Hyper-Inflation on the Horizon?

Hyper inflation is a phrase thats just started to be bandied around in financial circles. But no-one has noticed, we've had hyper-inflation for years already. Thats what the debt bubble is.

Instead of good old fashioned seventies-style monetary inflation, we've had debt inflation. The government have kept quiet about it, because it increases the money supply without having any tell-tale signs like printing vast volumes of money. It was kept off the official inflation figures and so made everyone in the treasury look good. But it was unsustainable.

Well, now the chickens have come home to roost and right now what the government are doing by pouring cash into the banking black hole is converting debt inflation into good old monetary inflation. They've even started increasing the money supply (how that phrase send chills through anyone that lived through the seventies and eighties) in order to throw banknotes into the void.

The only difference this time round is that the effects are delayed. But there will be serious effects and consequences as the transition occurs.

So, we're already suffering from hyper-inflation, its just that its not been converted into a form that is recognisably recorded as such by the financial establishment. Yet.

Nazi Health Service?

I don't know about anyone else, but this sends chills through me at the precedence it sets. Flouride will be aded to Southamptons water, after the local NHS trust forced through the measure under new laws, despite there being a clear majority of residents in the area against the plan.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/7911820.stm

This comes alongside the young girl who was nearly forced to have a transplant against her wishes and had to go to court to defend her decision.

What right has the health service to force healthcare of any type on people that don't want it?

Who the fuck do they think they are?

Democracy eh, long dead and buried. We've got Stasi ID files on the way, PCSO Brownshirts on the streeets (who we can no longer photograph) and now Dr Mengele is on the loose: giving us forced healthcare.

We do truly live in a Police state.

Boom & Bust

Over the past 6 months or so, many reporters have tried to get Gordon Brown to admit he was wrong when he said no more boom and bust. The poor delusional sod still thinks we're the best placed nation to ride out the coming tsunami and that the problems we're seeing now aren't really the precursors to to a hellishly bumpy ride, just like the water draining from a beach just before the big one hits.

All through his chancellorship and his stint as PM, he maintained that the good times were down to his stewardship of finances, yet the disaster we see today is supposedly down to influences from abroad, i.e. America.

To be honest, the boom times were nothing to do with Gordo being at the helm. He just rode the wave, caught a free ride in to the beach. Now the wave is 30ft high, about to crash onto the shore and sweep everything away. Does it look at all precarious from up there on the crest Gordon? Hope you have a lifejacket. Wipeout can hurt like a bitch.

As for everyone else, I advise you get off the beach sharpish and go find somewhere safe. In financial terms, thats getting the hell out of anything that isn't linked to gold. In fact, just buy gold and stash it somewhere you can lay your hands on it. Don't trust a piece of paper telling you you own some.

If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.

How many times have we heard that phrase as our liberties are eroded. Well, it looks like someone obviously has something to hide, namely Mr Jack Straw.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7907991.stm

Otherwise, why would the information be withheld?

Here's a challenge Jackie boy, prove to me you and the rest of the cabinet are clean by releasing the documents. Otherwise we'll all assume that you have something to hide.

After all, If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.

Oh Fuck, they're both at it Now...

Thanks to Old Holborn for pointing this one out.

Chris Grayling, shadow to Jaqui "keep 'em on a leash" Smith not one to be outdone by the other bunch, has called for "young troublemakers" to be kept under house arrest:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7905491.stm

I commented on OH's blog that maybe they would like to identify said youths with yellow stars of David stitched to their clothes.

I just wonder where this pissing contest will end? With everyone except MPs locked up? Martial Law? It doesn't look healthy for any one of us.

Can we please just have some sensible proposals for dealing with anti-social behaviour that doesn't penalise the innocent and actually enforces some sort of penalty on the guilty?

Like I said in the blog about Jaqui Smith, expect the curfew or whatever to start off with youths, then have the age limit continually raised until we're all banged up at home lest we be made criminals.

When Will the Credit Crunch End?

Its hard to put a finger on exactly when the credit cruch will end as the hole we've dug is so deep that its hard to see the bottom. Once we hit bottom, of course we'll be able to see how far we have to climb to get out of it.

One thing I will say is that you won't see a recovery until house prices are significantly lower than their 2007 levels. I say that because an average house is around £200,000 to buy. Now a typical household income is around £20,000, so the average house price is 10 times their salary. Banks and building societies won't lend money based on those sorts of terms. Even if that house was half the price, it would still be a difficult ask. I remember when I bought my first house that lending was around 2.5 times my salary and no further. Thats the prudent stance and until the average house price is around three quarters the price it is now and starter homes/apartments are around 3 times the average household income, you won't see a recovery.

Of course printing money to create inflation is a sneaky way to address this problem. Under periods of high inflation, salaries start to track the inflation rate and because so much money is being spent on "normal" goods, house prices at best stay static, at worst collapse as people have to make a choice between food or house.

Eventually we get back to a sort of normality, where wages climb so high that houses become affordable again.

The only downside to this is that there isn't enough social housing to help even a fraction of those losing their homes. In my local borough, the council have NO social housing at all! Its been handed over to the private sector.

So a major policy for recovery should be to start a major social housing building programme NOW. That way people experiencing repossession have a safety net and somewhere to go in the long term, but in the short term it gives a boost to builders and the local economy.

Also it reduces the "5 years if you're lucky" waiting lists for council houses that are common in the UK.

Win-win.

So why isn't it being funded but instead we're funneling billions into the banking black hole? I wish I could find the answer.

Did anyone see Jaqui Smith on Andrew Marr?

She knows the game is up... you can tell from her breaking voice during the interview.

Maybe she was about to break into tears over the prospect of repaying the money and being dumped off the gravy train. Maybe she's had the bad news already.

She'll "umm, err" (important stumble there) be announcing new immigration policy in April. You sure about that Jaqui?

I'll watch the week on this subject with interest.

Jack Straw says the MET is no longer Racist.

Yeah, right. Bring me my shotgun, there's a brace of hogs flying over...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7904194.stm

I just wonder how it took less than a generation to erase institutional racism from such a large organisation. Did the anti-racists fairy wave her magic wand?

Home Secretary wants Kids on a leash...

Home Secretary Jaqui Smith now wants kids to be put on a leash. Aparrently its unacceptable that parents aren't psychic or can't afford the latest surveillence kit and know what their kids are doing once they're out through the front door:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7903833.stm?lss

Whats the betting the response from her will be to try and introduce UK-wide curfews for people under a certain age? The thin end of the wedge, because the age I'm sure will creep up after a while....