The Case For Default: The Best Of The Bad

A default on sovereign debt within the Eurozone is widely considered to be the first domino of a violent chain reaction that would send a shockwave through the European banking system, triggering other sovereign defaults, a spate of financial sector nationalisation, and another world recession. It is seen as a cataclysmic event that must be avoided at all costs. 

However, the public have long ago woken up to the fact that these costs are to be borne not by those who made the foolish decisions to lend money to the untrustworthy governments and failing banks, as you would expect in a capitalist society, but instead by the hardworking majority, who are to be saddled with even more debt, taxes and decreased public services in order to prevent the default from ever happening.

Yes the politicians and corporations do run the show, but for those of us still privileged to live in a functioning democracy, our majority should be our saving grace. Peoples of Europe unite, and embrace default!

All The King’s Men 1: Economists

The government employs numerous highly qualified academics to assist in the most important financial decisions for the country. These people have spent their whole lives studying economics and work each and every day on sophisticated economic models and forecasts to analyse the nation’s finances, assess the domestic and international economic climate and predict the impact of the government’s policy decisions. Yet, so far, how successful have these economists been? The UK owes near to a trillion pounds for which we, the citizens, are the guarantors. The government continues to run a budget deficit each year and last year it was around 170 billion pounds. If the country was a single person, she would be maxing out a brand new credit card every year. If the country were a business, it would long have been declared bankrupt. So why have these so called ‘experts’ failed so miserably in running the country’s finances? And why have they not been sacked? 

This post is the first in a short series about the inability of government to perform certain tasks and why we urgently need to democratise certain government positions so that they might act more in line with our interests. 

Our Glorious Leaders

Why vote? Does anyone trust these people that rule our world? They have made a bloody mess of things. The economy is in turmoil, again. But still these people cannot learn from their mistakes. It is pretty well established now that the problem is debt. As you are well aware, the world’s economies have been borrowing large amounts from each other to finance economic growth. Governments have borrowed to fund public spending on new state industry, infrastructure, administration, research and grand events. Banks have borrowed vast amounts from each other to finance their investments and lend on to other companies and entrepreneurs. Although this has contributed to much growth in the short term, quite visibly, it is not sustainable.