Thursday 25th October

Just exactly what are we waiting for?  Will somebody tell me please, because I really don’t know.  We have all surely by now given up on the idea of any sort of miracle, and rebound, any sudden and inexplicable reversal of fortunes.  The future may be Orange, but if it is it is a pretty dull orange at that.

More of the same is about all we can hope for I am afraid.  The West, and especially Europe is bust, or very nearly and a slow decline is the best we can expect.  The last surge of wealth came from the rebuilding after the war, which included German re-unification and all of the formerly Soviet bloc finally emerging into the twentieth century.  Along with the incredible rise of debt; personal, corporate and national over the last thirty years or so, and now what do we have.  Most of our industries have either been exported to the Far East, or they do it better over there anyway, so our few remaining cannot complete anyway. Our banking industry is still recovering from the financial crash of 2008, and what with new Government regulations and Basel III, will probably never be able to make anything like the returns it has since the eighties. And what does that leave – Tourism, I suppose.

The decline in Britain’s fortunes that started just before the First World War, has resumed.  The whole post war boom has finally fizzled out, and we may never see its’ like again.  But we shouldn’t be surprised or upset about this really.  It is called macro-economics, and is inevitable.  Larger countries with more natural resources will do better in the long run.  The real problem is our politicians who promise us that their policies will return us to the glory days.  They raise our expectations.  What they should be doing is creating a sustainable long-term future where we may not get any richer, but no poorer either, where the spoils, more limited than we might have gotten used to, are at least shared more equitably and that we learn to live harmoniously with each other.  Fat chance of that though.