George And The Gang Watch The British Economy Burn

Adam Lovejoy writes from London: You can’t make it up really. First comes the announcement that the British economy dips 0.7 per cent in the second quarter of the year, third time in a row, and then the government announces that it is holding an Investment Summit on the eve of the useless Olympic Games that would add substantially to the national debt burden, hoping – wait for it – to convince foreign big business to invest over £1 billion into UK industry. And the day before Chancellor George Osborne tells wide-eyed hacks that a relentless focus on the economy is needed, as if he was prevented from doing that by forces beyond his control.

And if you add to this some other crazy goings on like the Bank of England blowing £375 billion of newly printed money on quantitative easing, a technique that was invented to help banks get out of trouble while presenting it as an attempt to save the whole economy, you will be getting a taste of the la-la land economics that are practised by George and the gang.

Mind you, the opposition Labour party that is supposedly having a great time criticising the government for mismanaging the economy is probably the last gathering of people who actually should say anything on the subject. They were the ones who created the whole mess in the first place and should have been keeping quiet about Britain’s economic woes. But being the left-wing hypocrites they are and having no shame they obviously feel that it’s a good time to bash the current lot for the chaos for which they themselves are primarily responsible. How on earth does Ed Balls, the Shadow Chancellor, sleep at night, having been instrumental in bankrupting Britain to a crisp for the sake of keeping Labour in power?

But let’s get back to the loonies who are running things now. How about this: the Treasury estimates that the Olympics will attract around £13 billion of inward investment that would compensate the £9 billion official budget for the Games. Two things are interesting about this estimate: first, why say £13 billion and not 15 or 20 or even 100 billion? No one will check anyway as it is not going to happen soon and won’t probably happen at all. Secondly, the budget for the Olympics has long ago passed through the £9 billion mark and cool headed statisticians are quoting figures like £20 billion and more as the final bill for the great event. So ‘bollocks’ is probably a good description of the Treasury’s estimation.

The most remarkable thing of all about the current mess in the British economy is that it is pretty clear who is creating all the obstacles on the way to sorting it out. Yes, you’ve guessed it, the banks. (In case you didn’t guess it, you are a moron and should stop reading this at once. Go graze on some celebrity gossip website.) The banks have been squandering hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ money, to cover up their black holes and gamble on the markets. If even a small percentage of that money had been directed at businesses we would have a totally different situation now.

But George and the gang put the banks first and everyone else second or even third. Most of these boys see their future in banking. So it makes sense them for them to watch the economy burn while they make other plans.

–End–