An alternative title to this post might be What Goes Around Comes Around! During the '70s when I was trying to build my life Britain was sucked into a maelstrom of inflation fueled by borrowing and spending and the wholesale printing of money indulged in by stupid and venal politicians who put their party interests before that of the nation. One of the immediate effects was an upsurge in union militancy which plumbed such depths of depravity that even the dead were not buried.
As it happens, I did quite well out of it! As house prices shot up, I kept changing houses and ramping up my mortgage in order to 'buy' bigger and better properties, confident that no matter how much I borrowed the value of the house would leap ahead - and so it proved. Eventually I was able to sell the penultimate house, clear the mortgage and buy another one for cash. Now the wheel has turned full circle and is about to run over my foot - or even, perhaps, my neck. Over the next few years the government, irrespective of party, will make feeble efforts to impose the required but tough measures needed to reduce our national debt (which is a mere bagatelle by comparison to the 1970s) by cutting government budgets which will entail lay-offs and wage freezes (or even cuts) for public service employees. If you're thinking of dying, do it quick, is my advice! So you can expect the next few years to be dominated by strikes and go-slows for which the government will be blamed.
Politicians being what they are, they will look for an easier route out of this difficulty, and indeed, they have already found it. If you need more money to keep things going then print the bloody stuff! As "the pound in your pocket", to quote an infamous Wilsonian phrase of the '70s, reduces in value so does the government's debt. In the long run, of course, it will end in disaster, but then when did you last hear of a politician who could think beyond the next election? For those like me, elderly and dependent on a fixed income from modest savings and a pension plan, the outlook is grim. We will see a drop in our already modest life-styles and a return to a strike-ridden life in which, say, trains and 'planes will cease to operate, energy and water cease to flow and hospitals will cease to operate. The only very slight and ironic humour to be derived from the situation is that when the teachers refuse to teach it will not make an iota of difference to the 'edukashanal' quality of our children!
Have a nice day!
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