Tomorrow's Budget.

Tomorrow's budget will probably go down as one of the most difficult in history. We now have upward inflationary pressure at the same time as stagnant growth. We have an burdensome public sector while the private sector are strangled and made uncompetitive by red tape and legislation.

This government don't even have the option of selling public-owned industries because Thatcher sold off those assets decades ago, to be replaced by huge almost monopolistic corporations that continue to use their favourable positions to charge uncompetitive high prices for their services.

The real problem is to generate growth in an economy suppressed by a huge public sector drain on resources, where the huge corporate monoliths created by the sale of public utilities have no intention of sacrificing profits on the altar of competitive pricing. We have a the historically entrepreneurial small business sector stifled by more than a decade of (primarily EU-created) legislation apparently targeted at making them as unproductive and inefficient as possible while banks steadfastly refuse to finance investment in growth.

In short, we are royally fucked. We have long stared at the abyss, not wishing to fall in. "Our" government hopes to pull us from the edge, or at the very least, make the transition from the top to the floor less of a cliff and more of a slope, in the hope we don't notice the transition too much and rise up to kill them all as is currently happening in the Middle East.
Its an emerging truth that our children look forward to a more expensive and therefore less affluent future  than their parents. Another truth is that the West is in decline. We can't avoid it. Instead we have to get used to the new reality and manage accordingly. We have to get used to watching China and India using their power and influence around the globe as they watched us over the past few centuries.

Tomorrow is a pivotal day in a pivotal year. Its a day to be decisive: if the budget is in any way inconclusive in its strategy, we are lost. If the budget in any way fails to address the issues that continue to restrict small business growth, we are lost. If the budget fails to address the huge corporate monopolies that exist in a number of areas and stifle competition, we are lost.

Watch or listen to the budget tomorrow. It is important.