that myth. But there’s nothing confusing about it. Forget the banks, the value of sterling and the sub-prime issues. its simpler. If you spend more than you earn, you end up in trouble. We’ve had a fun decade spending more than we earn.

People don’t like being told they are going to lose out. But if you spend too much, you end up having to reduce spending later or go bust. Short of winning the lottery there’s just no getting around it. As a country, that’s what we’ve done.

So unless the UK can come up with an international equivalent of ‘winning the lottery’ (huge new oil reserves found under Milton Keynes…) then people are going to have to realise that its time to pay the piper. Tighten our belts, cut our costs, and pay off our debts so that we can stabilise our economy. Good, old-fashioned, common-sense of the kind all our parents would have espoused.

Or we can just keep borrowing at ever more frightening rates while our economic base withers and dies from within, I suppose.