Recession over in Britain, apparently

According to British government figures, the recession in Britain is now officially 'over'. With spectacular growth of 0.1% in the last quarter, we are now back in the socialist wonderland of deep happiness all round.

What a joke.

Even Jeremy Paxman, of Newsnight fame, found it amusing. Check out his reaction at this link:

=> http://bbc.co.uk/i/qf65w/

If you do check out the link above, you'll find the reaction of the crowd at the start of the video even more enlightening.

Because of the way we proles have been manipulated for most of our lives, many of us are under the deeply damaging delusion that the worst is now over and that we can once again spend, spend, spend (fed by borrowing, borrowing, borrowing).

Indeed, if you listen to the Keynesian HSBC economist in the video linked to above, that's exactly what the banksters and gangsters want us to do.

However, it's going to fail to do any good. Because we haven't even started on this recession yet. And we won't start on it until the government stops goosing the money supply, the interest rates, and the borrowing markets.

Though fortunately, although many of us may be temporarily fooled, certainly until after the next election (which is as far as any politician can see) I think the majority of people in this country still know what the real deal is, despite all of this feeble propaganda from the Ministry of Truth. The British government takes in around £600 billion each year, in taxes, from an economy worth approximately £1,250 billion, though this year the government's taxation income fell to around £500 billion. (I'm sorry I have to be so approximate in these figures, but trawling through the heavily obfuscated Treasury web pages filled with this stuff is akin to swimming through a syrupy sea of Crème de menthe.)

To get that magnificent 0.1% 'growth' figure, the government has recently borrowed approximately £200 billion pounds and printed a further £200 billion on top of that. Yes folks, that's right. In an economy worth £1,250 billion, the government accounted for £700 billion of it, which is approximately 55%, or headed right in the direction of straightforward fascism/communism (take your pick).

If the annual economy figure falls to £1,100 billion, taxes fall to £450 billion, and government borrowing climbs to £300 billion, this would take that 55% figure to nearly 70%. We truly will have reached government nirvana, with Soviet levels of centrally-planned poverty, penury, and political control, as the debt markets collapse, the printing press runs out of control, and that £1,100 billion becomes the sum necessary to buy a loaf of bread.

Remember that all government spending is consumption spending, and the same organisation which runs the Post Office so well, and the war in Afghanistan, is spending £55 pounds for every £100 pounds generated in the productive economy. Which is a joke, with most of that money being wasted on fat salaries for useless Guardian readers and countless legions of other incompetent nasty little tax parasites.

This cant from Chancellor Alastair Darling that 'he' (and he alone) supports the economy, where it is the economy which supports him and the rest of his cronies, is the biggest joke of all. Government produces nothing. It simply steals resources from producers and then parcels them around to its friends, who are dependent upon their political clout and influence for their own share of the pelf and the spoils.

The government does nothing but consume.

But despite all of this borrowing and inflating, all Alastair can still manage is a pathetic 'nominal' growth figure of 0.1%.

Imagine a man losing his well-paid job in the luxury holiday sales market, which was fed on an illusion of cheap paper money. Let's imagine that to keep things going 'between jobs', he runs up all of his credit card bills to their limit and borrows every penny he can by re-mortgaging his property to the hilt. He could buy a few nice suits or a nice new car, or both. He could even renew his gym membership and take an exotic holiday in the sun.

He would still look good. He would still look competent. His monthly outgoings might even increase by 0.1%, despite his lack of work. But he would still be unemployed. And his debts would still be mounting. And his cash pile would still be decreasing.

And we haven't even built his furtive basement counterfeiting of paper money into the analogy, to add a further soupçon of economic delight to the pudding of his dénouement.

This is where we stand, with that man, looking straight down into the abyss. And the more the government props up unwanted industries with car scrappage schemes, and keeps interest rates falsely down, and keeps its spending habits up, the closer we will creep towards that unknowable edge, beyond which chaotic political madness lies.

It will not be until this mythical man stops printing money in his basement, starts paying off his credit card bills, cancels the golf club membership, sells on his time share villas, brings down the debt on his house, swaps his car for a cheaper model, cuts his consumption of luxury goods, and then starts looking for a job in a market which genuinely requires labour without the false stimulus of easy money, that his prospects will genuinely begin to look up.

Not that this can happen under current conditions, with government taxing successful businesses into the ground to prop up unsuccessful ones, and crowding out the entire investment borrowing market with its rapacious demands to feed its useless Guardian readers.

The Keynesians, of course, will call it a 'double-dip' recession, when the 'next' recession hits soon. Their complaint will then be that we put the brake on 'stimulus' spending too soon or cut the 'quantitative easing' too soon. Once again, as always, they will be wrong and the Austrians will be right. (Though the idiot Keynesians will not learn from this.)

For the truth, my friends, is that we in Britain have not left the recession behind. It is simply resting, while we try throwing paper money at it, which it is simply gobbling up and using as fuel for the next round. To borrow the words of one particular famous arch-statist:

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Sir Winston Churchill, 1942