The Only Way Out of This Mess

Time to read: or £81,240 every minute, and counting

The irrelevance of the “more taxes / less cuts” way out of recession was typified last week by  Rachel Reeves, Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury. She said that the increased taxes from the planned January 2013 3p-a-litre rise in fuel duty should be stopped, and the money raised instead by clamping down on known tax avoidance loopholes.

Thanks for that one Rachel – in fact, the £650m to be raised, either way, would actually pay for just under five days of the interest the UK Government is paying on its £1.2 Trillion (thousand million) debt (correct at the time of writing, it’s rising at a rate of £117M every day, or £1,354 every second.

Isn’t that rather frightening? And also very interesting, as it should, because that figure relates only to the interest we are having to pay – it doesn’t even begin to touch the body of the debt itself. The fact is that we can raise all the company and wealth taxes as we wish, there will never be enough money to clear it – unless of course we simply closed down all companies, and made the richest 100,000 people homeless. And I am not so sure that would work either, as we would have far more unemployed to support.

OK, let’s turn to cuts. As there is actually no such thing as Government money – only our money – let’s start to reduce that £700bn of annual UK public expenditure. When my daughter comes home from school and I ask “what did you do at school today” she replies, “nothing.” So, let’s get rid of all schools, indeed, all education in the UK. that should help. Yes, £92BN. Now, just another 1.110TR to go. OK, let’s stop all healthcare and close down all hospitals – that’s another £121.3BN. Excellent, we are down to £1TN. Now…

The bottom line fact is that we as a United Kingdom will never tax or cut our way out of debt – and neither will any other country in the world – ever.

And that is one simple fact that politicians of every political colour and creed have simply not grasped, or if they have, they have forgotten to mention it to us, even in passing, as they put politics and spin, before people.

A strong, successful and sustainable economy with thriving private and public sectors relies on an interdependency existing between them. We can’t have one without the other, both sectors can learn a great deal from each other, and such mutuality of benefit is to be found only where we all adopt an entrepreneurial, leadership and opportunity focused agenda.

Why should entrepreneurs be the exclusive domain of The Dragon’s Den? Every “small to medium enterprise” (sic) is led by an entrepreneur. This is not one way forward; it is the only way forward.

And there are many people in schools, hospitals and charities who are screaming out for more freedom, more autonomy, to be more “entrepreneurial.”

With my love, taxes and economic cuts to you all

David
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