A fool’s paradise
Alan W Smith believes that we must face up to reality
Some Friends argue that ‘We are not all in this together’ (8 April) on inequality in pay. Such aspirational debate is entirely laudable and appreciated. However, to then describe our national debt in terms of political pretext just beggars belief. The national debt is totally real and every penny will have to be repaid. The facts are: government income is five hundred billion pounds; expenditure last year was seven hundred billion pounds, giving a budget deficit of two hundred billion pounds. This is forty per cent above income. The national debt is now well over one trillion pounds, net. The government take of our gross domestic product (GDP) is now fifty-three per cent and rising. The debt interest last year was forty-three billion pounds, a rise of five per cent from the previous year. So what will this year’s be? This money is completely lost to the government’s revenue and to society.
Unfortunately, the woe does not stop there. In a desperate battle to reduce our debt, taxation – direct and indirect – goes up and up and in this the poor suffer the most. A whole train of events follows. More and more money has to be borrowed from the world’s financial and pension markets and at rising interest rates. In addition, more money is printed, causing inflation and what money we now have is losing its value.
The economy is stymied, due to rising costs and lack of money to invest. But it is people tomorrow who will suffer the most, because they are going to have to foot the bill, an aspect so rarely mentioned in our craving for our supposed rights. When you consider the difficulty we are having in trying to reduce our deficit and not even starting to pay off the debt and its interest, which is increasing exponentially, the national situation is calamitous.
We are living in a fool’s paradise. When you consider now what we are beginning to suffer, this is as nothing to the ills of the future and what they will suffer tomorrow. Such a situation it totally immoral and un-Christian. It flies completely in the face of all that the Quaker ethic stands for.
The government has to manage its affairs in a business-like manner and operate within its income, just as any normal business, and stop acting so irresponsibly. As consumer, the state has no money of its own and is entirely dependent for its income upon taxation from the private business sector, the real economy, which needs to be healthy and thriving.
Dramatic government savings have to be made – in staffing, expenditure and conditions of work. All, and each of us, have to accept some responsibility and not just somebody else. The proposed strikes are quite irresponsible. With the continual rise of our debt, our lenders will lose faith in our ability to repay. We will lose our International Monetary Fund reliability rating. Our interest rate will then shoot up and we may become financially destitute like Ireland or Greece. I recommend a ‘No Debt’ campaign for the Quakers – which would be worthy of our faith.
Take back the moral high ground. The consequences of excess debt are misery and dishonour. What is noble about our addiction to debt and ignorance of its consequences?
