Debt, What Debt?

We have long suspected that the so-called ‘debt crisis’ is an illusion, the result of some highly creative accountancy by City firms and their global chums, aided and abetted by those close to them in the cartel of London parties. David Malone, who blogs as Golem XIV, recently published evidence of just how bad this problem is – and ultimately of how badly we are being served by politicians we elect supposedly to look after our interests.

It is now taken for granted that the so-called ‘free market’ works on the principle that profits should be privatised and losses socialised. We are clearly far too polite to complain as our wallets are lifted from our pockets. Best not make a fuss. Perhaps when the bailed-out banks are sold, squillions of public money written off in the process, we might even get a few pennies back in tax cuts. Or maybe not.

Anger at the banks is not about to subside. But neither throwing tantrums nor throwing bricks will help. What has to change is the attitude that has become ingrained over the past 30 years of kleptocratic government, namely that knowing how to help yourself to the common wealth and get away with it is a sign of how smart you are. The best defence that bankers have is that nothing they have done is illegal. Too true. Most of it should have been illegal and certainly should be illegal in future. To get to that desirable state of affairs we first need a clearout of the current crop of politicians. The London parties are all unfit for their stated purpose and deserve not a shred of respect. All need to be uprooted from the Wessex communities they infest and be replaced by honest men and women who can point out when a banker isn’t wearing any clothes. Banking is a highly complex business that only the finest minds can understand. So too was mediæval theology and the monasteries got their come-uppance nevertheless. Self-serving nonsense is still nonsense, no matter how well-remunerated its exponents. And all it takes to set the ball rolling is for someone to start to say so.