Here are the main themes of the UK media’s coverage of our economic collapse: the recession is a “technicality”; it’s all Europe’s fault; things will get better with more QE just like they didn’t last time.
It’s hard to know what to say to this. Britain is a consumer economy or it is nothing. The recession is plain for all to see: all three of my favourite coffee shops in the West End of Glasgow have closed since Christmas. The streets and roads are emptying. This is a downward spiral, a reverse multiplier.
Since our exports to Europe never amounted to much, even with the pound approaching parity with the euro, Europe can hardly be to blame. Of course, hedge funds may be losing bullions speculating against the euro but that is a different matter.
QE did nothing to help last time: it merely generated inflation and gave the financiers a number of ingenuous options such as carry trades to make a quick buck.
As I say we’re a consumer economy or we’re nothing. It looks like nothing. Mired in debt, stuck in homes which can’t sold, overwhelmed by rising prices of food and fuel, facing unemployment and frozen wages, facing cuts in benefits, overburdened by unfair taxation such as the notorious council tax, a virtual poll tax which hasn’t been introduced elsewhere, facing endless fines for trivial driving or parking offences, unable to afford the exorbitant cost of public transport, watching our business fail as disposable income dries up, wandering around half-empty supermarkets looking for bargains and finding everyone gathering round the reductions shelf, unable to get simple house repairs done and paying through the nose for the failed attempt, buried under a cruel and corrupt benefits system, fighting failing health as the government blasts us with dangerous and carcinogenic radiation. All this only to be told by the media and politicians that everything is fine apart from the Eurozone, to be lied to incessantly by an army of irremediably corrupted experts, to have our intelligence insulted and our pockets emptied. This is Britain before the abyss, blind and befuddled, threatening or hectoring our international partners, hubristic and delusional, smug and stupid, rejoicing in the woes of others whilst seemingly unaware of where we are going. We are going to hell.
22nd January, 2012
This week official growth numbers are expected to show that the economy shrunk by 0.1% in the final three months of last year.
In These New Times 