Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Ignore the excuses, here are the signals showing disaster on the way

The closest character we have to a "British" Peter Schiff, here in the UK, is Jeff Randall, Editor-At-Large of the Daily Torygraph. Mr Randall is required reading here in Maturin Towers, of a morning, and he rarely disappoints with his anti-government diatribes. This morning he takes Gordon Mugabe to task for failing to spot the oncoming crash, what with all of Mugabe's previous pompous talk of having abolished boom and bust.

Intriguingly, Mr Randall also promised a Bottle of Bubbly to whichever Torygraph reader sent in the best example of any other such sign of oncoming recession. Well, being one partial to the odd glass or three of chilled fizz, how could I resist such a Sisyphusian offer? I wrote something in haste, perhaps over-stimulated by the thought of the bottle on offer. It's perhaps my worst ever Torygraph comment, coming across as trying too hard and sounding a bit whiney. Whoops! Oh well. It may fail to be the winner of the shampoo, because I was trying too hard to win the shampoo, but at least it gets a dig in against the ecomentalists:

Jack Maturin on December 03, 2008 at 09:01 AM

It might seem a bit off the wall, but I think the total non-reaction to Lord Turner's ecomentalist plans to double, triple, or even to quadruple energy costs, in a bid to satisfy all of our Mother Earth religious desires to flagellate ourselves, may stand out as a sign of oncoming economic madness.

To have initially gone along with these idiotic nostrums, indicates that we all felt that wealth would keep increasing exponentially enough, with absolutely no chance of downside, to magically offset this nonsense on stilts.

I think we will now see the government quietly shelve Turner's plans, because to deliberately inflate energy costs in the teeth of the worst recession since the 1930s really would be a classic symptom of Whitehall buffoonery.

Sorry, let me retract that.

With Gordon Mugabe's rainbow client state being partially built on the back of the environmentalist movement, expect "Mr Hair-Shirt" to accelerate these plans, to "solve" the non-existent problem of anthropogenic global warming, and "to save the world for our children".

And if these plans can also be "further stimulated" with spiralling energy taxes, to fill the gaping maw of the ravenous client state, all to the better.

If we continue to let this tinpot Stalin rule over us, Gordon Brown really will let his failed socialist ideology try to drag us back into the dark ages!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
not an economist said...

Two things:

Anonymous is starting to get annoying with these chinese posts.. Once was funny, twice is tiresome.

Secondly: I have heard govt ministers talk about the recession being the ideal opportunity to step up the govt's global warming agenmda (sorry I can be more specfic about which minister and when). The argument seems to be that we can use the recovery period to restructure the economy on more environmentally lines. The same has been said in the States I think. I would have thought they are taking the piss but I doubt it. And the downside of this? Cameron may take the same line given his past pronouncements on the environment.

Jack Maturin said...

We may all be living on tree bark, by the end of this particular recession, which may be the REAL BIG ONE to finally punish Britain for coming off the gold standard in the 1930s. We have inflated our way out of every crisis since, but this time if we try that we will get Weimar republic style hyperinflation, so who knows what's going to happen.

Maybe we will all become ecomentalists by default, living on grass and acorns?

Though I think the socialists are once again proving how hare-brained they are. Once this recession really starts to bite in the Spring, and then the stagflation kicks in, I would guess that the 1970s is going to seem like a wonderland.

The government, whichever socialist party happens to be in charge, is going to have a lot more on its plate than worrying about than trying to stiff us with more ecomentalism.

Hanging on to any power whatsoever will be its consuming interest, for years to come, as an increasingly angry population look for someone to vent their fury upon.

Being kicked into higher taxes and more regulation to support the green religion, I predict will simply not wash.

Jack Maturin said...

As to the Chinese, there was a time when I could 'read' the first 100 pinyin characters, and I think 'Anonymous' is monkeying around with that, because from what little I remember, he/she is mostly using this first 100 characters, such as 中国 (zhong guo) for "The Middle Kingdom" (China).

Alas, although I 'recognise' most of the characters, I can't remember what most of them mean!

When I get that offer of work in Singapore from Jim Rogers, I'll re-learn them all again.

In the meantime, 'Anonymous', would you mind posting an English translation, or buggering off?

Take your pick.

Language is about 'communication', not 'obfuscation'. And here in 英国it's rude to use a language others can't understand, if you can use one that they do understand.