Four (futile) policies to kickstart the economy

Yet another post prompted by one of my comments on another blog. This time 'ConservativeHome'. It was in reply to a prospective parliamentary candidate's recipe for fixing our economic woes. Kid's stuff really but what else can you expect from wide-eyed eager to please youngsters with a juicy parliamentary career beckoning? It (my comment that is) went something like this:

Understanding the importance of staying 'on message' is pretty fundamental to the career prospects a PPC so a gold star to Kwasi Kwarteng for pushing all the right buttons in that regard. What I find so depressing though, is the apparent failure of politicians of ALL parties to recognise the real nature of the problem, let alone say anything sensible about addressing it. (I say 'apparent' because, at senior levels, it most certainly IS recognised and clearly understood too).

That 'real nature' is summed up by one stark fact: The 'perpetual' exponential growth on which our globalised economic system (or more accurately 'Ponzi Scheme') depends is NOT perpetual at all; it is in fact over, Finito, Kaput. As Ken Boulding so eloquently puts it:

"Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever on a finite planet is either a madman or an economist"

The last decade has witnessed production peaks in many of the resources that fuel the global economy, particularly oil. It is the dawning realisation among those who control the worlds principle concentration of power and wealth that those peaks are never going to be exceeded that is the root cause of what we euphemistically insist on calling 'the economic slowdown' and similar anodyne absurdities. Cascading surreptitious actions - largely hidden from public view - to protect power and wealth as much as possible in a beggar-my-neighbour fashion are still proceeding apace and all our representatives can do is talk about printing money - sorry 'quantitative easing' - sounds better doesn't it?

At Privy Council level all this is known only too well. Can't admit as much to the lower orders and Joe Public though. Don't want to precipitate the civil unrest that is in any event nigh on inevitable. Best to keep talking the talk whilst beefing up the Surveillance/Security State the better to maintain law and order when the same realisation finally dawns on Jo P - and the S really does HTF