Friday, November 07, 2008

Can we get on with the real issues?

Watching Question Time last night, particularly when I am a tired little bunny, was in hindsight a bad idea. Not only was I wound up by the fact that there were two from the world of arts when Nigel Farage had been shifted to this one because they wanted an economist on instead of him last time round:

UKIP leader Nigel Farage was supposed to be on QT this week, live from a church hall somewhere ghastly, I should imagine. But they called him up to say that they were moving him to another date because of the financial news and they wanted an economist...Note who they kept on, though:
David Dimbleby will be joined in Birmingham by Jacqui Smith MP, Charles Kennedy MP, Janet Street-Porter and two other guests to be confirmed.

But despite there being a Minister and a Shadow Minister the only person to actually come out with something constructive on President Elect Obama was the leader of a minor political party who gets dismissed as a one-trick pony.
Have a look for yourself and try not to scream when you realise the chap who rants about how bad global markets are is a) applauded and b) has a vote the same as someone who understands economics.
From a BBC report:
Mr Obama has pledged to renegotiate America's trade deals to include greater protection for workers and the environment, partly in order to level the playing field and reduce the flow of American jobs abroad.

The President of the European Council is Sarkozy who is a protectionist. The President-elect of the US is Obama who is a protectionist. The world is facing an economic slow down and yet no one seems to have learnt that the worst thing to do is to get all protectionist on your bad self, or whatever the kids are saying these days.

The severity and length of the Great Depression of the 1930s was exacerbated tremendously by import tariffs and other protectionist measures which were a response to domestic unemployment. This caused unemployment overseas so they imposed protectionist measures. This caused more unemployment in the countries they imported from and lo! Everyone is worse off.

Now, unemployment in the UK is rising, as in most other parts of the world. Economic growth is slowing down and our government is seeking to rectify this situation with meausres out of the Keynesian Demand Management textbook, despite the fact it's been proven not to work. It's like the 1970s never happened and maybe the reason for these cycles every 40 years or so is to do with generations not understanding what happened before and why.

Back to the point: Can we please stop treating Obama like the new Messiah. I know he's half Kenyan but we're all the same underneath and electing someone because of the colour of their skin is, I think, just as bad as not electing someone because of the colour of their skin.

The fact is, whether he be black, white, pink, purple or technicolour kitten coloured, he's a protectionist: bad enough during economic good times but cataclysmic during a slump. So can we all stop raving on and get a grip, because with him and Sarko, we look to be a lot worse off.

6 comments:

Obnoxio The Clown said...

Never mind Trixy, back to the really important stuff: here's a link that will perk you up.

And here's one you should probably avoid.

Dave said...

having lived through the mass close down of our factories in the late 70s, the destruction of the coal industry in the 80s, and the lemming like rush to close down all manufacturing in the US and the UK and buy direct from the Chinese factories I can confidently predict that we will be cold hungry and unemployed this winter.
We have no coal. We have no oil or gas. We buy them from the Russians.
We have no manufacturing base. We buy everything from the Chinese.
Spot anything here?
The idealogical enemies of the West now have us by the goolies and there ain't nuthin we can do about it.
Can't these people who sold us down the river be tried for treason?
Or lynched?

Trixy said...

Am eating. Luckily, not cocktail sausages.

watling said...

I know he's half Kenyan but we're all the same underneath ...

Wrong. Stop being so PC. You're lying to yourself and you know it.

If we're all the same underneath then how come only blacks get sickle cell anaemia?

How come blacks dominate sprinting and boxing but whites dominate swimming, cycling and rowing?

How come countries run by whites tend to be stable democracies whereas ones run by blacks tend to be unstable at best and impoverished, violent, war-ravaged, undemocratic, totalitarian hell-holes at worst?

How come blacks are disproportionately responsible for knife crime in the UK? Meanwhile, over in the USA, blacks are 8 times more likely to commit murder than whites.

How come the Met Police have an initiative called Operation Trident which investigates gun crime in the black community? If we're all the same underneath then why isn't there an equivalent initiative to investigate gun crime in the white, Asian, Chinese and Eskimo communities?

Here's a scenario: it's late at night and you're walking home alone along a dark side street. Coming towards you is a group of youths. Which would alarm you more: black youths or Chinese youths?

Try to switch off the PC part of your brain when considering your answer.

Trixy said...

You are a cretin. Had you possessed an attention span longer than that of a Typhoo chimp, you would know that the level of PC-dom on these pages is somewhere below that of Russell Brand's stubble...

Harry Patch, the only remaining survivor of the trenches was pushed in the Armistice parade in his wheelchair by Lance-Corporal Johnson Beharry VC, a member of the British Army, who was born in Grenada. Yes, you moron, a black man was walking down a street (Whitehall - the irony) and I certainly wasn't scared.

In answer to your specious scenario, no, I don't get scared if I see a crowd of black youths, a) because I'm not some armchair warrior pussy (let me guess, the nearest you've ever got to battle if a particularly vicious bout of "Risk" b) While there are some natural differences of strength between races, gender and sexual orientations (would you let a straight man decorate your home, when there are some many wonderful gays to arrange your scatter cushions?) you can't use that to justify your backward, bigoted, primative, petit-bourgeois mindset.

Bugger off, and take your Nazi chums with you.

Trixy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.